Making bushmeat hunting sustainable: economic incentives or draconian measures?

摘要

Central African peoples are very dependent on the natural resources they collect from the forest. The hunting of several animal species (bushmeat) is currently higher than their reproduction. In the long run, this will become a conservation crisis on the one hand with the possible extinction of several endemic species, while on the other hand the survival and quality of life of the people dependent on these resources are jeopardized. A dynamic simulation model is developed to introduce a method which shows explicitly the impact of different policies on the animal population dynamics. The model and its simulation show an interesting perspective of the complexity of the wild meat extraction issue. No one single policy will be able to alter the current pattern of unsustainable use - only a combination of policies and other measures will have a chance of succeeding with the conservation of the Central African fauna.