Incentives for sustainable hunting of bushmeat in Rio Muni, Equatorial Guinea

Bushmeat hunting is thought to be becoming increasingly unsustainable in west and central Africa, but true assessment of sustainability and consequently appropriate management, is constrained by poor understanding of cause and effect. This thesis considers the complex and dynamic interactions between market, hunter and prey along an entire bushmeat chain in continental Equatorial Guinea, thus enabling evaluation of the sustainability of the system under different policy scenarios.

Key observations made:

• evaluations of urban bushmeat consumption in Bata, the regional capital, shows that people prefer fresh meat and fish, including bushmeat, but tend to consume cheaper frozen foods more often. So, bushmeat consumption increases with income
  
• men hunt for income because there are no other livelihood options. Trapping is currently preferred to gun-hunting due to lower costs and relatively high returns. However, as the availability and affordability of guns and cartridges increases, and trapping success decreases, hunters are switching to shooting arboreal prey
  
• the oil boom in Equatorial Guinea is increasing urban wealth and subsesquent demand for bushmeat
  
• there is currently no active enforcement of protected areas in Equatorial Guinea, or control of the trade in illegal species of bushmeat
  
• in the absence of alternative foods and rural livelihoods, and proper enforcement of protected areas, people will continue to hunt for the commercial bushmeat trade until many vulnerable species become at least locally extinct.

Policy recommendations:

• reducing demand for bushmeat through marketing of frozen and non-animal protein bushmeat substitutes, production of fresh fish and fresh domestic meat as bushmeat substitutes.
  
• reducing and controlling the supply of bushmeat through the following methods: Regulation of trade; short-term enforcement of protected areas; long-term management of protected areas; short-term and long-term community management of hunting zone; promotion of alternative livelihoods.
  

Thus, successful policy must address both demand and supply in order to change the incentives of both consumers and hunters.