60% of the bushmeat sold animals were large mammals, the most charismatic animals around. A few years ago, troops of hundreds of White-lipped Peccaries were a common sight in the forest, but nowadays can only be found in remote areas. Other species threatened by over-harvesting include tapirs, whose meat is sold as an exotic food to tourists and settlers.

TRAFFIC is one of the leading organizations providing solutions for the bushmeat crisis. They undertake proactive solutions including projects offering economic alternatives to hunter communities and wild meat vendors. The approach towards local stakeholders´ needs, complemented with the promotion of good governance by all local institutions and relevant ministries, is proving a highly effective strategy.

TRAFFIC is helping implement a project in Ecuador’s Amazonian Orellana province which aims to reduce the illegal trade in bushmeat through promoting alternatives for local people such as small-scale cocoa plantations (without promoting deforestation), fish farming, ecotourism and through education about the effects of over-harvesting.

TRAFFIC is helping run awareness campaigns on local buses, local flights from Quito to Amazonian towns, and in urban restaurants, encouraging people not to order or consume bushmeat.

In 2010, five Waorani communities, encouraged through the TRAFFIC-led project to reduce the consumption of the most sought after animal species, decided to ban all tapir hunting for three years to allow populations to recover, as well as pledging only to hunt peccaries for their subsistence needs, not for sale in nearby towns and restaurants.

“We need to find the right balance between carrot and stick to bring viable solutions to addressing the complex conservation and social issues involved,” says Bernardo Ortiz, TRAFFIC South America’s Regional Director.

Unfortunately, the impact of the illegal trade of bushmeat has serious repercussions for African wildlife.  In Africa the hunting of the animals has led to increasing biodiversity loss and species collapses.  Many of the animals being killed are already or are becoming endangered.  Since every animal has a function in the ecosystem such as predator or prey, the loss of one species has a widespread impact on other species and often the entire ecosystem.  Even species in protected areas and under legal protection fall victim to the bushmeat trade.  With weak law enforcement and lack of resources, officials are finding it difficult to keep up with the increasingly sophisticated killing and trade of bushmeat.

The international community has to join together to enforce laws regarding the illegal trade of bushmeat.  On the international level, countries should step up enforcement in airports and borders to help detect the import (and export) of bushmeat.  Further, they should impose fines and even jail time to offenders since many of these species are rare and endangered.

The poverty issue in Africa also needs to be addressed.  Since many bushmeat traders are poverty stricken and in need of income, countries need to provide a living for their citizens so they do not engage in this illegal trade.  With several enforcement mechanisms and financial aid, the illegal trade of bushmeat can be stopped.

We would add one more solution to those that Mark Jones suggested.  Considering the potential loss of magnificent species, conservationists should launch expeditions into the forests to capture and relocate or move animals out of the way of the bushmeat trade.  It’s likely the quickest and most sure solution, and would preserve entire animal species for generations into the future.

According to the Guardian (and a study in Biology Conservation), this includes the famous tourist safari destinations Masai Mara in Kenya and the Serengeti in Tanzania.

Western African parks averaged an 85% decrease in wildlife.  Human activities including the bushmeat trade have taken a heavy toll on the wildlife.  But one hopes that protected areas would keep the animals safe, particularly where tourist dollars pour into the local economy by people wanting to see the “Big Five” – lion, elephant, buffalo, leopard and rhino.

Outside the parks, the news is even worse.  There, in many cases the African animals including the rhino are close to extinction.  Of special concern are migratory animals such as the wildebeest, who venture through unprotected areas every time they migrate.  The African Conservation Foundation has an online article about why the lack of dry and wet season habitat is depleting the migratory mammals populations.

A beacon of hope shines from South Africa, whose 35 reserves averaged an increase of 25% in wildlife populations.  South Africa has more money to invest in conservation, more staff to patrol and stop poaching, and better preservation of park habitats and boundaries.

Another ray of hope is that many of the declines have slowed over time. Park management has improved.  Now, urgent efforts are needed to better protect the animals and secure the future of the parks.

A glimmer of hope has appeared, and it’s centered around one of the smallest animals in Africa – the snail.  The Wildlife Conservation Society is working near Nigeria’s Cross River National Park, where bushmeat poachers have been killing endangered gorillas.  The Wildlife Conservation Society has helped local people establish snail farms, which gives the residents alternative food and livelihood options.

In fact, farming snails is likely to bring in more money for the local people than does the bushmeat trade, which makes it a favorable alternative.  One reason some Africans hunt for bushmeat is that they have limited sources of income and food.  The Society is testing several alternative livelihoods, of which the snail farming seems the most promising.  Once built, the farms require little maintenance and quickly produce results.

Snails are considered a delicacy and delicious, which competes well with the people who like the taste of bushmeat, or think it’s more healthy.

Hopefully the snail farming will save the local animals, including the Cross River gorillas.  A third of the Cross River gorillas live in the Takamanda National Park - unfortunately this does not save them from bushmeat poaching.  Solutions including alternative income and food sources need to be found, then spread throughout Africa.  So it may be time for us to develop a taste preference for snails, both in Africa and here at home, to fuel the market for this potential solution to the African bushmeat crisis.  My apologies to the 100 Mile Diet.  Does anyone want to comment on this?

In Sierra Leone and Guinea, the organization raises awareness about bushmeat and conservation, mainly through public education.  In Uganda, they have a community-centered conservation program that hires local hunters to remove snares in the forest.  Although the snares are usually put out to catch other mammals, chimps often get caught in them and get injured or killed.  To try to clean the forest, the program provides a salary to hunters who make a commitment to stop hunting and help JGI remove snares.

In July, Sophie was in Uganda and asked one of these ex-hunters what difference this program has made.  His answer?  “Now we have money.”  By working with JGI, he doesn’t have to worry about an income.  Unfortunately, JGI “needs a budget for that and you can’t hire everyone,” Sophie told me.  “Not everyone is interested, anyway,” she added.  It’s a long process to organize meetings, meet with people, and see who wants to help – “we don’t force anyone.  We need to have someone who is willing to do it and to come forth.”

JGI relies on cooperation between people.  The program in Uganda started ten years ago and now has small teams of former hunters in a national park and in two  forest reserves.  Some of the ex-hunters have been working with them for over ten years.

Through these programs, “the numbers of snares has decreased significantly,” Sophie commented.  “And so have the number of chimps that are caught in the snares.”

From time to time, a chimp is still caught.  Veterinarians, who are used to dealing with injured animals, then enter the forest and try to save the animal.

Sadly, a lot of the injured chimpanzees are now missing a hand or a foot.  “You can see them in the forest – some of them are very badly injured.  Depending on the degree of their injury, they have to accommodate differently.”  For example, one chimpanzee found in July had to be amputated below the knee.  She was released in September in the hopes that she would adapt to her new condition.  She may be lucky – with two good hands she can still raise a baby.  Chimpanzees are pretty flexible.

“JGI works very closely with the local communities,” Sophie continued.  Jane Goodall and her teams realize that in order to preserve chimpanzees it’s important to work with local human populations.  Education is also key, even though it’s a long-term process.  In Guinea and the Congo, the organization’s education efforts include large street signs.  In the Congo, fliers were distributed through taxi cabs in the capital city.  JGI has organized exhibits in the Congo and elsewhere, about the great apes and the bushmeat.  They are hoping to create a global awareness.

Another educational program is Roots and Shoots, in which schoolchildren gain some awareness about chimpanzees and bushmeat.  For example, they might put on a play about the bushmeat trade.

Children are also brought to sanctuaries to meet young chimpanzees.  “The children have never seen a chimp before.  ‘Oh, they’re like us,’ they’ll say,” Sophie described.  “It helps to change their minds.”

The young chimpanzees are orphans, a consequence of the bushmeat trade.  JGI is managing Africa’s largest chimp sanctuary, in the Republic of Congo, where they have 150 chimpanzees.  They’re found as babies, either left in the forest by bushmeat hunters or confiscated by local authorities as the chimps were on their way to the black market.  The babies can’t survive alone in the forest, and even when saved they are often so traumatized it can take months for them to recover.

In addition, JGI has some microfinance programs for women to establish a regular income.  “If you don’t do anything to improve people’s lives, they won’t do anything for the chimp,” Sophie concluded. It’s that simple, yet that complex.

JGI needs a larger budget to extend these programs to other countries.  You can make donations through their website.  If you’re in the Toronto area, you can volunteer there. Readers almost anywhere can apply to join JGI in the field, and if you successfully pass through the selection process you can help out on the scene and with the chimps for a month or more.

You can find more information on their websites – JGI Canada and JGI Uganda.

Personal encounters with endangered animals are told with the skill of a polished story teller.  Vivid descriptions of the dangers facing wildlife are interspersed with stories of the heroes and actions that are trying to save the animals.

The book must have taken thousands of hours of research.  Among my favorite tidbits is the description of a condor flying – “the beating of those wings, like the sound of sheets flapping on a clothesline in an angry gale” – is why “Native Americans nicknamed the condor ‘thunderbird’ ”.

Corwin’s passion for wild animals is clear and he’s not afraid of making readers feel emotions.  His account of the evacuation of condors from the path of a fire approaching Ventana (California) is high drama, capturing the feelings of carrying endangered birds out through smoke in a US Navy helicopter.

Corwin gets it right on, such as his discussion of the bushmeat crisis.  He writes about the local people: “And like everyone else in the world, they want three things: jobs, education for their children, and good medical care”.  He adds, “That’s why partnerships with human development agencies and local communities are essential.  It is possible if there’s a global commitment to conserve biodiversity.”

The stories behind the conservation headlines also include details about the dreadfully polluted and dammed up Yangtze River, the global disappearance of amphibians which he calls “the canaries in the coalmine”, and the determined fight to save rhinos, among others.  Stories such as the comeback of the black footed ferret – which was thought to be extinct till a farmer’s dog dragged a dead one into their house, revealing a nearby living population – are amazing and give hope that similar events will occur.

It is hoped that this book will “serve as a catalyst, educating people about the state of our natural world and compelling them to help protect it for future generations”.  Our challenges require the efforts of everyone – “everybody from the leader of a nation to somebody who’s just learning about this for the first time”.  “Perhaps the most important component of any possible solution is having the will to find one,” Corwin quotes Richard G. Ruggiero, PhD, of the USFWS Division of International Conservation.

“It’s true that for endangered species, every day presents a challenge.  But it’s also true that every day presents opportunities for us to make resounding strides,” writes Corwin.  “We have the chance to do it, and we can succeed.  Every heartbeat matters.”