Aquatic Bushmeat: A local issue with global responsibility November 2016 OceanCare Citation: Gerbestrasse 6 Prideaux, M. 2016. Aquatic Bushmeat: A local issue with global responsibility, OceanCare, Wädenswil P.O. Box 372 Photography: CH- 8820 Wädenswil Cover – Two boys near local fishing boats, Ghana, Jonathan Alderson/Alamy Stock Photos Switzerland Inside cover, back cover and highlight pages: West African Fabric Design. Stakanov/Shutterstock Tel: +41 (0) 44 780 66 88 Page 2 – West African fisherman. Robert Onencini/Shutterstock Fax: +41 (0) 44 780 68 08 Page 4 – Dolphin meat for sale, Peru. Stefan Austermühle/Mundo Azul Email: [email protected] Page 5 – Green turtle being butchered, Indonesia. Kurt Amsler Page 6 – Turtle head, Nicaragua. Ron Nickel/Perspectives/Alamy Stock Photos Web: www.oceancare.org Page 7 – Bushmeat for sale, including butchered manatee (front), Gabon. OELO Page 8 – Remains of butchered dolphin, Peru. Stefan Austermühle/Mundo Azul Page 12 – West African fisherman. Robert Onencini/Shutterstock ISBN: 978-0-646-96447-8 Page 14 – West Indian manatee, USA. Nature Picture Library/Alamy Stock Photos Aquatic Bushmeat: A local issue with global responsibility A report by Margi Prideaux for OceanCare November 2016 Generations of traditional societies in Africa, South and Southeast Asia, the Pacific Islands, around Latin and Central America and in the Arctic have harvested meat from the forest and animals and fish from the sea, instead of farming livestock for their nutritional needs. 1 Aquatic Bushmeat: A local issue with global responsibility Generations of traditional societies in Africa, South Yet, legally these communities control less than and Southeast Asia, the Pacific Islands, around Latin one-fifth of the areas they call home. The remaining and Central America and in the Arctic have five billion hectares remain unprotected and harvested meat from the forest and sea, instead of vulnerable to land and ocean-grabs from more farming livestock for their nutritional needs. This powerful entities including distant water fisheries. harvest has long been called wild meat. In the These traditional lands are increasingly threatened tropics it has become known as ‘bushmeat’.[2] by unsustainable activities such as logging, mining, Up to 2.5 billion people depend on indigenous and plantations and industrialised fishing and these community lands, which make up over 50 percent local communities are not, or are only minimally, of the land and coastal areas on the planet. These involved in official decision-making surrounding communities have been managing their these areas. environment through their own systems based on As the forest empties and coastal fish disappear, traditional knowledge, practises, rules and beliefs communities have turned to hunting additional for generations. In many cases they are descended species from rivers, estuaries and the sea for their from populations who inhabited a given country or protein. Now ‘aquatic bushmeat’ of dolphins, region before the time of colonisation or porpoises and small whales, dugong and manatee, establishment of state boundaries. seals, sea lions, walrus, polar bears, turtle and These are farmers, pastoralists, hunter-gatherers and crocodiles is growing rapidly and unsustainably. fisher-folk who use forests, water bodies, coastal This new harvest should be included in all policy regions and pastures as a common resource. But discussions about bushmeat sustainability and they are not static. Every generation adjusts how management. they use the area to meet new needs and aspirations. These lands are as important to the future as they were to the past.[1] 2 Aquatic bushmeat is the meat of aquatic wildlife – mammals, reptiles and amphibians – that have been harvested for food, medicine or other traditional uses, including as bait for fisheries 3 Bushmeat defined The meat of wild animals has long been a part of the commercial forestry, palm oil plantations and distant staple diet of many indigenous and local water industrialised fisheries has forced many communities around the world. In equatorial rain- communities into marginal areas, and their forest and savannah regions it has been called dependence on meat from the forest has ‘bushmeat’. This form of meat is any non- increased.[3] Importing meat for these communities is domesticated terrestrial wildlife – mammals, birds, unviable because many have low disposable reptiles and amphibians – that are harvested for incomes.[2] Their governments often have limited food, medicine or other traditional uses. Very often capacity to import cost-effective foods. These bushmeat is locally traded for income or to access communities hunt to live. other goods needed by the community.[3] Wildlife is also being corralled into increasingly Insects, crustaceans, grubs and molluscs are also restricted habitats, by the same modern forced hunted, and while they can be locally important pressuring communities, impacting their robustness dietary items, it is the larger vertebrates which and reducing their numbers. The use of modern constitute the majority of the terrestrial wild animal hunting technology (e.g., shotguns, flashlights, biomass consumed by humans.[4] outboard motors) places even further pressure on these wild species. Despite rapid changes around the world, bushmeat remains a primary protein for many communities, as As a result, bushmeat harvesting is now a significant well as holding a special role in the cultural and and immediate threat to the future of wildlife in spiritual identity for many. Using animal parts as many parts of the world.[3, 5] Governments have cultural artefacts, for personal adornment or for responded by declaring the hunting of certain hunting trophies is still a widespread practice wildlife illegal, but this has not stopped the hunts throughout many regions.[4] nor relieved the pressure. Instead it has driven the activity underground, and spawned an illegal trading For generations bushmeat consumption has been network. sustainable, but modern pressures and growing human population has changed the balance. There has simply been insufficient attention to the Community displacement by industrial mining, role of bushmeat as an important component of 4 local livelihoods by development agencies, non- the tropic, temperate, sub-Arctic and Arctic regions. governmental, inter-governmental organisations Aquatic bushmeat is obtained through hunting, and national governments.[4] netting and also by making use of stranded (dead or alive) animals. There has been some discussion about including the Aquatic bushmeat consumption of animals accidentally caught in fishing practice (bycatch) within the definition. People who depend on wild protein will often OceanCare believes that these takes are not aquatic substitute wild fish and wild meat for one another, bushmeat because they should be managed under depending on the price and availability of each. This the network of well established national or means that a decline in one wild resource tends to international fisheries regulations. Similarly, localised drive up unsustainable exploitation of the other.[4] shark, fin-fish and shellfish fishing practice should be Given the modern pressures, it is not surprising that considered under fisheries regulations. Where there an increased demand for aquatic bushmeat has now is evidence that the opportunistic use of bycaught become a significant and immediate threat to animals has developed into directed catch, these aquatic wildlife in many regions of the world.[6, 7] hunt to become aquatic bushmeat.[8] Building on the well understood terrestrial bushmeat There are also decernible shifts in the species being definition, for this report, aquatic bushmeat is the hunted as fish supplies fall away, and fish prices rise. meat of aquatic wildlife – mammals, reptiles and Several studies have demonstrated correlations amphibians – that have been harvested for food, between the availability and price of fish in markets medicine or other traditional uses, including as bait and the increased demand for terrestrial bushmeat. for fisheries. There is increasing evidence of similar links to increased takes of aquatic bushmeat as well.[4, 9] While terrestrial bushmeat tends to be restricted to equatorial regions, aquatic bushmeat is taken across 5 Aquatic bushmeat around the world The use of dusky dolphins as bait in long-line and West and Central Africa gillnet shark fisheries is significant.[29] In some places fisheries that have occasionally hunted dolphins have To give some brief examples of the sheer numbers of rapidly increased their take because of the animals involved, at least twenty countries across West effectiveness of using dolphins as bait.[30] The annual and Central Africa record trade of the West African catch of dolphins, especially in Peru, has recently manatees, coastal dolphins and small whales for food increased.[31] and other uses.[10-14] In Ghana alone sixteen species are caught and over a thousand animals landed each year, including Indian Ocean Clymene dolphins, pantropical spotted dolphins, melon-headed whales and common bottlenose There is a long history of the use of aquatic mammals dolphins , short-finned pilot whales , a long-beaked for food and non-food purposes in parts of South Asia. form of common dolphin and rough-toothed With increasing demand for protein, bycatch in parts dolphins.[12, 15-20] Smoked dolphin and whale bushmeat of the Indian Ocean and South Asian riverine systems is traded as far away