GROWING COMMERCE IN BUSHMEAT
DESTROYS GREAT APES AND THREATENS HUMANITY
Anthony
L. Rose
The Biosynergy Institute and Antioch University Southern California
Abstract: Commercial hunting of African apes
in logging concessions threatens their existence. Conservation strategies and
players must expand into a multidisciplinary field of conservation development,
which will synergise the relationship between humanity and nature. Recent
information in epidemiology will link human health, apes and bushmeat and will
make awareness of the bushmeat crisis global in nature. This complex crisis
requires multilevel, interdependent treatment. Three solution clusters are
recommended: 1-Fundamental: global alliance for bushmeat education and control;
2-Urgent: multidisciplinary crisis intervention field projects; 3-Sustaining:
long-term conservation development programmes.
Problem: African Primates Are At Great Risk.
Across the forest region of West and Central Africa a conflux
of factors are making commercial hunting a leading threat to the survival of
many primates, including the great apes. Primate hunting is reported in 27 of
the 44 primate study and conservation projects described in IUCN’s recent
status survey on African primates (Oates, 1996b). In 12 of these territories,
hunting by humans is listed as a severe threat to species survival. The latest IUCN
Red List of Threatened Animals (IUCN,
1996) shows a large increase in threat status for mammal species, with primates
being the major order most threatened by extinction. The situation is worse in
areas where most remaining apes and monkeys live, outside parks and reserves.
In these areas, many unique and never-studied primate populations are being
annihilated, and more will follow if current trends continue (Oates, 1996a;
Rose, 1996e; Bowen-Jones, 1998; Ammann, pers. Comm.).
The
risk level for different species and populations varies with their numbers,
reproductive vigour, and distributional range. Past declines have been
correlated most with human population growth and habitat destruction, although
bushmeat hunting has always occurred (Eltringham, 1984). Now, however, a
growing body of evidence shows that shifts in human social and economic
practices in the forests of Africa have greatly increased the killing of primates
for meat. Oates (1996a) concludes “... while the total removal of natural
habitat is clearly a major threat to the survival of many African forest
primates, an analysis of survey data suggests that human predation tends to
have a greater negative impact on primate populations than does selective
logging or low-intensity bush-fallow agriculture.”
Primary Cause: Exploitation of Resources by
Industrialised World.
The
bushmeat crisis has emerged as a direct result of an acceleration in the growth
of industrial, extractive commerce in an economically poor and politically
volatile region of Africa. This type of commercial expansion in prior centuries
caused people to view wildlife as a material resource in Europe and North
America (Cartmill, 1993). Over a decade ago, Mittermeier (1987) also warned of
the pervasive global threat of primate hunting. Kellert (1996) reported that in
much of central Africa “a general pattern of apathy, fatalism, and materialism
towards nature and wildlife” prevails. Most contemporary Africans have lost
their traditional “theistic” reverence for wildlife and many have taken on the
harshest utilitarian view (Mordi, 1991). With the spread of cash economy,
colonial religion, and urbanised central government, “tribal values of
conserving and protecting non-human life are rendered spiritually inoperable,
while new ecological and ethical foundations for sustaining nature have not
emerged” (Kellert, 1996). Much of African natural and cultural heritage is
vanishing in the chasm between spirit and ethics.
Short-term
economic incentives are prepotent in this milieu. A “live for today” attitude
prevails. This holds for people struggling to survive, as well as for wealthy
Africans. The competition for allegiance favours those who hire and pay local
people to support unsustainable and destructive exploitative practices. One
timber company executive described it rhetorically: “if you found a 100 franc
note lying on the ground, would you pick it up?” (Incha, 1996). Bushmeat is
like found money.
There is general agreement among conservationists that
the destructive outcomes of bushmeat commerce have reached crisis proportions
(Rose, 1996b; Redmond, pers. comm.). What makes this a crisis is not only the
numbers, but the way they develop. Juste et
al. (1995) crystallise the essence of the process: “With the advent of
modern firearms and improved communications and transport, subsistence hunting
has given way to anarchic exploitation of wildlife to supply the rapidly
growing cities with game.” The key word here is anarchic. Horta (1992) wrote
that “... almost all the companies in the forestry sector are ‘outside the
law’. Despite good legislation, there is no effective overseeing of actual
operations.” It is imperative that international political and financial
pressures and incentives be brought to bear on these uncontrolled business
activities and the resultant social anarchy. At the same time, work must begin
in earnest to expand African people’s values beyond the imported view of
wildlife and wilderness as an exploitable natural resource.
Secondary Cause 1: Timber Industry Is The Catalyst.
Ammann’s
(1993, 1996c, 1998b) nine-year investigation of hunting pressures in and
outside the IUCN (1996) surveyed areas strongly indicates that unprotected and
unstudied apes -- especially those within 30 km of the expanding network
of logging roads and towns -- are being devastated by a burgeoning commercial
bushmeat trade. The main catalyst of this devastation is growth of the timber
industry (Pearce & Ammann, 1995; Ammann, 1996b). Timber prices and profits
are tied to provision of commercial bushmeat to migrant workers. Every logging
town has its modern hunting camp, supplied with foreign-made guns and
ammunition, and staffed by men and women who come from distant towns and
cities, hoping to make a living in the forests (Rose, 1998). With hired
indigenous forest dwellers, immigrant hunters comb the forests, shooting and
trapping. The consumers are not simply logging camp families, however. The
bushmeat trade stretches all the way to fine restaurants and private feasts in
national capitals where more rare and expensive fare is available. Little is
done to teach or enforce wildlife laws, and there is absence of political will
and financial incentive. Gorilla, chimpanzee, and elephant are among the
animals that are slaughtered in timber concessions and sold for their meat at
prices ranging from two to six times the cost of the beef or pork that is
readily available to consumers in larger towns and cities.
Most
timber executives admit there is a problem and say they are powerless to stop
it (Incha, 1996; Splaney, 1998). Logging managers have been reluctant to let
outsiders into their concessions, fearing that problems will be uncovered and
business disrupted with no solutions provided. Nonetheless, a timber CEO
recently invited outside investigators to help enforce laws against ape hunting
in a million-acre concession in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) after seeing
photos of seven bonobos smoked and sold for bushmeat (Ammann, 1998a). Loggers
in south-east Cameroon are responding to new documentation of butchered
gorillas and smoked chimpanzees, meeting with conservationists to discuss
possible action (Ammann, pers. comm.). The timber industry’s reliance on
bushmeat to feed loggers and their inability to educate workers and govern
their concessions leads to indiscriminate hunting, which not only fosters the
breaking of laws, but also the breaking of customs. People whose cultural
taboos once proscribed eating primates are beginning to try monkey and ape meat
(Ammann, 1996c). As eating apes becomes an accepted practice, education and law
enforcement becomes more difficult.
For
example, Hennessey (1995) studied bushmeat commerce around the Congolese city
of Ouesso. He reported that 64% of the bushmeat in Ouesso originated from a
single village and that one hunter may have supplied over 80 gorillas per year
to the city. Hennessey estimated that 50 forest elephants were killed annually
for meat and ivory in the study area, and 19 chimpanzees.
Similar
hunting and long-distance commercial bushmeat trade is described by Wilke et al. (1992) in the Sangha region west
of Ouesso. There, many hunters preferred trading their meat at Ouesso for a
higher price, rather than at logging concessions, confirming the report of Stromayer
& Ekobo (1991) that Ouesso and Brazzaville are the ultimate sources of
demand. Wilke et al. (1992) mentioned
monkey meat for sale, but say nothing about apes. They recommended that
wildlife conservation officers and biologists monitor and protect duikers,
primates, and elephants to regulate “the harvest of forest protein”.
Ammann
& Pearce (1995) reported intense hunting of gorillas and chimpanzees for
bushmeat in south-eastern Cameroon, across the border west of Wilke’s study
site. While some ape meat is sold to logging workers in these forests, most is
shipped on logging lorries to the provincial capital of Bertoua and beyond to Yaounde
and Douala where more profit can be made. Ammann (1998a) confirmed Hennessey’s
(1995) findings that a small portion of Cameroon bushmeat crosses the border
for sale in Ouesso.
Illegal
bushmeat including gorilla, chimpanzee and bonobo has been photographed in
villages near Lope, Ndoki, and Dja Reserves, and in city markets at Yaounde,
Bangui, Kinshasa, Pt Noire, and Libreville (Ammann: 1996a, 1997, 1998a; McRae
& Ammann, 1997). Steel (1994) projects half the meat sold in Gabon city and
village markets is bushmeat: an estimated $50 million unpoliced trade. Twenty
percent of the bushmeat in that report is primates. More recently in a region
wide review Wilkie & Carpenter (1999) suggest that annual “bushmeat
consumption across the Congo Basin may exceed 1 million metric tons.” Extrapolating from the above studies, the
bushmeat trade across equatorial Africa could be more than a two billion-dollar
annual business. If logging and hunting
continue to expand unchecked, the numbers of monkeys and apes killed for the
cooking pot will increase.
Secondary
Cause 2: Modern Weaponry Allows All Hunting To Threaten Ape Populations.
Demand for chimpanzee and gorilla
meat can be substantial, even in areas with no logging intrusion. With the
availability of guns, this hunting appears to be unsustainable (Wilkie &
Carpenter, 1999). Kano and Asato (1994) compared ape density and hunting
pressure from 29 villages in northeastern Congo Republic where no logging and
no commercial hunting occurred. They
reported that the majority of their informants were willing to eat gorilla and
chimpanzee meat. Kano and Asato measured ape population density and asserted
that the survival of both ape populations is at serious risk in this territory,
as it is farther east for the bonobo “unless a strong system can be established
which combines effective protection with the provision of attractive
substitutes for ape meat to the local people.” The finding that village hunting
of apes in a large habitat area is unsustainable when guns are used causes even
more concern about the popular and growing commercial bushmeat trade supported
by the timber industry.
Discussion
with scores of field researchers and conservationists (Rose, 1996b, c, d; Rose
& Ammann, 1996) produced consensus that “if the present trend in forest
exploitation continues without a radical shift in our approach to conservation,
most edible wildlife in the equatorial forests of Africa will be butchered
before the viable habitat is torn down” (Rose, 1996e). This conclusion had
already been reached by Oates (1996a) and has been confirmed recently by a coalition
of the 44 wildlife protection and conservation NGOs in the EU Ape Alliance (Redmond,
pers. comm.). Jane Goodall (Bowen-Jones, 1998) declared that “unless we work
together to change attitudes at all levels -- from world leaders to the
consumers of illegal bushmeat -- there will be no viable populations of great
apes in the wild within 50 years.”
Further affirmation of the crisis came when more than 30 North American
zoos, animal welfare, rainforest, and wildife conservation groups agreed to
form a Bushmeat Crisis Task Force headquartered in Washington, D.C. The BCTF has elected a steering committee
and will hire a full time professional coordinator to initiate collaborative
policy, public education, and field development projects (Rose, 1999).
Proposed Strategies
Strategy 1: Conservation must
serve all of nature, humans included.
Rapid
and lasting success will come to innovative conservation educators and
developers who work directly with the full range of people involved in
expanding human commerce. These inclusive and proactive partnerships will
develop socially and ecologically sound programmes to satisfy the human needs
that now drive the illegal and unsustainable commercial extraction and
consumption of fauna and flora in Africa. Innovators must help human
communities in forest, village, town, and city to improve their quality of life
by revitalising a synergistic relationship within local and regional
ecosystems. Teams of professionals and community leaders will collaborate to
convert poachers to game guards, and implement eco-social improvement projects.
The study of non-human biology and behaviour will be one of many conservation
development services, sustained in the long term by practical interventions to
transform human values and effect eco-social accountability.
As
further evidence of the importance of synergising ecological and human social
factors, changes are occurring that could radically alter the focus of this
endeavour. In the past we have been looking at the explosion of illegal
bushmeat commerce as a wildlife crisis. For the apes in particular it has been
manifested as a fight against the extinction of our closest living kin. But
that genetic kinship is now being postulated to be the source of a crisis that
threatens the health of humankind. Medical scientists have recently uncovered
evidence suggesting that western African chimpanzees are the original source of
the viruses that have propagated AIDS. Bushmeat hunting along each new logging
road might bring out more than ape meat. It could transmit new forms of SIV
that could further expand the AIDS epidemic.
Virologists
have begun to present their evidence in journals (Gao et al, 1999) and
at major international conferences (Hahn, 1999a, b). Medical researchers and conservationists seem to agree that we
must stop the hunting and butchering of wild chimpanzees in order to avoid
transmission of new strains of SIV and enable new studies of wild apes in situ (Weiss & Wrangham, 1999).
Biomedical research and action to influence the aetiology and management of
these viruses in apes and in bushmeat hunters and traders may expose the keys
to preventing further spread of HIV and AIDS (Rose, 1999). The escalation of the bushmeat crisis from a
regional conservation challenge to a global health issue increases the
complexity of the problem many times over. On every continent people are
concerned about the AIDS epidemic. Forms of HIV now coming under control could
be replaced by variants that renew the scourge. The chimpanzee virus factor is likely to significantly alter
conservation priorities.
Strategy 2. Conservation
developers will need more than multidisciplinary competence and vision.
Finally,
we must recognize that the extremes of poverty, population expansion, exploitive
corruption, and ethnic turmoil in great ape range countries sets a stage for
civil and military strife of the most dangerous and deadly kind. In winter 1999 the last gorilla touring
facility operating in central Africa, at Bwindi Impenitrable Forest, was destroyed
and tourists and field assistants were taken into the forest to be held hostage
and murdered by rebel militias.
Tourism, which is Uganda’s second most profitable national industry, has
been devastated and the fate of their conservation program hangs in the
balance. To protect and support
innocent people and dwindling wildlife in this milieu requires great courage
and commitment, as well as extraordinary international backing.
We must gain the aid and involvement
of the most wealthy, powerful, and moral people and agencies in the world. To
succeed in the face of rampant resource consumption, regional conflagration,
and local anarchy, conservation must be guided by five strategic
imperatives:
Five Strategic Conservation
Imperatives
A.Social
and moral leaders must promote humanity’s profound obligation to conserve
wildlife and wilderness and to restore nature.
B.Political
& economic authority must place conservation on par with human rights and
welfare.
C.Conservationists
must go beyond protecting biodiversity to assuring the synergy of human social
systems and natural ecology.
D.Public
demand for intrinsic and spiritual values of nature must supersede utilitarian
exploitation and underwrite massive long-term programmes in conservation
development.
E.All
wildlife habitats must be considered sacrosanct, and human intrusion must be
managed in a moral, businesslike, and competent way for the global good.
Matrix of Solutions
During
three years of focus on illegal bushmeat commerce I have heard and conceived an
ever-expanding matrix of solutions to the many elements of the crisis.
Ultimately all these elements must be addressed, if the destruction and dangers
of the bushmeat business are to be reversed. Currently I see ten parts to the
bushmeat crisis agenda -- all
important. They are listed below in three groups. The first group includes
items that are fundamental to initiating solutions. The second deals with areas
that need urgent action. The third lists solutions leading to long-term sustainability.
Group
1 (Fundamental): Global Alliance for Bushmeat Crisis Education and Control
A. Bushmeat
Alliance -- Organise social change, peacekeeping, and conservation groups,
select government agencies, disease research/control organisations,
agribusiness, and financial institutions to collaborate to stop the trade in
commercial bushmeat and its concomitant adverse effects on apes and other
endangered species, local cultures, natural ecosystems, and human health. Only
by making the effective treatment of this crisis a requirement for
international finance and development in Africa, will the needed changes occur.
B. Wildlife
Protection Endowments -- Endow and institutionalise permanent
wildlife protection teams for established parks and reserves, as well as mobile
units to work in resource extraction areas. These groups will use
community-based preventive techniques, inform people about ecological and
health risks, encourage alternatives to bushmeat commerce, and enforce wildlife
laws through interdiction and prosecution.
C. Bushmeat Education Campaign --
Conduct international campaigns to evoke public concern about the
destructive effects of the bushmeat crisis. Produce books and magazines as well
as TV and cinema programs; finance and organise locally developed radio and
newsprint campaigns to motivate protection of apes and other endangered
wildlife and to stimulate conservation development in equatorial Africa.
Group 2 (Urgent): Multidisciplinary Crisis
Intervention Field Projects
A. Health
Monitoring Programs -- Design and install methods to study, assess,
monitor, prevent and treat interspecies viral and bacterial transmissions in
territories where bushmeat hunting and commerce, animal pet and orphan caretaking,
and other human contact with apes and other wildlife occurs.
B. Vital
Ecosystem Preservation -- Require and enable ecosystem exploiters to become
conservation developers to establish bushmeat-free operations, develop
effective wildlife and forest protection programmes, provide ecologically renewable
products for workers and commercial consumers, and integrate disease and eco-social
synergy management into their field operations.
C. Bushmeat
Control Mobilization -- Set up
projects to recruit, train and re-employ bushmeat hunters as park guards, field
assistants, census takers, teachers and bushmeat monitors. Swift reduction of
endangered ape and wildlife killing will come from in-situ projects that use hunters’ skills and knowledge to support
conservation.
D. Bushmeat
Orphan Recovery -- Develop and
implement projects to seek and safeguard ape bushmeat orphans in hunting camps,
homes, businesses, zoos, and sanctuaries and to employ them in health and
education efforts to engender positive conservation values in local people and
communities in regions where wildlife commerce is growing at highest rates.
Group
3 (Sustaining): Long-term Conservation Development Programs
A. Eco-social
Synergy Management -- Develop and
install mechanisms to restore and maintain synergistic relationships between
the natural ecology and human social systems in the widest possible range of
primate habitat. Begin with territories where human exploitation threatens life
and health of apes and monkeys, humans, and natural ecosystems the most.
B. Bushmeat
Alternatives -- Underwrite and
develop alternative protein sources, non-destructive forest product businesses,
ecologically sound community gardens and farms, and bushmeat-free markets and
restaurants in forest, village, farm, and urban areas where domestic food and
economic alternatives are needed most to counter commerce in endangered
wildlife.
C. Nature /
Wildlife Missions -- Establish
mobile training and development projects to travel the religious missionary and
public school circuits and help teachers and pastors implement “wildlife
missions” to increase awareness of the economic, ecological, and health dangers
of the endangered wildlife trade, foster moral and humanistic concerns for
living wildlife, and initiate community-based conservation projects.
The treatment of these solutions as
a whole can make a difference immediately, and in the long term. Focus on any
one item in isolation will eventually fail. Conservationists disagree as to
which of the solutions is more important. It is time to accept that all are
important; all must be done. And we must do them in collaboration, not in the
usual competitive modes. The battles among egos, professions, organisations,
cultures, religions, and nations must be set aside now. I remain hopeful that
this will be accomplished and that we can form and maintain truly effective
multidisciplinary teams to confront this complex crisis with the goodwill and
competence it requires. The future of apes and other wildlife, equatorial
ecosystems, African societies, and human health depends on it.
References
Ammann, K. 1993. Orphans of the forest (Parts I). SWARA, January: Pp. 16-19.
Ammann,
K. 1994. Orphans of the forest (Parts II). SWARA,
February: Pp. 13-14.
Ammann, K. 1994. The bushmeat babies. BBC Wildlife, October: Pp. 16-24.
Ammann, K. 1996a. Primates in peril. Outdoor Photographer, February: Pp. 58-61, 76-77.
Ammann, K. 1996b. Timber and bushmeat industries are
linked throughout west/central Africa. Talk at Seminaire sur
l’Impact
de l'Exploitation Forestiere sur la Faune Sauvage, Bertoua, Cameroon, April.
Ammann, K. 1996c. Halting
the bushmeat trade: Saving the great apes. Talk at World Congress for Animals,
Wash. DC, June.
Ammann, K. 1997. Gorillas.
Insight Topics, Apa Publications (HK) Ltd., Hong Kong.
Ammann, K. 1998a. The conservation status of the bonobo
in the one million hectare Siforzal/Danzer logging
concession
in Central D.R.Congo. Website: http://biosynergy.org/bushmeat/bonobo398.htm
Ammann. K. (In press
1998b) Conservation in central Africa: A more business-like approach. African Primates, 3.
Bowen-Jones (Ed.)
1998. The African Bushmeat Trade:
A Recipe for Extinction, Ape Alliance, London.
Cartmill, M. 1993. A
View to a Death in the Morning: Hunting & Nature through History. Harvard
U. Press, Cambridge.
Eltringham, S.K. 1984. Wildlife Resources and Economic Development. John Wiley and Sons,
New York.
Gao et al.
1999. Origin of HIV-1 in the
chimpanzee Pan troglodytes troglodytes.
Nature: 397; Pp. 436-441.
Hahn, B. H. 1999a. "Origin of HIV-1 in Pan troglodytes troglodytes." Talk
at 1999 Keystone Symposium on HIV
Vaccine
Development: Opportunities and
Challenges/AIDS Pathogenesis. Denver, January.
Hahn, B. 1999b. "The origin of HIV-1: A puzzle
solved?" Keynote speech at 6th Conference on Retroviruses and
Opportunistic
Infections. Chicago, January.
Hennessey, A. B. 1995. A Study of the Meat Trade in Ouesso,
Republic of Congo. Unpublished Report to GTZ,
Brazzaville.
Horta, K. 1993. Logging in the
Congo: Massive fraud threatens the forests. World
Rainforest Report, 24: Pp. 12-13.
Incha Productions/ZSE-TV. 1996. Twilight of the Apes. ZSE-TV,
Johannesburg (Video: 25 min.).
IUCN. 1996. The 1996 IUCN Red List of Threatened Animals. IUCN, Gland, Switzerland.
Juste, J., J.E Fa, J.P. Del Val, & J. Castroviejo.
1995. Market dynamics of bushmeat species in Equatorial Guinea.
Journal
of Applied Ecology 32: 454-67.
Kano, T.& R Asato. 1994. Hunting pressure on chimpanzees and gorillas in the Motaba
River area, northeastern
Congo. African Study Monographs 15: 143-162.
Kellert, S.R. 1996. The Value of Life: Biological Diversity and Human Society. Island
Press, Washington D.C.
McRae, M. & K. Ammann. 1997. Road kill in
Cameroon. Natural History Magazine
106, 1, 36-47, 74-5.
Mittermeier, R. A. 1987. Effects of hunting on rain
forest primates. In Primate Conservation
in the Tropical Rain
Forest, Alan R. Liss,
New York. Pp. 109-146.
Mordi, R. 1991. Attitudes toward wildlife in Botswana.
Garland, New York.
Oates, J.F. 1996a Habitat alteration, hunting, and the
conservation of folivourous primates in African forests.
Australian
Journal of Ecology 21:
1-9.
Oates, J.F. 1996b.
African Primates: Status Survey and Conservation Action Plan. Revised edition. The World
Conservation Union (IUCN), Gland, Switzerland.
Pearce, J. & K. Ammann. 1995. Slaughter of the Apes: How the tropical timber industry is devouring
Africa's great apes.
World
Society for the Protection of Animals, London.
Rose, A. L. (1996a) Orangutans, science and collective
reality. In The Neglected Ape. R. Nadler, B. Galdikas,
L. Sheeran,
& N. Rosen, eds. Plenum Press, New York, pp. 29-40.
Rose, A. L. (1996b) Commercial exploitation of great
ape bushmeat. In Rapport du seminaire sur
l'impact de
l'exploitation forestiere sur la faune sauvage. R. Ngoufo, J. Pearce, B. Yadji, D. Guele, & L.
Lima, eds.
Cameroon
MINEF & WSPA, Bertoua, pp. 18-20.
Rose, A. L. 1996c. The African forest bushmeat crisis:
Report to ASP. African Primates 2:
32-34.
Rose, A. L. 1996d. The
bushmeat crisis is conservation's first priority. Talk at IUCN Primate
Conservation
Roundtable Discussion on an Action Agenda, at XVIth Congress
of IPS/ASP, Madison, August.
Rose, A. L. 1996e. The African great ape bushmeat
crisis. Pan Africa News 3: 1-6.
Rose, A. L. 1997. The African primate bushmeat crisis:
Action workshop. Annual Meeting of the American
Society
of Primatologists, San Diego, June.
Rose, A. L. 1998. Finding paradise in a hunting camp:
Turning poachers to protectors. Journal
of the Southwestern
Anthropological Association
38: 4-11.
Rose, A. L. 1999.
Conservation Organizations ... Call for Immediate Action
to Address the Commercial Bushmeat Crisis
in Tropical African Countries. Website: http://biosynergy.org/bushmeat/aza_consensus_2-99.atm
Rose, A. L. & K. Ammann. 1996. The African great
ape bushmeat crisis. Talk and workshop at XVIth Congress
of
International Primatological Society/American Society of Primatologists,
Madison, August.
Rose, A. L., Ammann, K., and Mellow, J. 1999.
Potential impact of hunting practices on cross-species transmission of
viruses. Abstract in proceedings of Workshop on
Cross-Species Transmission of Viruses, NIAID and CDC, Atlanta.
Splaney, L. 1998. Hunting is greater threat to
primates than destruction of habitats. New
Scientist , March: 18-19.
Steel, E. A. 1994. Study of the Value and Volume of
Bushmeat Commerce in Gabon. Report to WWF & Gabon
Ministry
of Forests & Environment,
Libreville.
Stromayer, K. & A. Ekobo. 1991. Biological surveys
of southwest Cameroon. Report to Wildlife Conservation International.
Weiss, R. A. & Wrangham, R. W. 1999.
From Pan to pandemic. Nature:
397, 385-6.
Wilkie, D. S., J. G. Sidle & G. C. Boundzanga.
1992. Mechanized logging, market
hunting, and a bank loan in
Congo. Conservation Biology 6: 570-580.
Wilkie, D.S. & J.F. Carpenter. 1999. Bushmeat hunting in the Congo Basin: an
assessment of impacts and options
for
mitigation. Biodiversity and Conservation, (in press).
Yadji, B. 1996. A new
dynamic for conservation of wildlife resources. Rapport du Seminaire sur l'Impact de
l'Exploitation
Forestiere sur la Faune Sauvage. R. Ngoufo, J. Pearce, B. Yadji, D. Guele,
& .L Lima, eds.
Cameroon MINEF & WSPA, Bertoua. pp. 4-8.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
* Anthony Rose is an
applied social psychologist and organisation developer who has studied
macaques, apes, and humans, taught animal behaviour and human psychosocial
evolution, and consulted in the private sector and government on forest
management, military diplomacy, religious community development, educational
innovation, corporate strategic planning, and health care quality assurance. He
now devotes most of his professional efforts to influencing the human
dimensions of wildlife and wilderness conservation. His inquiries into the
bushmeat crisis have focused on commercial hunting camps in Cameroon, while his
research in human-primate interaction have covered most of the world where apes
and monkeys live. Rose has been a fellow at the UCLA Brain Research Institute,
founder of the Center for Studies of the Person, and director of organisation
design and research for Kaiser-Permanente. He is a founder of The Biosynergy
Institute and the Southern California Primate Research Forum and a member of
the IUCN/SSC African Primate Specialists Group. Rose is professor at Antioch
University Southern California where he serves as director of the Institute for
Conservation Education and Development.
The Biosynergy Institute /
Bushmeat Project
A
version of this article is published in African Primates - the journal of the African Primate
Specialists Group of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Species Survival
Commission (SSC):Rose, A. L. 1998. Growing commerce in bushmeat destroys great apes and threatens
humanity. African Primates 3: 6-10.
| 
