[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
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http://www.bushmeat.org/contact
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
http://www.bushmeat.org/contact
To Whom it May Concern,
At Kearny High School in San Diego, sophomore students of the small school SCT have learned about issues that heavily impact the environment. Students were divided into groups and chose different environmental topics. My group chose the Bushmeat Crisis as our topic for the project. We have researched an abundance of information about this topic, but we would really want to improve our knowledge so that we can show people what they can do to help. We hope that you will be able to provide some insight into this topic.
First, shifting baselines has greatly impacted Bushmeat Crisis throughout many years. Today, we know that there are large amounts of animals in the forests of Africa; however, we also know that the Bushmeat Crisis is damaging both the wildlife in the forest and the forest itself. How can we make the Bushmeat Crisis a more relevant topic so a wider range of people can learn more about it and perhaps want to help? The more people understand about Bushmeat Crisis, the better our environment would be.
Secondly, we found out that the Bushmeat Crisis also impacted the animals that were not supposed to be endangered. The Bushmeat Crisis has pushed certain animals, like rhinos, elephants, and a variety of others, to the peak of extinction. The slaughtering of wildlife for consumer goods has terrible effects on the population of these species. Primates such as monkeys and gorillas are the most targeted animals since larger animals are slowly disappearing due to bushmeat consumption. How can we prevent bushmeat trading and hunger in Africa so they won't target the animals? Saving these animals is one of the biggest concerns in the Bushmeat Crisis. The largest concern is how to prevent people from being impacted by the diseases and viruses that bushmeat obtains.
Lastly, we have noticed how Ebola and other epidemics were caused by handling and consuming bushmeat. According to the website W.H.O. (World Health Organization), the first person that was infected with Ebola consumed bushmeat. This virus has spread, causing a huge outbreak in Africa.What would happened if there is an outbreak here in the United States? Will there be a vaccine for Ebola? If we can find a cure for this virus, it would help both people and wildlife in Africa since Ebola has become a large issue.
Throughout our research, we have learned many things that made us interested in the Bushmeat Crisis topic. Bushmeat Crisis has damaged the wildlife in Africa as well as their people, but it has also spread to other parts of the world. Thank you for spending your time reading our letter and providing us with any additional information.
Thank you,
Anaya Gray, Phu Le, Brandon Tran, Raybenson Tran
At Kearny High School in San Diego, sophomore students of the small school SCT have learned about issues that heavily impact the environment. Students were divided into groups and chose different environmental topics. My group chose the Bushmeat Crisis as our topic for the project. We have researched an abundance of information about this topic, but we would really want to improve our knowledge so that we can show people what they can do to help. We hope that you will be able to provide some insight into this topic.
First, shifting baselines has greatly impacted Bushmeat Crisis throughout many years. Today, we know that there are large amounts of animals in the forests of Africa; however, we also know that the Bushmeat Crisis is damaging both the wildlife in the forest and the forest itself. How can we make the Bushmeat Crisis a more relevant topic so a wider range of people can learn more about it and perhaps want to help? The more people understand about Bushmeat Crisis, the better our environment would be.
Secondly, we found out that the Bushmeat Crisis also impacted the animals that were not supposed to be endangered. The Bushmeat Crisis has pushed certain animals, like rhinos, elephants, and a variety of others, to the peak of extinction. The slaughtering of wildlife for consumer goods has terrible effects on the population of these species. Primates such as monkeys and gorillas are the most targeted animals since larger animals are slowly disappearing due to bushmeat consumption. How can we prevent bushmeat trading and hunger in Africa so they won't target the animals? Saving these animals is one of the biggest concerns in the Bushmeat Crisis. The largest concern is how to prevent people from being impacted by the diseases and viruses that bushmeat obtains.
Lastly, we have noticed how Ebola and other epidemics were caused by handling and consuming bushmeat. According to the website W.H.O. (World Health Organization), the first person that was infected with Ebola consumed bushmeat. This virus has spread, causing a huge outbreak in Africa.What would happened if there is an outbreak here in the United States? Will there be a vaccine for Ebola? If we can find a cure for this virus, it would help both people and wildlife in Africa since Ebola has become a large issue.
Throughout our research, we have learned many things that made us interested in the Bushmeat Crisis topic. Bushmeat Crisis has damaged the wildlife in Africa as well as their people, but it has also spread to other parts of the world. Thank you for spending your time reading our letter and providing us with any additional information.
Thank you,
Anaya Gray, Phu Le, Brandon Tran, Raybenson Tran
Expert's Response
Dear Anaya, Phu, Brandon, Raybenson,
Thank you for your email and your interest in the work of the Convention with a particular focus on the Bush meat crisis. I am happy to provide you with some information given to me from my colleague Mr. Tsekos who is familiar with this topic through his own work here at the Secretariat. Please see below and do not hesitate to contact either of us if we can be of further assistance.
With kind regards from Montreal,
Franca
Below is some information as it pertains to their questions.
Definition: At the tenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the CBD, Parties took note of the recommendations of the Liaison Group on Bushmeat, including the definition of bushmeat (or wild meat is used every else other than Africa) hunting as the harvesting of wild animals in tropical and sub-tropical forests for food and for non-food purposes, including medicinal use. The intended main focus is on non-domesticated terrestrial mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians harvested for food or other purposes. While invertebrates can be locally important dietary items, it is the larger vertebrates that constitute the majority of the terrestrial wild animal biomass consumed by humans.
1) The bushmeat crisis inevitably affects many of the broad scale ecological processes. Defaunation may have the potential to impact not only targeted species but the ecosystem more broadly. In many ecosystems, the larger vertebrate fauna, especially frugivorous birds, primates, ungulates, and mammalian carnivores, have been reduced in number. As these large animals vanish, so do the ecological interactions and processes they generate such as ecosystem engineering, herbivory, seed predation, and dispersal. Defaunation might unleash trophic cascades that derail ecological processes, resulting in changes in community composition and loss of diversity. ‘Keystone species’, or organisms with high community importance are groups whose loss is expected to have a disproportionate impact on ecosystems compared to the loss of other species. Local extinction of predators can trigger large changes in prey populations, which in turn could alter browsing or grazing to the point where large regime shifts may happen.
2) Wildlife populations worldwide are affected by a variety of direct and underlying drivers that may influence the sustainability of bushmeat use. The direct drivers with higher impact on wildlife are habitat loss and degradation, increased hunting pressure (through increased demand for bushmeat, new hunting technologies, etc), and disturbances related to extraction activities (timber industry, mining, oil). Underlying drivers, such as conflict and war, human demography, climate change, may not cause direct change on bushmeat species, but may act indirectly to contribute to change in bushmeat use. Identifying drivers and, where possible, quantifying their impact, facilitates the design and development of appropriate management guidelines for extractive use. New emerging markets as increased the international trade of animal products which has been pushing threatened species towards extinction.
3) Bushmeat use is linked with human health in several different ways. Bushmeat plays an important nutritional role as a source of food and contributes to social and cultural values through its use in zootherapy, but could also increase the circulation of various pathogens and the emergence of new infectious diseases from wild animals.
The risk of contracting a disease depends on several factors but may occur even in mosaic landscapes of farms and fragmented forests where human–wildlife interaction is generally indirect or incidental. The lack of personal protection or hygiene during killing, handling and butchering is thought to be the main route of infection. While the process of curing/cooking the meat generally reduces the risk, it also requires consideration. Zoonoses from African apes to humans, and vice versa, are known to be common because of the physiological similarities between the groups and could lead to outbreaks of human diseases (such as Ebola or HIV (human immunodeficiency virus)).
Other measures to heighten awareness on the multiple dimensions of sustainable wildlife management have been emerging through the joint work of the Collaborative Partnership on Wildlife Management (CPW). Notably, the CPW has prepared a series of awareness raising multi-disciplinary fact sheets on global sustainable wildlife management issues. Additionally, the CPW has also launched the Bushmeat E-Sourcebook, an online resource, on the occasion of the second World Wildlife Day. Its goal is to highlight and provide a better understanding on the multiple dimensions that characterise the bushmeat issue. (please find its link below)
http://www.fao.org/forestry/wildlife-partnership/bushmeat-sourcebook/en/
I hope this helps!
Billy
Thank you for your email and your interest in the work of the Convention with a particular focus on the Bush meat crisis. I am happy to provide you with some information given to me from my colleague Mr. Tsekos who is familiar with this topic through his own work here at the Secretariat. Please see below and do not hesitate to contact either of us if we can be of further assistance.
With kind regards from Montreal,
Franca
Below is some information as it pertains to their questions.
Definition: At the tenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the CBD, Parties took note of the recommendations of the Liaison Group on Bushmeat, including the definition of bushmeat (or wild meat is used every else other than Africa) hunting as the harvesting of wild animals in tropical and sub-tropical forests for food and for non-food purposes, including medicinal use. The intended main focus is on non-domesticated terrestrial mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians harvested for food or other purposes. While invertebrates can be locally important dietary items, it is the larger vertebrates that constitute the majority of the terrestrial wild animal biomass consumed by humans.
1) The bushmeat crisis inevitably affects many of the broad scale ecological processes. Defaunation may have the potential to impact not only targeted species but the ecosystem more broadly. In many ecosystems, the larger vertebrate fauna, especially frugivorous birds, primates, ungulates, and mammalian carnivores, have been reduced in number. As these large animals vanish, so do the ecological interactions and processes they generate such as ecosystem engineering, herbivory, seed predation, and dispersal. Defaunation might unleash trophic cascades that derail ecological processes, resulting in changes in community composition and loss of diversity. ‘Keystone species’, or organisms with high community importance are groups whose loss is expected to have a disproportionate impact on ecosystems compared to the loss of other species. Local extinction of predators can trigger large changes in prey populations, which in turn could alter browsing or grazing to the point where large regime shifts may happen.
2) Wildlife populations worldwide are affected by a variety of direct and underlying drivers that may influence the sustainability of bushmeat use. The direct drivers with higher impact on wildlife are habitat loss and degradation, increased hunting pressure (through increased demand for bushmeat, new hunting technologies, etc), and disturbances related to extraction activities (timber industry, mining, oil). Underlying drivers, such as conflict and war, human demography, climate change, may not cause direct change on bushmeat species, but may act indirectly to contribute to change in bushmeat use. Identifying drivers and, where possible, quantifying their impact, facilitates the design and development of appropriate management guidelines for extractive use. New emerging markets as increased the international trade of animal products which has been pushing threatened species towards extinction.
3) Bushmeat use is linked with human health in several different ways. Bushmeat plays an important nutritional role as a source of food and contributes to social and cultural values through its use in zootherapy, but could also increase the circulation of various pathogens and the emergence of new infectious diseases from wild animals.
The risk of contracting a disease depends on several factors but may occur even in mosaic landscapes of farms and fragmented forests where human–wildlife interaction is generally indirect or incidental. The lack of personal protection or hygiene during killing, handling and butchering is thought to be the main route of infection. While the process of curing/cooking the meat generally reduces the risk, it also requires consideration. Zoonoses from African apes to humans, and vice versa, are known to be common because of the physiological similarities between the groups and could lead to outbreaks of human diseases (such as Ebola or HIV (human immunodeficiency virus)).
Other measures to heighten awareness on the multiple dimensions of sustainable wildlife management have been emerging through the joint work of the Collaborative Partnership on Wildlife Management (CPW). Notably, the CPW has prepared a series of awareness raising multi-disciplinary fact sheets on global sustainable wildlife management issues. Additionally, the CPW has also launched the Bushmeat E-Sourcebook, an online resource, on the occasion of the second World Wildlife Day. Its goal is to highlight and provide a better understanding on the multiple dimensions that characterise the bushmeat issue. (please find its link below)
http://www.fao.org/forestry/wildlife-partnership/bushmeat-sourcebook/en/
I hope this helps!
Billy