Category: Theme 2: Management and conservation of forest and tree resources

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  • Mix up the diet with some wild meat

Mix up the diet with some wild meat
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Photo: Barbara Fraser/CIFOR
Hunters in the Ticoya Indigenous Reserve can share bushmeat with family and friends—but trade is illegal. Photo: Barbara Fraser/CIFOR.

By Barbara Fraser, originally published at CIFOR’s Forests News

Tráncito Rodríguez was waiting for a package of wild meat from her brother when she got the bad news: police at the airport in Leticia, a small Amazonian city in the southern corner of Colombia, had confiscated the meat.

“It was a whole boruga,” she said, using the local word for a large rodent (Agouti paca) that is common prey for hunters in rural communities in that part of the Amazon.

Although hunting for subsistence is legal in Colombia, selling the meat is not, and authorities sometimes confiscate it if they believe it will be sold. But there is still a steady flow of bushmeat, or wild meat, into Leticia, the nearby Brazilian towns of Tabatinga and Benjamin Constant, and the Peruvian town of Santa Rosa, along the Amazon River where the three countries converge.

Researchers from the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), who have been studying the hunting, use and commercialization of bushmeat in the triple-border area, recommend exploring the possibility of legalizing and regulating the sale of certain bushmeat species, rather than leaving it in the shadows.

Although consumption of bushmeat is most often associated with rural communities, the researchers found that about 473 tons a year pass through the markets in the towns near the triple border.

“Bushmeat is not important in terms of the number or percentage of meals that include it, compared to meat from domestic animals, but it is an important source of diversity in people’s diets,” said Nathalie Van Vliet, a senior research associate at CIFOR who is leading the study.

DISH IT UP

On Sundays, the rustic restaurants in a rural area known as “Los Kilómetros,” along a paved road leading out of Leticia, fill with families out for a leisurely afternoon meal and perhaps a dip in a pool.

Although it’s not on the menu, some chefs serve up boruga, deer or other game if asked. They are cautious, however, fearing that police will raid their kitchens. Local hunters say their sales to restaurants drop off when there have been police sweeps.

The diners seek out a bushmeat meal for various reasons.

Some just like the taste. For others, who have migrated to the towns from rural areas, it’s a reminder of the flavors of home and childhood. Bushmeat is often a highlight of festivals or meals served as part of the communal work days known as minga.

But for Rodríguez, a member of the Muinane indigenous people, the biggest advantage is nutrition.

Her father ate no pork, beef or chicken, she recalls—“just bushmeat”—and she followed his example.

“I raised my children to be healthy,” she says. “That’s the way my mother raised me.”

But the youngest was only 18 months old when Rodríguez, a leader of a women’s organization in the town of Aracuara, received a death threat that forced her to flee to Bogotá, the Colombian capital.

She believes her youngest daughter was less healthy because in the city she ate more processed food and meat raised on industrial farms.

TRADITIONAL DIET

Meat from wild animals and fish provides not only protein, but also a range of micronutrients—vitamins and minerals that are important for health. Families that eat a variety of bushmeat and fish consume a wider range of micronutrients than those whose protein comes from one main source, such as chicken, Van Vliet said.

So when Rodríguez moved to Leticia six years ago, she was determined to return to her traditional diet.

She is not alone. Although people’s dietary patterns tend to change when they move from rural areas to the neighborhoods around the edges of Leticia and Tabatinga, there is still a place for bushmeat on the table, although families eat less meat from wild game and more chicken and other meats.

In a survey of 1,145 children in 11 schools in a small town, rural villages and the urban neighborhoods on Leticia’s periphery, the CIFOR researchers found that nearly all the children had eaten meat the previous day.

The sources of meat differed significantly, however. In the rural areas, 11 percent of children reported having eaten bushmeat the day before and 40 percent said they had eaten fish. In urban areas, however, only 2 percent of the children said they had eaten bushmeat and 9 percent had eaten fish.

For lower-income kids, especially, chicken and eggs had taken their place.

The findings indicate that in urban areas, where chicken replaces bushmeat and fish, children have a less diverse diet than their rural counterparts. And that can affect their health and food security, as Rodríguez found when she was forced to flee to the city.

TAKE AWAY GAME

In Leticia, Rodríguez returned to her roots, finding places to plant crops as she did at home. In 2011, she opened a small restaurant where she sold home-cooked meals, including bushmeat.

She would buy paca, deer or other meat in the market in Tabatinga and carry it back to Leticia through the gate that marks the Brazilian–Colombian border between the two neighboring cities.

One day, police at the border confiscated a leg of peccary she had just bought. After that, they began to stop her more frequently. For a while, she hired a man who had a motorized rickshaw to transport the meat between the two cities, but she finally decided it would be easier to start a restaurant in a tourist area on the Brazilian side of the border.

In the meantime, she continues to sell fresh fruit juices and food made from the crops she grows on the Colombian side, preparing meals that her customers can take home and running her carry-out business by cell phone.

Rodríguez also heads a women’s group called Mujeres Triunfadoras Tejiendo Vida—roughly translated as “Winning Women Weaving Life”—whose members represent four ethnic groups.

After attending a workshop on the steps that would be necessary to legalize and regulate bushmeat in Colombia, Rodríguez returned to her neighborhood to tell the women in her organization what she had learned.

Legalizing the trade and giving women more access to the meat for their families, she says, is one step on the road to a healthier future.

This research forms part of the CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry.
This research was supported by USAID.

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  • FTA event coverage: Highlights from the 2016 Asia-Pacific Rainforest Summit

FTA event coverage: Highlights from the 2016 Asia-Pacific Rainforest Summit

15 August, 2016
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By Leona Liu, originally published at CIFOR’s Forests News

The Summit’s 300+ participants brought perspectives from across geographic and sectoral boundaries to discuss ways toward a more integrated approach to forests, people and the region.

Global momentum is building to sustainably manage forests and landscapes, as a key factor for mitigating climate change and promoting development.

The Asia-Pacific, a dynamic region with rich natural assets, will be a crucial focus of this movement going forward. Rainforests in the Asia-Pacific account for 26 percent of the region’s land area, and support the livelihoods of some 450 million people.

Building on global commitments under the Paris Agreement and United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, the 2016 Asia-Pacific Rainforest Summit, brought together stakeholders from government, business, civil society and the research community to catalyze practical action on reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, and achieving sustainable development in the region.

The Summit, held from 3-5 August in Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei Darussalam, was hosted by the Government of Brunei Darussalam and supported by the Australian Government.

In the video below, event participants including Peter Holmgren, Director General of CIFOR; Josh Frydenberg, Australia’s Minister for the Environment and Energy; and Dato Ali Apong, Brunei’s Minister of Primary Resources and Tourism, discuss the importance of integration- both across the region and between the private and public sectors – to achieve impact.

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  • Community forestry and forest stewardship

Community forestry and forest stewardship

12 August, 2016
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  • Reserves need tweaks to withstand Amazon fire threat

Reserves need tweaks to withstand Amazon fire threat
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Photo: Jos Barlow/Lancaster Environment Center
A forest fire in the Brazilian Amazon. Photo: Jos Barlow/Lancaster Environment Center

By Samuel Mcglennon, originally published at CIFOR’s Forests News

Nearly one million square kilometers of land in Brazil are currently designated as ‘Sustainable Use Reserves’ (SURs).

However, a new study shows that these reserves are failing to address one of the Amazon’s biggest threats- fire.

“Our research reveals that these reserves don’t affect the timing, frequency or density of fires that occur within them,” said Rachel Carmenta, lead author of the study and a scientist at the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR).

“In the context of extending fire seasons globally, and continued regional development, there is some urgency for efforts to improve the performance of sustainable use reserves.”

Evaluation of the performance of reserves in the Amazon previously used metrics of deforestation that largely ignored the dynamics before and after reserve creation. For this reason, there are limited studies today that explicitly focus on ‘Sustainable Use Reserves’, despite the fact that they are proliferating.

What’s more, while indigenous reserves are often characterised by low population densities, SURs can be created in areas adjacent to modest population centers.

“By their very nature, ‘sustainable use reserves’ have people living within them when they are created,” said Carmenta. “These are often people practicing small-scale agriculture, so reserves have a dual objective to promote conservation while also allowing sustainable livelihoods to continue.”

Fire is inextricably linked to each of these objectives because many people’s livelihoods within the reserves are based on smallholder agriculture, in which fire plays a central role.

Comparisons in space and through time

Carmenta and her colleagues thus set out to disentangle the landscape determinants of fire in reserves (i.e. location factors) from the actual policy change of reserve creation on fire density.

“We first examined the frequency of fires within reserves compared to the buffer zones and the extent to which landscape factors like population density determined fire events,” she said. “Our findings show that the landscape factors are the most important determinants of fire.”

While verifying their findings, the scientists realized that they could take a further analytical step- one that is rarely used in analyzing reserve performance.

“What we did was use temporal data sets to create a ‘before and after’ comparison by analyzing fire patterns in areas before they became reserves and then compared them to ensuing fire patterns,” said Carmenta.

“Ultimately, we showed that the act of creating reserves does not have an impact on fire patterns. Instead, what is more important are the other factors like population density and connectivity.”

This means that as far as fire management is concerned, where one places a reserve is actually more important than the actual act of designating one.

Tweaking fire management

When the scientists set out to analyze the performance of reserves with respect to fire, they thought that they might find evidence for shifts towards less risky burns following reserve creation. They collected information on rainfall events and fire and examined whether there was evidence towards less risky burns (i.e. burns decoupled from peak dry days) after the reserve was established.

What they found was surprising.

“Reserve creation did not induce any shift towards improved fire management by SUR residents [i.e. in the form of less risky burnings],” said Carmenta.

The study’s findings show the asymmetry of the relationship between reserves and fire. Fires remain one of the greatest threats to the reserves and their inhabitants, yet they currently have no discernible impact on fire management within their boundaries.

While reluctant to offer solution options that are not evidence-based, Carmenta says there are relatively simple things that can be done to improve the situation.

Part of what’s missing is relevant weather forecasts and information on climatic conditions.

“These might not be needed every year, but in dangerous years like El Niño years, a targeted provision of this information could be really valuable.”

Carmenta also sees a role for rural extension services in helping reduce smallholders’ reliance on fire-based agricultural techniques.

“Smallholder fire use is a long-established practice and so far, the policy and legislation used to manage and control fires in the Amazon have not managed to fit the local realities and context in a way that allows for policy uptake at the local level.

“Smallholders need better extension services to help them gain access to the technology, knowledge and capacity to take up agricultural practices that rely less heavily on fire. But it’s difficult to imagine these services being rolled out across the entire Amazon, so it will be necessary to prioritize between the level of fire risk and interventions that can be done quickly, cheaply and effectively,” she said.

Reserves at risk

The study shows that ‘Sustainable Use Reserves’ clearly need further attention.

“The big message for governments is that these reserves really aren’t performing when it comes to reducing fire threats,” said Carmenta.

What’s more, the determinants of fire risk identified by the study show that reserves will require more support in future.

“We find that the reserves most at risk have two common characteristics: higher population densities and greater connectivity, in particular by rivers.”

With a planned network of roads extending throughout the Amazon, greater terrestrial connectivity will prove increasingly important.

New lines of enquiry

The study used relatively novel methodological approaches to arrive at its findings. Even the decision to focus on fire is a key point of differentiation between this and previous studies, which used hunting or deforestation as proxies for determining reserve performance.

Another key contribution of this study was its ‘before and after’ comparison model, which enabled a glimpse of the changes – or lack thereof- that follow the policy change of reserve creation.

“Previous studies by in large didn’t use a temporal approach when exploring the impacts of reserves,” said Carmenta. “It would be great to use this approach to analyze the performance of other reserves, or expand research to include a comparative analysis across the reserves of the tropics all around the world.”

“We hope this study will highlight our concern over methods that didn’t take a ‘before and after approach’, which is helpful when assessing reserve performance borne by reserve creation as distinct from the landscape determinants of reserve performance,” she added.

 

This research forms part of the CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry.

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  • Conservation by another name: Traditions, taboos and hunting

Conservation by another name: Traditions, taboos and hunting
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Photo: Marco Simola/CIFOR
Spiritual beliefs affect how people behave in the forests in the Amazon. Marco Simola/CIFOR

By Barbara Fraser, originally published at CIFOR’s Forests News

When Sara Armas Díaz goes hunting, she pauses before entering the woods and pays her respects to the forest spirits.

“I carry a lighted branch and say the name of the animal I want, and within a short time, I see it,” says Armas, 51, a Cocama grandmother who learned the ritual from her grandparents when they took her hunting for the first time at age 10.

In communities along the Loretoyacu River in the Ticoya Reserve or resguardo, a territory shared by Ticuna, Cocama and Yagua indigenous people, many hunters have stories of encounters with forest spirits that help them find game or keep them from hunting in a certain place.

Those encounters, combined with practices related to preparing the meat for meals, are traditional ways of controlling hunting in the territory, according to researchers from the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR).

SACRED PLACES

The researchers are studying the hunting, use and commercialization of bushmeat in the area around the reserve, on the Amazon River where the borders of Colombia, Peru and Brazil converge.

“The hunters never mention the word ‘conservation,’ but what they are doing is conservation related,” said Nathalie Van Vliet, a senior researcher with CIFOR, who leads the research team.

“They also have practices related to reducing health risks—for example, kids should not eat a certain part of a particular animal,” she said. “They don’t call them health regulations, but by regulating consumption of the meat, they also contribute to conservation.”

Different hunters recount different—and sometimes conflicting—beliefs, but collectively, they constitute a control on hunting.

When certain plants are flowering or bearing fruit, the meat of animals that feed on them has an unpleasant flavor and can cause nausea, diarrhea or rashes, Armas said. She and her husband, Gabriel Murayari Pinedo, 63, avoid hunting those animals in places where they see those plants. Hunters avoid other places for other reasons.

“There are places where you can’t hunt,” said Milton Pinto, 22, a Ticuna who, like Armas and Murayari, lives in Puerto Nariño, a town of about 7,000 people in the Ticoya Reserve.

 One is a certain salt lick—a place where animals tend to congregate, which makes them easy prey.

“It’s a sacred place,” Pinto said. “You have to respect it.”

NATURAL CONTROLS

Hunters offer various accounts of that salt lick and others—as places where hunting is permitted, but hunters can only take what they need, or as places that keep hunters at bay, with thunder, lightning and rain if a hunter gets too close.

“The place has a madre, a spirit,” Pinto said.

In surveys of community members, including hunters, traders and restaurant operators, the researchers found that more than two-thirds of the beliefs that limited the hunting or use of wild game were related to consumption. Eating the meat of a tapir, for example, could cause a pregnant woman to miscarry. Women also should not look at or touch the turtle known as a matamata, the researchers learned.

The largest number of “taboos” about meat consumption involved the jaguar, a top predator that also has spiritual significance to many Amazonian people. Other animals regulated by traditional beliefs included tapirs and snakes.

The largest number of beliefs related to the way meat is handled involved turtles—for example, touching the blood of a turtle while preparing the meat is said to produce warts.  Only 10 percent of the people surveyed said that ignoring such traditional beliefs would have no negative effect. More than half said failure to respect taboos could cause illness, while others said it could result in a decrease in the number of animals or make hunters unlucky in their search for wild game.

Fishermen respect similar practices, Pinto said. One lake in the reserve is known to fishermen as a dangerous place, home to huge river otters, jaguars and giant caimans.

“You have to fish silently,” said Pinto, adding that some parts of the lake were off limits.

When Pinto was younger, an elderly fisherman showed him which parts of the lake were safe for fishing and which should be left alone.

“It’s a kind of natural control,” he said.

This research forms part of the CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry.
This research was supported by USAID.

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  • Agouti on the wedding menu: Bushmeat harvest, consumption and trade in a post-frontier region of the Ecuadorian Amazon

Agouti on the wedding menu: Bushmeat harvest, consumption and trade in a post-frontier region of the Ecuadorian Amazon

09 August, 2016
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Authors: Cummins, I.; Pinedo-Vasquez, M.; Barnard, A.; Nasi, R.

The availability, consumption and trade of bushmeat is highly variable across time and space. This paper examines how the bushmeat market in Napo, Ecuador has evolved alongside a variety of interconnected factors including local game scarcity, increased law enforcement, infrastructure development and increasing urbanization. Much of the human occupied landscape has already undergone extinction filters with only the most hunting resistant species still present. However, Napo maintains significant areas of largely intact forest which are not hunted due distance from roads and rough topography, which may serve as source habitat in the future. Two modes of hunting are identified both of which have very different implications for conservationists and for rural livelihoods. Supplemental or sustenance hunting generally focuses on more abundant species and thus occurs primarily within local agroforestry systems or nearby patches of forests. Commercial hunting meanwhile takes place within larger catchments and is focused on large-bodied species, which are especially susceptible to hunting pressure. Efforts by the Ecuadorian government to interdict bushmeat have largely driven the trade underground making it difficult to estimate current consumption rates. Demand generated by traditional Kichwa wedding parties remain a significant driver of commercial hunting. Policy recommendations include a greater focus on species-level game management, greater education about endangered species and more emphasis on using conservation programs to create corridors between protected areas. Due to the relatively small size of most communal forest areas, wildlife management is especially difficult for wide-ranging species and conservation efforts should focus on common pool resource management.

Series: CIFOR Occasional Paper no. 138

Publisher: Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), Bogor, Indonesia

Publication Year: 2015

ISBN: 978-602-387-009-7

Also published at Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR)

 

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  • Wildlife: a forgotten and threatened resource

Wildlife: a forgotten and threatened resource

27 July, 2016
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Presentation by Robert Nasi, Director of the CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry, et al. at the Annual Meeting of the Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation in Montpellier, France, 19-23 June 2016.

The harvest of forest wildlife provides invaluable benefits to local people, but understanding of such practices remains fragmentary. With global attention drawn to the issue of declining biodiversity, this talk assesses the consequences, both for ecosystems and local livelihoods, of the loss of important forest resources, and alternative management options.

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  • Understanding wildlife hunting means knowing people, animals and the numbers

Understanding wildlife hunting means knowing people, animals and the numbers

Boy selling the rodent agouti in Guyana. Photo: Manuel Lopez/CIFOR
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Boy selling the rodent agouti in Guyana. Photo: Manuel Lopez/CIFOR
Boy selling the rodent agouti in Guyana. Photo: Manuel Lopez/CIFOR

By Deanna Ramsay, originally posted at CIFOR’s Forests News

For many living in rural parts of the world, hunting wild animals offers both a vital source of protein and extra cash. In Cameroon, that work can result in additional annual income of €80, according to a recent study.

Defined by the Convention on Biological Diversity in 2011 as, “The harvesting of wild animals in tropical and sub-tropical countries, for food and for non-food purposes,” bushmeat hunting is simultaneously mundane and a hot topic.

In a keynote speech titled “Wildlife: A forgotten and threatened forest resource” at the annual Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation (ATBC) meeting, CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees, and Agroforestry director Robert Nasi discussed the bushmeat issue in the Congo and Amazon basins.

“The use of wild animals as a resource for local people is an exceedingly important issue, and generally overlooked. The hunting and eating of wild animals is widespread, essential and socially acceptable, but is de facto criminal activity in most countries,” he said.
Stall selling bushmeat. Photo: Manuel Lopez/CIFOR
Selling bushmeat. Photo: Manuel Lopez/CIFOR

With the recognition that millions around the world use wild animals for food and income, and that such practices can negatively impact biodiversity, researchers are focusing on the extent of people’s dependence, looking at quantifying matters such as wildlife harvest numbers, consumption amounts and the accrued financial benefits.

Round numbers

Generating appropriate data on extraction from the wild helps elucidate the importance of wildlife for poor people, as well as contribute to necessary conservation work.

“Some groups argue that conservation of areas is bad for local people. It is possible to achieve a balance, but better data are required to establish how both protection of biodiversity and the needs of people can be made compatible,” said John E. Fa, a senior research associate at the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) and coordinator of CIFOR’s Bushmeat Research Initiative.

Guyana offers a lot of bushmeat such as this Aposematic hawkmoth caterpillar (Isognathus sp.) with an uncharacteristically long tail. Photo: Manuel Lopez/CIFOR)
Guyana offers a lot of bushmeat such as this Aposematic hawkmoth caterpillar (Isognathus sp.) with an uncharacteristically long tail. Photo: Manuel Lopez/CIFOR

Better access to information and research data is required across fields and disciplines. Taking this into account – and that for hunting what little information available is dispersed – there is now a resource that collates datasets on subsistence hunting and related practices from around the globe called OFFTAKE.

At ATBC, Bushmeat Research Initiative member Lauren Coad discussed the database – which she helped to develop – that aims to provide accurate information on the harvest of wild animals and to inform policy.

“Bushmeat research has been mainly site specific and gathered by NGOs and academics. This data needed to be brought together, and we are continuing to add to it,” she said during her talk, which focused on bushmeat consumption figures in Central Africa.

In recently published research in International Forestry Review, seconded CIRAD scientist at CIFOR Guillaume Lescuyer and Robert Nasi looked at another side of the bushmeat equation, determining the financial (i.e. trade) and economic (i.e. self-consumption) benefits derived from bushmeat from the full range of actors in Cameroon.

There are an estimated 552,000 people in the country who hunt for income, subsistence and a combination of both. Lescuyer and Nasi calculated a net financial benefit of hunting in rural areas as €10 million a year and a net economic benefit of €24 million.

Also read: Financial and economic values of bushmeat in rural and urban livelihoods in Cameroon: Inputs to the development of public policy

“People have not been that interested in the question of quantifying the importance of bushmeat. That is why we decided to do a financial analysis – this has not been done before in Cameroon, and our findings are powerful,” Lescuyer said.

Win-lose?

Lescuyer and Nasi found that local hunting was rewarding, with a profit margin of approximately 22 percent. They also determined that the annual turnover of the bushmeat sector is much higher than previous official assessments at close to €97 million, with the contribution to Cameroon’s GDP as substantial as the mining sector.

Equipped with figures indicating the economic significance of the practice for the rural poor and local and national economies, the question emerges – are such practices sustainable?

Some say no. But, as bushmeat discussions can revert to familiar debates that position conservation against livelihoods, numbers, again, are vital. Having studied bushmeat for decades, Fa said measuring sustainability is a difficult task.

“One problem is we know very little about tropical animals and their biology, including reproduction. Even if you have abundant data on the species out there you also have to know the fluctuations in how many animals a hunter gets per day,” he said. And, the consumption figures that emerge often vary in comparison to extraction numbers. These discrepancies mean more studies on tropical animals and human practices are needed, Fa said.

Too legit

Honoring both concerns, researchers are recommending a combination of on-the-ground changes and government policy steps. “Up to 80 percent of rural households in central and western Africa depend at different levels on bushmeat for their daily protein requirements and essential income. A blanket ban on the trade would endanger both humans and wildlife,” Nasi said.

Developing alternative protein sources in rural areas, working to reduce demand in urban areas and enforcing bans on exports has been advised. “Alternative meats could be a good way of deterring people from eating bushmeat, but that is more likely in big cities because they don’t rely on it,” Fa said. Fostering the consumption of other proteins is a long-term goal, but addressing urban consumption is key in the short-term, Lescuyer said.

At ATBC in Montpellier, Nasi discussed the problem of bushmeat exports to Europe, advocating for better law enforcement. “You can walk five minutes from here and I can bring you back a duiker leg from a small grocery. There is no reason why anyone in Europe should be eating bushmeat.”

For researchers, it is time to use the hard numbers and data emerging to clarify a complex issue. “There has been a one-way view for the last 25 years without success. It is time to try something else. It is time to legitimate the debate around bushmeat,” Nasi said.

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  • Agricultural biodiversity nourishes people and sustains the planet: Bioversity International Annual Report 2015

Agricultural biodiversity nourishes people and sustains the planet: Bioversity International Annual Report 2015

18 July, 2016
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From the foreword by M. Ann Tutwiler, Director General and Cristián Samper, Board Chair

In 2015, at the United Nations in New York, countries agreed on the Sustainable Development Goals; in Paris at the Climate Summit, they reached an agreement on Climate Change; and at the Convention on Biological Diversity, countries focused on mainstreaming agricultural biodiversity into health, nutrition and production systems.

Agricultural biodiversity has an increasingly important role to play in creating long-term food system sustainability, with contributions to make in terms of improving nutrition, enhancing resilience of agricultural production system and increasing adaptation to climate change,.

In the report you will find examples that show the impact of Bioversity International’s work on people’s lives on the ground in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Our work is organized around three initiatives: ‘Healthy Diets from Sustainable Food Systems’; ‘Productive and Resilient Farms, Forests and Landscapes’; and ‘Effective Genetic Resources Conservation and Use’. Through these initiatives, we investigate how to safeguard agricultural and tree biodiversity for future generations and how to use it to diversify diets, production systems, seeds and planting materials.

See the full report here

 

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  • Financial and economic values of bushmeat in rural and urban livelihoods in Cameroon: Inputs to the development of public policy

Financial and economic values of bushmeat in rural and urban livelihoods in Cameroon: Inputs to the development of public policy

17 July, 2016
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Authors: Guillaume Lescuyer, Robert Nasi

Published at Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR)

Source: International Forestry Review

Traditional wildlife hunting has been described mainly from studies of local practices and from the monitoring of urban bushmeat markets. However, the overall value chain connecting hunters to end consumers remains largely unknown, thus preventing any estimate of the actual socio-economic importance of the bushmeat sector. On the basis of existing literature, this paper provides an order of magnitude for the financial and economic benefits of the bushmeat commodity chain in Cameroon.

The following conservative conclusions were arrived at:

(1) The annual turnover of the bushmeat sector in the country is likely to be close to €97 million, i.e. 36% more than the official assessment derived from public accounts.

(2) The bushmeat sector may contribute 0.17% to Cameroon’s GDP (non-oil), as much as the mining sector.

(3) Self-consumption of bushmeat in rural areas may amount to gross annual economic benefit of more than €142 million.

However, bushmeat in a country like Cameroon needs to be managed so as to guarantee the food security of urban and rural populations, as well as maintain a substantial source of revenue for communities, all of this without depleting the resource. Achieving this goal requires policy makers to disassociate wildlife harvesting from ‘poaching’ and the extirpation of species. It is crucial to go beyond the dominant narrative of a (real but over simplified) notion of a conservation crisis, to address its important livelihood and welfare dimensions.

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  • Hunting for sustainability: Bushmeat in Colombia

Hunting for sustainability: Bushmeat in Colombia

11 July, 2016
Click on image to watch the video on bushmeat hunting in Colombia.
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Looking at bushmeat hunters in the Columbian Amazon, this video by the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) addresses the importance of wildlife for rural ticuna families, including the importance for culture, food security and extra income. This research forms part of the CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry.

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  • A new method for tracking Ebola could help prevent outbreaks

A new method for tracking Ebola could help prevent outbreaks

Colorized scanning electron micrograph of Ebola virus particles (red) in extracellular space between infected African green monkey kidney cells. Photo: NIAID
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By Catriona Cuft-Cosworth, originally published at Forests News

Colorized scanning electron micrograph of Ebola virus particles (red) in extracellular space between infected African green monkey kidney cells. Photo: NIAID
Colorized scanning electron micrograph of Ebola virus particles (red) in extracellular space between infected African green monkey kidney cells. Photo: NIAID

The ongoing Ebola virus outbreak in West Africa has claimed more than 11,000 lives since March 2014. Yet we still know very little about the conditions in which the virus thrives and how it spreads to humans.

Some answers may be found in a groundbreaking new study that borrows techniques from biology and geography to map out hotspots where the virus may be lurking.

A research team led by scientists John Fa and Robert Nasi from the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) together with Jesús Olivero and colleagues from the University of Málaga, including US virologist Jean Paul Gonzalez and Zoological Society of London wildlife epidemiologist Andrew Cunningham, took a biogeographical approach to mapping favorable conditions for the Ebola virus, both in terms of environment and the presence of animals as potential hosts.

The resulting map from the study suggests that favorable conditions for Ebola are more widespread than suspected, stretching across 17 countries throughout West and Central Africa, and as far as the East African Lakes Region.
Preconceptions that only bats are to blame for carrying the virus were disregarded, with analysis extended to 64 species including rodents, primates, hoofed animals, a civet and a shrew as potential reservoirs of Ebola virus. Photo: Daniel Tiveau/CIFOR
Preconceptions that only bats are to blame for carrying the virus were disregarded, with analysis extended to 64 species including rodents, primates, hoofed animals, a civet and a shrew as potential reservoirs of Ebola virus. Photo: Daniel Tiveau/CIFOR

It also finds a strong link between Ebola and tropical rainforests, and suggests a list of more than 60 wild animals that require further investigation as potential carriers of the disease.

The findings could help save lives. “This information is essential for the development of early warning systems aiming to optimize the efficacy of prevention measures,” said Olivero.

TRACKING A VIRUS

Olivero and his team are among the world’s leading researchers in the area of “biogeography”, or the science of mapping biological patterns across time and space.

Biogeographic mapping allows scientists to not only analyze the distribution of an organism, but also to predict where that organism may be found based on the existence of favorable environmental conditions.

As a virus, Ebola is in fact an organism. Recognizing this, Olivero and colleagues took biogeographic mapping techniques that are normally used for animals, and applied them to the case of a virus.

Geographical information system (GIS) software was used to map the distribution of favorable environments for Ebola to occur in, as well as the spread of mammals known to have died from, or been infected by, the virus.

“Our findings provide new information about how the Ebola virus is distributed in the wild, before it is transmitted from humans to humans,” said Olivero.

Preconceptions that only bats are to blame for carrying the virus were disregarded, with analysis extended to 64 species including rodents, primates, hoofed animals, a civet and a shrew as potential reservoirs ofEbola virus.

The resulting map found a wider than expected spread of Ebola both among mammal populations and across the African continent.

THE HUMAN CONNECTION
13652907
Click to read the study

So what do the findings mean for humans? This is where the work of CIFOR scientists John Fa and Robert Nasi comes in. Fa and Nasi are experts on bushmeat, or wild animals harvested for food and non-food purposes.

One of the major causes of transmission for Ebola is the hunting, butchering and consumption of wild animals. But putting a blanket ban on bushmeat is not a viable measure – and neither is hunting all species suspected as carriers.

“We don’t want people to be alarmed that there are so many different species, and start killing as many as possible,” said Fa.

“We have to have very clear and realistic ways of trying to stop the transmission from infected animals to people without necessarily stopping people from doing what they’ve done, which is essentially hunting for food.”

Fa said that working with at-risk hunters and communities will be critical for stopping the spillover of infection from animals to humans.

Further research into the communities of animals identified in the study, and how their habitats are affected by human activities such as deforestation and urbanization, is also needed.

In the meantime, it’s hoped that the new method of mapping will help identify hotspots for Ebola and prevent contagion.

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A new generation of forest managers in the Democratic Republic of Congo
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By Fai Collins, originally published at CIFOR’s Forests News

The Democratic Republic of Congo has the second-largest swath of rainforests in the world. Youth, who comprise more than half of its population, will need to play a critical role in forestry research and conservation to preserve these resources. OllivierGirard/CIFOR
The Democratic Republic of Congo has the second-largest swath of rainforests in the world. Youth, who comprise more than half of its population, will need to play a critical role in forestry research and conservation to preserve these resources. OllivierGirard/CIFOR

In the tropical woodlands of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), on the banks of the deepest river in the world, the University of Kisangani is working to ensure better management of forests for a better future.

In 2013, the university celebrated its 50th anniversary with the launch of a new project – Forests and Climate Change in the Congo – which is boosting quality postgraduate training in forest-related disciplines. This initiative is taking place in a country that currently faces a serious lack of trained personnel in the sector.

As recent as 2005, the DRC counted just six people with an educational qualification higher than a Bachelor’s degree in forestry and related disciplines who were actively involved in research. This is clearly incongruous, given that the country is not only the largest in size and population in the entire Congo Basin, but it also has the second-largest swath of rainforests in the world with some 86 million hectares in area. What’s more, it accounts for more than half of the total remaining rainforests in the Central Africa region.

But years of political turbulence have left scars on the country’s human capital. Political instability has not only slowed down government machinery, but has also led to a serious brain drain as manpower elopes to more caring arms.

Prosper Sabongo a PHD student measures the circumference of a Funtunia Africana in the forest reserve near the village of Masako. Kisangani, Democratic Republic of Congo. Photo: Ollivier Girard/CIFOR
Prosper Sabongo a PHD student measures the circumference of a Funtunia Africana in the forest reserve near the village of Masako. Kisangani, Democratic Republic of Congo. Photo: Ollivier Girard/CIFOR

Education did not just mark time, but was almost abandoned. According to the Center for Universal Education, the allocation for education in the DRC was just one percent of the national budget in 1990.

As a result, there has been a significant lack of skills and knowledge in many domains in the postwar period. The forestry, agricultural and higher education sectors were among the hardest hit. As the country recovers from the doldrums of war, there is a need to harness and build national capacity to help local communities, the private sector and the state to pick up steam.

SURVIVING THE PEACE

To rebuild a vibrant educational sector, international partners and governments have come to the aid of the DRC. One pillar of the government’s post-conflict education strategy has been to improve the quality and relevance of education to local realities, and that includes addressing the forestry sector.

The Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) has been at the government’s side since 2005 improving governance by supporting teaching and training in various forest domains.

DRC needs a new generation of forest managers. Photo: Ollivier Girard/CIFOR
DRC needs a new generation of forest managers. Photo: Ollivier Girard/CIFOR

Supported by the European Union and other international organizations, CIFOR has been carrying out long-term capacity building programmes at the University of Kisangani by training Master’s and Ph.D. students in Biodiversity and Forestry Management. From REAFOR to FCCC projects, more than 97 Master’s and 13 Ph.D. students have been trained in these areas.

This year, 42 Master’s and ten Ph.D. students are enrolled at the University of Kisangani in forest-related domains. Some of the research proposals are highly innovative, such as the use of drones to monitor anthropogenic activity in protected areas. These emerging experts will help their country build the academic skills and knowledge needed to ensure sustainable forest management, good governance and the maintenance of biodiversity and protected areas.

SERVING PEOPLE’S NEEDS

The University of Kisangani has been chosen as the seat of training for tomorrow’s researchers and forest managers by virtue of its location in the Orientale province, which is in the heart of dense, humid forest.

This location is a nexus between theory and practice in forestry and biodiversity research. It hosts four key forest sites in Luki, Maskao, Yoko and Yangambi, as well as a botanic garden nurtured to sustain on-campus research and teaching.

Facilities like these have seen the University of Kisangani emerge as a leading higher education institution for forestry, biodiversity conservation and sustainable natural resource management in DRC. According to Professor Faustin Toengaho Lokundo, Rector of the University, the curricula must be tailored to local realities in order to serve the needs of the Congolese society.

IMPROVING GOVERNANCE
Scientist Francois Bapeamoni examines a African Pygme Kingfisher (Ispidina picta) on Yoko forest reserve, Kisangani, Democratic Republic of Congo. Photo: Ollivier Girard/CIFOR
Scientist Francois Bapeamoni examines a African Pygme Kingfisher (Ispidina picta) on Yoko forest reserve, Kisangani, Democratic Republic of Congo. Photo: Ollivier Girard/CIFOR

To ensure quality education and research, a myriad of techniques has been used in the curricula. According to Robert Nasi, Director of Research at CIFOR, the strategy used for improving governance through capacity building hinges on two axes: developing an innovative Master’s curriculum and developing an international Ph.D. program tailored to national concerns.

In order to ensure quality teaching and improved access to scientific literature, an online library service has been introduced, with more than 10,000 documents that supplement the existing university library.

A more enabling learning and teaching environment has also been created with renovated lecture halls and offices, improved field and forest survey equipment, and on-campus internet access.

In total, 11 students have already graduated with Ph.D.s, while 77 have graduated with Master’s degrees in Biodiversity and Forest Management, with another 42 underway.

CIFOR has not limited the initiative in DRC to university students alone. In June 2015, 14 science journalists and newspaper editors from media organizations across the country converged at the University of Kisangani to work together on improving their writing and reporting skills on issues related to forestry and the environment. For two days, media practitioners and scientists discussed ways to keep the public better informed on newsworthy topics about the environment.

Such initiatives are safe investments in youth, who now comprise more than 58% of the Congolese population. They will play a critical role in helping the DRC achieve the Sustainable Development Goals and be counted among the emerging African economies by 2035.

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  • Mammalian biogeography and the Ebola virus in Africa

Mammalian biogeography and the Ebola virus in Africa

13 June, 2016
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Authors: Olivero, J.; Fa, J.E.; Real, R.; Farfán, M.A.; Márquez, A.L.; Vargas, J.M.; Paul Gonzales, J.; Cunningham, A.A.; Nasi, R.

  1. Ebola virus is responsible for the fatal Ebola virus disease (EVD).
  2. Identifying the distribution area of the Ebola virus is crucial for understanding the risk factors conditioning the emergence of new EVD cases. Existing distribution models have underrepresented the potential contribution that reservoir species and vulnerable species make in sustaining the presence of the virus.
  3. In this paper, we map favourable areas for Ebola virus in Africa according to environmental and zoogeographical descriptors, independent of human-to-human transmissions. We combine two different biogeographical approaches: analysis of mammalian distribution types (chorotypes), and distribution modelling of the Ebola virus.
  4. We first obtain a model defining the distribution of environmentally favourable areas for the presence of Ebola virus. Based on a review of mammal taxa affected by or suspected of exposure to the Ebola virus, we model favourable areas again, this time according to mammalian chorotypes. We then build a combined model in which both the environment and mammalian distributions explain the favourable areas for Ebola virus in the wild.
  5. We demonstrate that mammalian biogeography contributes to explaining the distribution of Ebola virus in Africa, although vegetation may also underscore clear limits to the presence of the virus. Our model suggests that the Ebola virus may be even more widespread than previously suspected, given that additional favourable areas are found throughout the coastal areas of West and Central Africa, stretching from Cameroon to Guinea, and extend further East into the East African Lakes region.
  6. Our findings show that the most favourable area for the Ebola virus is significantly associated with the presence of the virus in non-human mammals. Core areas are surrounded by regions of intermediate favourability, in which human infections of unknown source were found. The difference in association between humans and other mammals and the virus may offer further insights on how EVD can spread.
Published at Mammal Review 6 June 2016
Also at: Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR)

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  • Piloting gender-responsive research tool 5Capitals-G in three countries

Piloting gender-responsive research tool 5Capitals-G in three countries

Conducting interviews according to 5Capitals-G training. Photo: Bioversity International
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Adapted from Bioversity International

Gathering Kokum. Photo: Eva Hermanowicz/Bioversity International
Gathering Kokum in India. Photo: Eva Hermanowicz/Bioversity International

A new tool to assess poverty in a gender-responsive way is set to prove its value in a pilot phase, starting mid-2016 in India, Peru and Guatemala. To prepare for the launch of the methodology called 5Capitals-G, field researchers from three parts of India were trained in a workshop in April. The training was co-funded by the CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry.

Over the past decade, value chain development (VCD) involving smallholders has become more and more important for actors who want to reduce rural poverty. Donors, governments and private sector have invested millions of dollars in value chain development, but fairly little is known to what extent such initiatives effectively reduce poverty. This is partially due to the fact that appropriate methodologies and tools for assessing the impacts of value chain development on poverty are not readily available.

Researchers from the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF), Bioversity International, CATIE and multiple partners around the globe addressed this gap by developing the learning tool 5Capitals. It uses an asset-based approach for assessing the poverty impacts of value chain development at the level of both smallholder households and the enterprises that link these farmers with processors and buyers downstream the value chain. The data will be obtained through, for example, key informant interviews, household surveys and analysis of secondary information.

To take into consideration gender in this methodology, Bioversity International and the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) are developing 5Capitals-G, which will be piloted mid-2016 in India, Guatemala and Peru.

5Capitals-G assessment methodology.
5Capitals assessment methodology

5Capitals-G looks at the poverty levels of both smallholder households and enterprises, collecting data from both women and men. Researchers assess household and business assets, as described in this table from the 5Capitals handbook.

The training was held in Karnataka, where students from the College of Forestry in Sirsi will be testing the 5Capitals-G tool to study the value chains of three forest fruit species: Garcinia indica (kokum), Mangifera indica (mango), and Garcinia gummi-gutta (brindleberry).

The workshop laid out the conceptual foundation of an asset-based approach to value chain development and the importance of applying a gender lens to identify the access to and control over assets. Access and control differ between women and men.

The participants pre-tested the different elements of the tool for final refinement, visiting the farmers’ cooperative society Kadamba in Sirsi, which has more than 2,000 members from across Karnataka. For many of the participating students, this was a first experience in conducting key informant, household and enterprise interviews.

They interviewed the CEO and several female and male employees and learned that the cooperative provides diverse income-earning opportunities by purchasing close to 30 agricultural and forest products cultivated or collected by their members. One of the products the cooperative buys is kokum, which they process into fresh juices and powered juice crystals.

Leaders of three Village Forest Committees explained how they manage sustainability issues linked with the collection and commercialization of forest products.

For the household assessments, participants asked women and men smallholders in their homes to understand their experiences with marketing kokum and the ways their involvement in the kokum value chain ties in with the many other activities they pursue to make a living.

Conducting interviews according to 5Capitals-G training. Photo: Bioversity International
Conducting interviews according to 5Capitals-G training. Photo: Bioversity International

Participants grouped into mixed teams of men and women interviewers to first interview the male and female households jointly. Then the women interviewers continued with the female respondents and the male interviewers with the male respondents to appreciate differences in the perspectives and realities of women and men. Some of them were surprised to learn how a man and a woman of the same household may differ in their perception of who makes decisions on what.

The main takeaways from the workshop were:

  • It is critical to account for diverse and even conflicting views and needs of women and men in both the households and smallholder enterprises.
  • The design and monitoring of value chain interventions requires specific engagement with men and women to ensure that both benefit form value chain development in an equitable way.

Shambhavi Priyam, a young researcher working with Action for Social Advancement in Madhya Pradesh, reflected that “it was amazing to see the nitty-gritties which have to be considered when designing a tool with gender consideration. There is no ‘one size fits all’ system for social research”.

The introduction of young researchers in India and elsewhere to the concepts of gender-responsive research in relation to value chain development will allow them to increase the depth of their work and their capacity to develop gender-equitable solutions for eliminating poverty.

This blog draws on the experience of

  • Dietmar Stoian, Principal Scientist, Value Chains and Private Sector Engagement,
  • Gennifer Meldrum, Research Fellow, Nutrition and Marketing Diversity
  • Marlène Elias, Gender Specialist, Conservation and Management of Forest Genetic Resources

The training was implemented as part of the project ‘Innovations in Ecosystem Management and Conservation (IEMaC)’ with support from the CGIAR Research Program on Policies, Institutions and Markets (PIM). The IEMaC project is funded by the InFoRM (Innovations in Forest Resource Management) program of USAID, which aims to reduce forest degradation in India, with co-funding from the CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry (FTA). Participants in the workshop also included partners of the project ‘Linking agrobiodiversity value chains, climate adaptation and nutrition: Empowering the poor to manage risk’ that is supported by IFAD, the European Union and the CGIAR Research Program of Climate Change Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) promoting value chain development of minor millets.

 

 

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