Predicting behaviour change by urban bushmeat trade actors in Central Africa under different potential futures

The urban bushmeat trade in Central Africa is an activity carried out mostly illegally within the informal sector and provides an income for thousands of people. The trade is estimated to be worth hundreds of millions of dollars but also raises concerns since bushmeat is a source of emerging infectious diseases and a cause of decline for many threatened species. Addressing these issues through appropriate interventions is therefore of vital importance. To make meaningful predictions about the ways in which future interventions and exogenous factors could influence the behaviour of bushmeat trade actors, we conducted scenario-based interviews with bushmeat vendors in urban markets in two of the main bushmeat trading cities in Central Africa – Yaoundé in Cameroon and Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. We found that three of the five scenarios – successful demand-reduction campaign, improved enforcement, and providing livelihood or enterprise training – could encourage market vendors to stop selling protected species or leave the trade altogether. Reasons given for the willingness to change included the increased risk of being arrested or a significant drop in the level of profit. On the other hand, our exogenous scenario – the increased cost of domestic meat – could make bushmeat more competitively priced and encourage more consumption. We recommend tightening control of bushmeat supply to urban markets, reducing urban demand and providing appropriate training to encourage market vendors to leave the trade. We also recommend supporting local producers of alternative proteins to increase the supply of viable alternatives at a competitive price.