how profitable commercial hunting threatens the future of wildlife

While African wildlife has declined precipitously over the past fifty years, more than six million tonnes of game are still hunted each year in the forests of the Congo River basin. Elephants, crocodiles, pangolins, gorillas, chimpanzees, bonobos, okapis, antelopes, leopards are threatened with extinction because of increasingly intense human activities due to the increase in the population (100 million inhabitants, two times more by 2050).

In this jungle shared between six Central African countries (Cameroon, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, Central African Republic, Republic of Congo and Democratic Republic of Congo), bush meat is traditionally reserved for the subsistence of indigenous populations. But as it becomes rarer, its cost increases.

This hunting becomes a lucrative market now supplying more of the big cities – where game can be sold more expensively. In Brazzaville or Kinshasa, demand encourages poachers to intensify their captures without respecting reproduction periods or the rules for the sustainability of species. This commercial hunting also fuels international trafficking, particularly towards Europe.