- Bioko Island, a biodiversity hotspot and part of Equatorial Guinea, is home to seven primate species and others like duikers, which are sold in local markets catering to the urban rich.
- A recent study, part of the longest wild meat market study in the world, investigates the drivers of the trade on the island and tracks how it has changed over the last 30 years amid economic downturns, conservation actions and public health concerns.
- The study found that public health messaging and on-the-ground conservation interventions such as patrolling and monitoring help create a dent in the trade, but that a lack of law enforcement drives up the trade.
- Conservationists say the study’s findings can help decision-makers understand how socioeconomic factors and shifting demographics impact both demand and wild meat supply.
The volcanic island of Bioko, about 160 kilometers, or 100 miles, northwest of mainland Equatorial Guinea, is carpeted in lush green tropical rainforest. This forest is home to many endemic animals, including Bioko drill monkeys (Mandrillus leucophaeus poensis), listed as endangered, and black colobus monkeys (Colobus satanas satanas), critically endangered. Interspersed in the landscape are patches of croplands and cacao and coffee plantations that cater to the expanding human presence on the island, most of it concentrated in the north, where Equatorial Guinea’s bustling capital, Malabo, lies.
Unlike many parts of Central and West Africa, deforestation poses less of a threat to the rainforest of Bioko. But the thriving wild meat trade, which includes the endemic primates, has conservationists on edge.
“The bushmeat [consumption] on Bioko is clearly unsustainable because, as an island, there are several species that are classified as endemic,” says Maximiliano Fero, research director at the National University of Equatorial Guinea in Malabo. “Since the oil boom on Bioko Island that started in 1994, there are people moving to this place, both from mainland Equatorial Guinea and foreign countries, and have developed a taste for bushmeat.”
That taste has created niche markets that serve the urban rich in Malabo, some who believe wild meat tastes better and is more nutritious than store-bought meat; many see it as a delicacy and vanity.
A recent study published in the journal PLOS Sustainability and Transformation by a team of international researchers, including Fero, investigates the drivers behind the wild meat trade in Bioko and how it has responded to economic downturns, conservation actions and public health concerns over the last 30 years.
Bioko is a “laboratory for understanding wild meat market dynamics,” says lead author Katy Gonder from Texas A&M University in the U.S. She cites the island’s rich, endemic biodiversity, its rising wealth from oil exploitation, and urban demand for wild meat.
“It is a system where we can understand the luxury wild meat trade,” Gonder adds.
As part of the longest-running wild meat study, researchers have surveyed the Semu wild meat market, the largest on Bioko, every day since 1997, collecting data on the carcasses sold, including the species, age, sex, origin and price. As the island’s population has grown, other wild meat markets have sprung up around Malabo in recent years. Data from three such secondary markets have been added to the survey data set since 2018.
For this study, researchers analyzed the wild meat market survey data from October 1997 to March 2021 to understand how key events in Equatorial Guinea have impacted the trade. These events included the 2002 Biodiversity Roundtable, which presented a conservation strategy for Bioko; the 2007 ban on primate hunting in the country; the 2009 economic crisis following the 2008 global oil price slump; and public health emergencies such as the outbreaks of Ebola and COVID-19. The study also assessed how conservation actions, such as regular monitoring and sustainable livelihood programs for local communities in Bioko, have influenced the wild meat trade.
“In order to understand the present, you have to know the past quite well,” says Demetrio Bocuma Meñe, who has studied the wild meat trade in Equatorial Guinea in the past but wasn’t involved in this study. “This type of study provides you with the tools to make informed decisions regarding wildlife management.”
Changing trends in the wild meat trade
Over the course of 23 years, researchers recorded close to 660,000 carcasses from 33 species in the Semu market. More than a quarter of the carcasses were of Emin’s pouched rat (Cricetomys emini), a common species across Central and West Africa, followed by blue duiker (Philantomba monticola), a widespread deer species. They found nearly 39,000 carcasses belonging to 28 species in the secondary markets.
When the study began, most of the wild meat sold on Bioko, mostly primates and duikers, were sourced from within the island, Gonder says. However, that changed over time, spiking between 2014 and early 2020, when more animals were shipped from the mainland to Bioko. “As movement between mainland Africa and the island improved, we saw a big shift … carcasses started coming in from the mainland, especially as people started coming in,” Gonder says.
Rodents like pouched rats and small mammals like brush-tailed porcupines (Atherurus africanus), African palm civets (Nandinia binotata) and endangered tree pangolins (Phataginus tricuspis) were the most imported animals from the mainland.
Primates such as drill and colobus monkeys, which fetch the highest prices, saw a decline in the sale of carcasses during the 2009 economic crisis because fewer people could afford them. A similar trend was observed with duikers. People switched to cheaper but plentiful rodent meat from the mainland, which dramatically increased the number of their carcasses in the market. But soon after the crisis, as foreign investment in the country went up and the economy recovered, researchers noticed an expansion of the wild meat trade, with many more carcasses arriving from the mainland.
Interestingly, policy interventions without enforcement did little to bring down the trade. Sales in primate carcasses shot up by 275% following the 2002 Biodiversity Roundtable. The 2007 nationwide primate ban was followed by a small decline in sales immediately after the announcement, before a dramatic increase that surpassed pre-ban levels by more than 50%. Without enforcement of the ban, Gonder says, people began indiscriminately hunting primates as long as they could, driving up the number of carcasses seen in the markets.
Conservation actions in the early 2010s by the Bioko Biodiversity Protection Program (BBPP) and Equatorial Guinea’s protected areas management authority, INDEFOR-AP, in Gran Caldera Scientific Reserve were successful in bringing down the wild meat trade. Continued monitoring and increased patrolling meant hunting for wild meat was a challenge, which saw primate and duiker sales drop. “We had boots on the ground surveying the area, and as a result of that, we were able to document a decline in rates,” Gonder says.
Public health emergencies influenced wild meat demand negatively as health concerns associated with its consumption gained traction in the media. This was observed during the 2014 Ebola outbreak and the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic. This finding is “really good evidence” to show that public health messaging is effective, Gonder says, adding that it’s “perhaps the most effective way to discourage urban wild meat consumption.”
Stronger enforcement and livelihood alternatives disrupt trade
The findings show that conservation interventions such as increased monitoring and patrolling can make a dent in the wild meat trade. While urban demand remains a big driver, increasing road construction and lax enforcement have given hunters increased access to wildlife, allowing them to openly hunt endemic and protected species without consequences, Fero says. “There is a very low environmental consciousness in general, on the island and in the country as a whole,” he says.
Providing livelihood alternatives to local communities is key to making any conservation intervention successful, Bocuma says. “If you don’t have any alternatives for them, what’s going to happen is … you start having a black market,” he says, adding that’s what happened after the 2007 primate hunting ban. “If there is no control in terms of what’s going on in that black market, eventually they’re going to go back to normal [levels of trade].”
Gonder says the funding needed to build the necessary infrastructure for these interventions is hard to come by in the country. “Conservation is very poorly funded in general, and especially so in Equatorial Guinea,” she says.
There also needs to be a cultural shift about consuming wild meat responsibly among people, Fero says, adding that awareness campaigns about the conservation impacts of the trade can help.
“The best path forward in Equatorial Guinea has to be a multipronged approach,” Gonder says, “but central to that approach needs to be the involvement of local people because they are the champions for their protected areas … it’s their land, their wildlife and their natural heritage.”
Banner image: The Bioko Drill (Mandrillus leucophaeus poensis), an endangered primate endemic to Bioko Island, Equatorial Guinea, is highly valued for its taste, making it the most expensive wild meat on the market. Image by Ian Nichols.
Citation:
Mitchell, D. V., Woloszynek, S., Mitchell, M. W., Cronin, D. T., Zhao, Z., Rosen, G. R., … Gonder, M. K. (2024). Growth and globalization of the Central African wildlife economy: Insights from a 23-year study of wild meat markets on Bioko Island, Equatorial Guinea. PLOS Sustainability and Transformation, 3(11), e0000139. doi:10.1371/journal.pstr.0000139
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