Community Forestry Note 13:
WHAT ABOUT THE WILD ANIMALS? Wild animal species in community forestry in the tropics
by Kent H. Redford, Robert Godshalk and Kiran Asher
Wild animals, from ants to elephants, represent a natural resource of great significance for most forest-dwelling communities, as well as for those living in many other rural contexts. In spite of this, most development projects ignore their role in subsistence as well as non-subsistence rural economies. The purpose of this Community Forestry Note is to fill the vacuum left by the fact that in community forestry, as well as in agroforestry and other development activities, the contribution of wildlife to rural livelihoods has been greatly undervalued. The intent is to raise wild animals to their rightful value in the community forestry development process, and to provide an input for designing projects in ways that better fit the reality of most rural people in the tropics.
Community forestry is more than tree planting and woodlots for fuelwood. It is time for community forestry and other development professionals to consider the significance of wildlife as another natural resource, both from the point of view of nutrition (mostly meat) and that of income generation, and to include wildlife among the resources which need to be managed sustainably for the benefit of local communities. By improving wildlife management and integrating it into development programmes, community forestry is better able to fulfil the dual objectives of improving the well-being of communities while simultaneously helping to preserve the diversity of the natural world.
Dr. Kent Redford, who recently moved from the Department of Wildlife and Range Sciences of the University of Florida, where he was director of the Program for Studies in Tropical Conservation, to an important U.S.-based NGO called The Nature Conservancy, has had extensive research experience in this field. Dr. Redford has concentrated his work mainly on Latin America, where he has studied the subsistence and commercial use of wild animals by both indigenous groups and other rural populations. In this study, in addition to giving the conceptual background, he has prepared a list of examples of both indigenous and acquired wildlife management practices from throughout the developing world. These can serve as a starting point for professionals interested in deepening their knowledge of this activity within the context of their own region.
This study is part of the Community Forestry Note series, which is a compilation of concept papers that seeks to develop understanding of the major issues in community forestry. The publication of this Note was funded by the multidonor trust fund that finances the Forests, Trees and People Programme (FTPP), which is devoted to increasing rural women's and men's livelihoods through sustainable self-help management of tree and forest resources. Within the FAO Forestry Department, FTPP is coordinated by Marilyn W. Hoskins, Senior Community Forestry Officer, Forestry Policy and Planning Division.
Community forestry aims to assist local people to improve their livelihoods by successfully managing their natural resources, particularly trees and forests, through forestry-related projects. Wildlife plays an important role in the lives of many of the people targeted by these projects.
Animals are everywhere, and everywhere they are valued by humans for a wide variety of reasons. Because animals are most frequently valued by humans for their meat, this study chiefly examines the use and management of wildlife species for food, and primarily for subsistence (which can also include limited barter or sale of the meat). Wild animals are also used for other products vital for subsistence, such as clothing, tools, medicine and material for handicrafts and art. Many of these animal products have acquired commercial value in local, national, and international markets. Game meat, including insects, is sold in many local markets. Some animal products, like elephant ivory, musk from musk deer and rhino horn, have been so valuable that their quest has shaped human history.
Wild animal species have other values that are non-consumptive in nature. These include religious and spiritual values, values due to the willingness of tourists to pay to see them, biotic function values, and ecological values in the equilibrium of their habitats. Though usually valued positively, some animals have negative values, such as the locust swarms of Africa and Asia. Sometimes the value placed on a certain animal species varies according to context, as in the case of the highly valued elephants of East Africa which become dangerous threats when crop raiding.
Just as animals are vital components of the forest ecosystem, so they are also indispensable elements of subsistence and non-subsistence economies. The fact that this aspect has been poorly studied and its importance poorly appreciated is a result of several factors, such as the distaste in many Western cultures for the aesthetics of hunting, or the common developed-world conviction that subsistence hunting is evidence of "underdevelopment."
The tremendous growth of human populations during the last 200 years has brought great changes in the ways people use wildlife. New technologies have dramatically altered traditional practices. Firearms are the most obvious example of such change, but even technologies such as the use of outboard motors, flashlights and headlamps have mitigated spatial and temporal constraints, allowing exploitation of riverine and nocturnal animals that previously were rarely harvested. Consequently, wild animals are becoming rare in many areas where they were plentiful in the recent past. This loss affects not only the animals but also the ability of people to live in these areas.
Besides the change in hunting practices, the global expansion of human activities during the twentieth century has taken an enormous toll on the wildlife populations upon which forest dwellers and rural farming communities depend. Major habitat alterations due to logging, mining, agriculture, pasture development, road construction and urbanization have steadily reduced the area suitable for many animal species. Changes in land use, such as demarcation of land for the use of tourists, have made many traditional food sources illegal for the hunters.
Community forestry, with its many past successes in ensuring that forests remain relevant to local communities, is a proven avenue for assisting rural populations to maintain and improve human interaction with nature. The challenge before community forestry planners and practitioners is to integrate modern expertise with the collective wisdom of local communities. Wildlife can be practically and profitably incorporated into projects when supported by appropriate policies to ensure the numerous uses of wild animals, as well as their very existence, are conserved and improved.
Where communities cannot afford to preserve their wildlife for its intrinsic ecological functions alone, the successful incorporation of wildlife into productive local enterprises may be an avenue to help achieve conservation goals with little need to modify land use patterns. At one extreme, in regions where the landscape is heavily settled, smaller species of animals such as rodents, reptiles and insects may be managed for human use in sacred groves, along riverine forests and in small woodlots. At the other extreme, where local people have rights to very large areas of relatively intact forest, management could focus on all types of animals up to large species of interest to tourists, such as okapi, large macaws or jaguars.
When local inhabitants are included in the decision-making process and given the responsibility for and the benefits from the sustainable management of local wildlife, projects are more likely to be assured of success and the resource is more likely to be protected. This emerges clearly in several of the cases presented in Chapter 5.
This document does not seek to make foresters or extensionists experts on wildlife. Rather, it seeks to raise issues and expand professional thinking on benefits from learning more about wildlife from local people. Community forestry is more than tree planting and woodlots for fuelwood. The professional, researcher or planner is someone who should support the local community in its efforts to enhance its resource base. By improving wildlife management and integrating it into development programmes, community forestry is better able to fulfil its dual purpose of improving the well-being of communities while simultaneously helping to preserve the diversity of the natural world. The study therefore tries to: (1) provide a framework for community forestry professionals to consider ways to integrate wild animal species into projects they manage or are proposing; (2) document ways in which humans interact with wild animal species in tropical settings; (3) provide a review of ways in which humans have managed animal species; and (4) propose ways that wild animal species could be successfully integrated into community forestry projects in the tropics.
The text is structured in the following manner: Chapter 1 investigates the biogeographical and ecological factors that influence the use of wildlife. Chapter 2 discusses the various socio-cultural values of wild animals, including the role of gender and the role of market forces in their management and harvest. Chapter 3 considers the effect of various property regimes and ownership issues, differentiating between the use and management of wildlife and paying particular attention to the concept of sustainability. Chapter 4 is designed to provide some guidelines to help project planners decide which types of animals might be appropriate for inclusion in community forestry projects. Chapter 5 provides a series of brief cases of innovative wildlife use and management in three geographical regions - Africa, Latin America and the Southeast Asian and Pacific region. Chapter 6 contains the summary and conclusions.
In a recent review of 10 years of work in the field of community forestry, Arnold (1992) points out that community forestry originally comprised three main elements:
Community forestry was meant to include numerous linkages between people and the whole range of tree and forests outputs, but in practice most projects limited themselves to a focus on trees, especially tree planting. In this decade of work in community forestry, although wild animals were not excluded in the definition, the attention they received was minimal as was research on ways to incorporate them in rural development activities. In the field of forestry, the "forest" has traditionally been viewed as a cohabiting set of plants, mainly trees, with "trees and tree products" as virtually the sole focus.
The purpose of this paper is to fill the vacuum left by the fact that in community forestry, as well as in agroforestry and other development activities, the contribution of wildlife to rural livelihoods has been greatly undervalued. The intent is to raise wild animals to their rightful value in the community forestry development process and, to provide an input for designing projects in ways that better fit the reality of most of the people dwelling in rural areas in the tropics. Integration of human interaction with wild animal species has the potential, where appropriate, to improve ongoing projects and increase the chances of success for new projects.
All around the world there has been a gradually developing awareness of the existence of intricate, interdependent associations between forests and the wildlife they harbour, and between these and human populations. Animals are vital components of the forest ecosystem, and they are also indispensable elements of subsistence and non-subsistence economies. The fact that they have been poorly studied and their importance has remained poorly appreciated is a result of several factors, some of which are:
Community forestry, with its many past successes in ensuring that forests remain relevant to local communities, is a proven avenue for assisting rural populations to maintain and improve human interaction with nature. Hence the aims of community forestry encompass both improving the well-being of forest-dependent communities and simultaneously preserving the diversity of the natural world.
This paper was written to stimulate development professionals to rethink community forestry and agroforestry initiatives and the possibilities for incorporating wildlife in effective ways.
More than just residing passively in a forest, all wildlife is intimately involved with creating and maintaining the forest environment. Animals fulfil vital ecological roles: these include pollination (birds, bats, bees and other insects); decomposition (vultures, dung beetles, earthworms and other insects); seed dispersal (birds, monkeys, rodents, fish, ants); seed predation (rodents, birds, beetles); herbivory, or plant-eating (insects, mammals); and predation, or hunting of other animals (insects, mammals, reptiles, birds). Through these roles, animals influence such forest characteristics as composition and structure of vegetation. They also influence the reproductive success of plants, contribute to soil fertility and serve as regulators of pest populations.
Of the direct benefits to humanity, food is perhaps the most important contribution wild animals make. This "subsidy from nature" in the form of wildlife remains vital to the survival of many rural dwellers and forest-dependent people. For example, various indigenous hunting groups sharply distinguish being "hungry" from being "meat hungry." Wildlife provides a major part of the animal protein in the diets of rural people in a great many developing countries. A study of over 60 countries shows that game and fish contribute 20 percent or more of the animal protein in the average human diet (Prescott-Allen, 1982), and that percentage is much higher among rural and poorer parts of these countries' populations. Detailed studies are few, but Aisbey (1974) estimated that 75 percent of sub-Saharan Africa depends largely on traditional wildlife sources of protein. In Botswana, in spite of very large-scale cattle production, people still obtain about 80 percent of their meat from wild game sources (von Richter, 1979). In Zaire, 75 percent of the protein comes from wild sources (Sale, 1981). Substantial numbers of inhabitants in Latin America also depend on wild caught animal protein. Fish and game comprise 85 percent of the animal protein consumed by people in the Ucayali region of eastern Peru (de Vos, 1977).
Many societies have developed complex, integrated wildlife resource use and management strategies. These are the culmination of long processes of cultural development founded on observation, experience and experimentation. Examples of effective traditional hunting techniques developed in this way include the use of bow and arrow, blowpipes and pitfall traps. Besides supplying food, wild animals have provided direct support to humans through other types of consumptive uses. These include, but are not limited to, the use of wildlife for:
In addition to their various nutritional and consumptive uses, wild animals have been valued throughout history for other important reasons. Wild animals have been central to religious customs, mythology and folklore. These symbolic or socio-cultural values of wildlife remain important today in nearly all communities worldwide.
Until very recently, none of these various uses of forest animals have been included in calculations of "forest value," nor have they featured in lists of benefits from the forest, nor even been acknowledged as relevant to most community forestry schemes (Peters et al., 1989).
The tremendous expansion of human populations during the last 200 years has brought great changes in the ways people use wildlife. New technologies have dramatically altered traditional practices. Firearms are the most obvious example of such change, but even technologies such as use of outboard motors, flashlights and headlamps have mitigated spatial and temporal constraints, allowing exploitation of riverine and nocturnal animals that previously were rarely harvested. Consequently, wild animals are becoming rare in many areas forest areas. This loss affects not only the animals but also the ability of people to live there.
The global expansion of human activities during the twentieth century has taken an enormous toll on the wildlife populations upon which forest dwellers and rural farming communities depend. Major habitat alterations due to logging, mining, agriculture, pasture development, road construction and urbanization have steadily reduced the area suitable for many of the favoured animal species. Changes in land use, such as demarcation of land for the use of tourists, have made many traditional food sources illegal for the hunters. These changes in land use and tenure have also affected and diminished territorial holdings under traditional management systems.
Colonization schemes in some tropical countries increase pressure on wildlife populations by increasing the number of hunters. New immigrants rarely observe local hunting customs regarding food or species taboos, hunting seasons or protected areas, most of which are aimed at managing wildlife resources sustainably. As deforestation progresses, even less habitat is available for wildlife as well as for forest dwellers.
The challenge before community forestry planners and practitioners is to integrate modern expertise with the collective wisdom of local communities. Wildlife can be practically and profitably incorporated into projects when supported by appropriate policies to ensure the numerous uses of wild animals, as well as their very existence, are conserved and improved.
This document does not seek to make foresters or extensionists experts on wildlife, but it does seek to raise issues and expand professional thinking on benefits from learning more about wildlife from local people. Community forestry is more than tree planting and woodlots for fuelwood. The professional, researcher or planner is someone who should support the local community in its efforts to enhance its resource base. By improving wildlife management and integrating it into development programmes, community forestry is better able to fulfil its dual purpose of improving the well-being of communities while simultaneously helping to preserve the diversity of the natural world.
It is therefore this paper's intent to: 1) provide a framework for community forestry professionals to consider ways to integrate wild animal species into projects they manage or are proposing; 2) document ways in which humans interact with wild animal species in tropical settings; 3) provide a review of ways in which humans have managed animal species; and 4) propose ways that wild animal species could be successfully integrated into community forestry projects in the tropics.
The paper is structured in the following manner.
Chapter 1 investigates the biogeographical and ecological factors that influence the use of wild animals.
Chapter 2 discusses the various socio-cultural values of wildlife, including the role of gender in relation to the participation and contribution of local women. It also briefly examines the role of market forces in the management and harvest of wild animals.
Chapter 3 considers the effect of various property regimes and ownership issues in relation to the use of fauna and differentiates between the use and management of wildlife, paying particular attention to the concept of sustainability.
Chapter 4 is designed to provide some guidelines to help project planners decide which species are appropriate for inclusion in community forestry projects and discusses the variety of purposes for which humans can utilize wild animals species.
Chapter 5 is divided into three sections and provides practical examples of innovative wildlife use and management in three distinct geographical regions - Africa, Latin America and the Southeast Asian and Pacific region.
Chapter 6 provides an overview of the publication, the summary and conclusions.
This paper draws on available literature and will be expanded and fine-tuned as more literature becomes available. Here, wild animal species are defined as all non-domesticated animals. Most of the literature deals with terrestrial vertebrates (mammals, birds and reptiles) and so they are also the main focus of this paper. Available data on invertebrates (including insects) has also been incorporated, though without an extended discussion of bees and honey for which a great deal of literature already exists. More than for other groups of animals, however, the literature on invertebrate use consists primarily of lists of species consumed for food.
Fish are extremely important in providing food to local peoples. However, to a large extent, both the ecological questions and the literature pertaining to fish and aquatic systems are entirely different, and therefore they are not considered in depth here.
This paper deals mostly with the use and management of wildlife species for food, and primarily for subsistence. Throughout, when subsistence use of game is referred to, this means the consumption of meat or other animal products by the hunter and his relatives. In many cases, though, there is limited barter or sale of the meat within the community, and there are numerous cases of people who could be referred to as subsistence hunters but who do sell meat to a wider community. An effort has been made to point out these cases as they are mentioned.