Abstract
AbstractAlthough overhunting is amongst the main threats to biodiversity, wild meat is culturally and nutritionally important for many communities. Conservation initiatives should therefore address the drivers of hunting, rather than its practice alone. Here we gathered information from structured interviews with 68 local households to assess the drivers of hunting in a highly threatened Amazonian savannah complex, the Cerrado of Amapá in Brazil. We used regression models to evaluate the influence of socio-economic parameters and spatial variables on hunting prevalence and frequency. The only identified driver of hunting prevalence was forest cover, whereas five variables had significant effects on hunting frequency. The positive effect of forest cover and the negative effect of hunter's age on hunting frequency suggest that logistical and physical feasibility are important drivers of hunting frequency. Furthermore, we suggest that the negative effect of distance to urban centres may be related to the profitability of hunting. We base this on the negative effect of river length in the vicinity of households and per capita monthly income on hunting frequency, which corroborates the tendency of hunting frequency to decrease when alternatives to wild meat are more readily available. We argue that to reduce unsustainable hunting it is necessary both to raise awareness amongst local communities and involve them in the creation of management plans that conserve biodiversity and meet economic and social needs.
Highlights
Overexploitation of natural resources and expansion of agriculture are the main threats to biodiversity (Maxwell et al, )
The optimal quasi-generalized linear model selected to explain the drivers of hunting prevalence included only forest cover, which had a positive effect on the proportion of households with hunters (t = . ; P = . ; Fig. a)
Hunting frequency decreased with increasing river length (Fig. c), distance to the nearest urban centre (Fig. d), log per capita monthly income (Fig. e), and hunter’s age (Fig. f)
Summary
Overexploitation of natural resources and expansion of agriculture are the main threats to biodiversity (Maxwell et al, ). Hunting is an important driver of Received June. The growing global biodiversity crisis (Ripple et al, ): in the tropics, densities of mammal populations, which are the primary targets, have declined by a mean of % in areas subject to hunting (Benítez-López et al, ). The conservation of game species relies on the quantification of hunting intensity and on the understanding of its drivers (Torres et al, ). There are several determinants of hunting pressure in a region, including cultural background (Fa et al, ) and factors related to food security and subsistence of communities (Brashares et al, ; Damania et al, ). Hunting is limited by prey availability (Fa et al, , )
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