Abstract
In August 2014, the United Nations health authority declared the Ebola epidemic centered on Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Guinea an “international public health emergency” (WHO 2014). By October, public commentaries were omnipresent in print and online, including several statements in the mass media by wildlife conservationists. Their comments raise a number of uncomfortable issues about the consumption and trade of bushmeat in the region and in Africa more broadly that merit unpacking and rebuttal. The Ebola epidemic should not, in our view, be used as a Trojan horse to achieve wildlife conservation ends. This is both because some of the proposed conservation measures are of questionable efficacy, and may even backfire, and because doing so raises unfortunate associations with the long history of an outdated discourse of conservation in Africa that favored wildlife over people.
Highlights
The most prominent conservation-oriented response was the argument that clamping down on the consumption of and trade in wild animals by Africans may be the key to preventing such epidemics (e.g., Williams 2014; Osofsky 2014; Young 2014)
The habitats of fruit bats in the vicinities of human settlements could be targeted for destruction, as so many square kilometers of African bush were once cleared to prevent the spread of sleeping sickness
This is not to argue that the consumption of bushmeat is not having a serious impact on the abundance of certain wildlife species in tropical regions (Milner-Gulland et al 2003)
Summary
The most prominent conservation-oriented response was the argument that clamping down on the consumption of and trade in wild animals (especially bats and primates) by Africans may be the key to preventing such epidemics (e.g., Williams 2014; Osofsky 2014; Young 2014). No Conservation Silver Lining to Ebola (not eating wild animals) on others from different cultural backgrounds and economic circumstances, not to mention valuing wild animals in Africa (should not be eaten) in a different way to valuing wild animals in the developed world, notably the United States and Europe (where they are widely eaten).
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