The Role of Cultural and Economics in the Consumption of Bushmeat

Boston College, Chestnut Hill MA

Investigators

Abstract

Many residents of Central Africa's forested Congo Basin rely on the meat of wild animals as their primary source of dietary protein. As a result over one million metric tons of antelope, monkeys, apes, elephants, pigs and rodents are killed and eaten each year. As the human population is growing rapidly, the threat to forest animals is severe. This research studies the reasons why people eat bushmeat, testing the proposition that it is not invariably a deeply-rooted cultural preference, but is subject to price preferences. The researchers, including a human ecologist, a cultural anthropologist and an economist will collaborate with local researchers in a qualitative ethnographic study, household surveys of game consumption, and experiments designed to parse out the effect of culture and economics in consumption decisions. The research will provide the most detailed ethnographic account of cultural attitudes towards and preferences for bushmeat consumption in a tropical rain forest; will be the first to assess the response of bushmeat consumption to changes in economic variables; will combine surveys and experiments in an innovative methodology to estimate empirical variables, and will provide a better understanding of the likely effectiveness of market-based approaches to mitigating the adverse impact of bushmeat consumption. The empirical results will be valuable to conservationists and policy makers as well as contributing to the theoretical debate about the role of culture and economics in behavior.