Paper short abstract:

Communities in the Deng Deng National Park - Belabo Forest Conservation corridor depend on hunting for food and income. For wildlife management, human use of, and reliance on, bushmeat must be understood so that locally appropriate mitigation strategies can be developed.

Paper long abstract:

Hunting is a common practice among people living in forest areas. Hunters catch from small size animals like rodents to large animals like the primates and ungulates. Diurnal primates are particularly vulnerable to over-exploitation as their reproductive rate is slower compared to rodents and ungulates. To reduce their rate of decline, human use of, and reliance on, bushmeat must be understood so that locally appropriate mitigation strategies can be developed. We tackled the social dimension of hunting by revealing why people hunt, the frequency of hunting, harvest composition, and the nature of human reliance. Questionnaires were administered to 83 hunters in 11 villages located in the Deng Deng National Park – Belabo Council Forest Conservation Corridor. Hunting was carried out in forest management units and in buffer zones with most of it done in buffer zones. Two main reasons were advanced for harvesting bushmeat; income generation and local consumption. A majority of the hunters hunted between 1-3 times in a month and will catch between 1-3 animals. The most caught small size animal was the squirrel and the large size animal was the monkey .Bushmeat was the principal source of animal protein consumed by the respondents. Annual income generated from the sale of bushmeat ranged between 25,000FCFA to 250,000FCFA, with a majority of the hunters generating between 25,000 – 100,000FCFA. Hunting is an important livelihood component for these communities. To reduce reliance on bushmeat harvesting the development of economic alternatives, and conservation education programmes should be given priority.