Elsevier

Biological Conservation

Volume 6, Issue 1, January 1974, Pages 32-39
Biological Conservation

Wildlife as a source of protein in Africa South of the Sahara

https://doi.org/10.1016/0006-3207(74)90039-1Get rights and content

Abstract

The protein deficiency problems of Africa south of the Sahara are growing in seriousness with the increasing human population. Domestic livestock, on which very high hopes have hitherto been set, have continued to fail to meet existing demands, let alone to keep in step with increasing human population growth. There has been increasing exploitation of the meat of wild animals, whose management is ignored. This source of meat supplements domestic sources. The exploitation of wild animals, coupled with increasing pressure on the habitat of the animals, is exterminating most of the wild animal species involved. Advice that existing scientific knowledge on the management of wild animals must be applied to ensure their rational exploitation on a sustained-yield basis, has continued to be ignored— with the excuse that facts and figures are not available to justify investment in wildlife conservation that will ensure a sustained yield of the badly-needed animal protein. Every attempt must be made by those entrusted with the responsibility of wildlife conservation to bring together scattered information on the subject and, at the same time, begin to collect, systematically, statistical information on the utilization of wild animal meat as food—also to ensure that wildlife conservation receives the priority it deserves in the management of natural resources in Africa south of the Sahara. This is inevitable if wildlife conservation is to be able to meet the economic justification without which one nation after another will continue to give very low priority to wildlife conservation—to the detriment of the region—where malnutrition and poaching are serious realities as are also overgrazing, expansion of desert land, and human population explosion. Despite the fact that general experience indicates the need for concerted action, it appears that, in the absence of readily-available statistical data, which are supposed to be required by policy-makers and financiers, these people are not prepared to face their duty effectively to finance proper wildlife conservation and rational utilization of wildlife resources of Africa south of the Sahara.

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