By Sharar Kader
This Plain Language Summary is published in advance of the paper discussed. Please check back soon for a link to the full paper.
Wildlife hunting provides critical sources of income, nutrition, and cultural identity for many populations across the world. However, unsustainable levels of hunting are leading to severe and potentially irreversible environmental degradation while posing significant risks of animal disease transmission. High demand for wild meat in urban areas is often proposed as a threat to its sustainability, yet the underlying drivers of urban wild meat consumption remain largely unclear. As a result, conservation policy often operates in an evidence vacuum and relies heavily on enforcing restrictions on hunting activity, which are usually ineffective or inequitable for poorer households that are reliant on hunting.
This study focuses on Lao PDR, a country in the Indo-Burma biodiversity hotspot that is experiencing significant biodiversity loss, rapid urbanisation, and poor resourcing to manage conservation areas of global significance. I use nationally representative data collected by the Lao Statistics Bureau, to estimate the importance and drivers of wild meat consumption for urban households. I find that half of urban households in Lao PDR consume wild meat by buying it or hunting themselves. Households with moderate incomes that are less reliant on agriculture are more likely to buy wild meat, however, poorer farming households that remain isolated from markets are more likely to hunt for subsistence. Households that sell wild meat are likely in rural areas closer to wildlife availability.
In addition, I find evidence to suggest that targeting buyer-focused policies, such as targeted campaigns and stricter market regulation, are more effective in urban centres more than 60km from Protected Areas. In contrast, more equitable hunter-focused policies that distribute the costs of conservation, such as designing social safety nets and basic income programs, are more likely to be effective closer to Protected Areas. While it is imperative to reduce wild meat consumption to sustainable levels, it is equally important that it is pursued equitably to ensure that poorer populations dependent on natural resources do not pay the costs of conservation. Achieving pro-poor and pro-environment outcomes in this context likely requires bundles of conservation policies that simultaneously reduce urban wild meat demand and compensates poorer populations.
