Wild game in wild spaces

Wild animals have been hunted for their meat, hides and other body parts since prehistoric times. In the tropics hunting of wildlife serves to feed many families and is also a source of income. The overall consensus is that wildlife is imperilled by burgeoning human populations, technological advances, but moreso by the emergence of a booming commercial wild meat trade. In this talk, I will introduce the issues facing wildlife as food and people consuming it, and discuss ways in which socially-responsible science must find a way of solving what is probably the greatest challenge affecting tropical forests throughout the world. Although scientists can find elegant ways of generating equations of sustainability, there is the urgent need to work with those communities that use the resource to find practical ways of ensuring the wildlife remains at the service of people’s needs and of nature itself.