Investigating the risks of removing wild meat from global food systems

Abstract

Summary The COVID-19 pandemic has brought humanity’s strained relationship with nature into sharp focus, with calls for cessation of wild meat trade and consumption, to protect public health and biodiversity. 1 , 2 However, the importance of wild meat for human nutrition, and its tele-couplings to other food production systems, mean that the complete removal of wild meat from diets and markets would represent a shock to global food systems. 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 The negative consequences of this shock deserve consideration in policy responses to COVID-19. We demonstrate that the sudden policy-induced loss of wild meat from food systems could have negative consequences for people and nature. Loss of wild meat from diets could lead to food insecurity, due to reduced protein and nutrition, and/or drive land-use change to replace lost nutrients with animal agriculture, which could increase biodiversity loss and emerging infectious disease risk. We estimate the magnitude of these consequences for 83 countries, and qualitatively explore how prohibitions might play out in 10 case study places. Results indicate that risks are greatest for food-insecure developing nations, where feasible, sustainable, and socially desirable wild meat alternatives are limited. Some developed nations would also face shocks, and while high-capacity food systems could more easily adapt, certain places and people would be disproportionately impacted. We urge decision-makers to consider potential unintended consequences of policy-induced shocks amidst COVID-19; and take holistic approach to wildlife trade interventions, which acknowledge the interconnectivity of global food systems and nature, and include safeguards for vulnerable people.

Preparing international cooperation on pandemic prevention for the Anthropocene

“…10% of emerging zoonotic viruses (and an even smaller percent in international trade under CITES jurisdiction); efforts to replace wild meat protein through agricultural expansion and intensification may inadvertently increase environmental degradation, 33 and potentially the spillover risk of livestock-associated viruses with pandemic potential, like influenza; and substantial concern remains that wildlife trade bans will 'provide a cover for governments-and wider society-to say that action has been taken, without taking the action that is really needed'. 34 At the same time, prospects to mitigate the global changes driving future zoonotic risk-the 'action that is really needed'-are equally not reassuring.…”

Mammals, wildlife trade, and the next global pandemic

“…Such measures can minimize the socioeconomic impact on wildlife-dependent local communities and associated health risks from wildlife trade. 33,34 Even when bans are selectively enforced on zoonotic disease reservoir animal groups, such decisions, rather than preventing the risky trade, often drive the trade underground and encourage criminal activity due to their socioeconomic, livelihood, and food security impact. 33,34 For example, in the Brazilian Amazon alone, wild meat harvested by subsistence hunters provides an estimated $191 million in revenue, second only to timber as a forest product.…”

Think Before You Act: Improving the Conservation Outcomes of CITES Listing Decisions

“…Regulatory decisions are therefore interventions in these complex systems. Their impacts do not smoothly follow a simple cause-and-effect chain, based on a circumscribed set of parameters (Booth et al, 2021;and see Braverman, 2016). Understanding the likely conservation impacts of CITES decisions requires understanding how a regulatory change will affect the set of interacting dynamics that link this intervention to conservation of species on the ground.…”