Tackling Wildlife Consumption in Urban Tropical Africa

在拥有地球上生物多样性最丰富的生态系统的热带地区，人们食用2000多种野生动物的肉（被称为“野肉”）。在许多农村地区，生活在野生动物附近的人们依靠狩猎野生动物作为食物、收入和文化认同的重要来源。虽然狩猎对农村地方社区很重要，但不可持续的狩猎水平，即过度开发，是全球野生动物减少和灭绝的主要原因之一，并可能严重影响农村粮食安全和生计。生活在城市地区的人们对野生动物的需求是过度开发的主要驱动因素之一，也是一个新兴的保护问题。在人口稠密的城市地区，野生动物的销售和消费也是一个公共卫生问题，因为近四分之三的新发传染病来自野生动物。因此，减少城市地区野生动物的消费和销售对于解决野生动物损失和减少疾病传播的风险至关重要，但为此采取的干预措施极为有限。由于野生动物在饮食、生活和生计中扮演着不同的角色，野生动物消费者的消费行为也各不相同。然而，影响城市消费者野生肉类消费的因素尚未得到很好的分类或理解，但对于有效干预措施的设计至关重要。此外，公众对环境和健康的态度在为有效干预和决策创造有利环境方面发挥着重要作用，但公众对野生动物消费的态度仍不清楚。为了解决这些巨大的知识差距，我提出了一个新的研究计划，该计划整合了几个学科，以调查公众对野生动物消费的态度，确定野生动物消费模式和影响城市野生动物消费者决策的因素，并确定热带非洲国家的优先干预领域。首先，我将使用自动手机调查，在三个面对面调查非常具有挑战性的非洲国家调查公众对野生动物消费，健康和环境的态度和价值取向。其次，通过结合面对面的饮食摄入调查、选择实验、专门的提问技术和食品建立地图，我将确定支撑城市野生动物消费的因素，并确定几个西非和中非重点城镇野生动物消费者的概况。第三，利用本研究中收集的数据，我将开发和测试可能的干预措施的现实场景，以减少野生动物的消费（例如，市场禁令，获取替代食物来源，行为改变运动），通过建立一个虚拟实验室，模拟城市野生动物消费者的行为，社会网络，以及他们当地的食物环境。最后，利用关于城市市场销售和野生肉类消费的最新研究数据库，我将根据食用野生肉类对人类健康的积极和消极健康影响，确定优先干预的城市地区。西非和中非之所以被选为研究地区，是因为野生肉类消费普遍，粮食不安全问题严重，而且撒哈拉以南非洲地区快速城市化的人口预计到2050年将增加一倍。同时，对动物源食品的需求正在增加，因此，城市对野生动物的不可持续需求对物种生存构成直接威胁。通过确定野生动物消费的驱动因素，并测试管理方案，可以采取适当行动减少城市野生动物消费，从而保护数百万人赖以生存的野生动物和生态系统。

Across the tropics, which contain the most biodiverse ecosystems on Earth, the meat of more than 2000 species of wild animal are consumed (known as 'wildmeat'). In many rural areas, people living close to wildlife rely on hunting wild animals as an essential source of food, income, and sometimes cultural identity. Whilst hunting can be important for rural local communities, unsustainable levels of hunting, i.e., overexploitation, is one of the leading causes of wildlife decline and extinction worldwide, and can significantly impact rural food security and livelihoods. Demand for wildmeat by people living in urban areas is one of the main drivers of overexploitation, and is an emerging conservation concern. In densely populated urban areas, the sale and consumption of wildlife is also a public health concern given that nearly three-quarters of emerging infectious diseases originate from wildlife. Reducing the consumption and sale of wildmeat in urban areas is therefore vital to tackle wildlife loss, and reduce the risk of disease spread, yet interventions to do this have been extremely limited. Wildmeat consumers differ in their consumption behaviours given the diversity of roles that wildmeat plays in diets, lives, and livelihoods. However, the factors that shape wildmeat consumption by urban consumers are not well categorised or understood, yet are critical to inform the design of effective interventions. Furthermore, the attitudes of the general public towards the environment and health play an important role in the enabling environment for effective interventions and policy-making, yet attitudes in relation to wildmeat consumption remain unknown. To address these vast knowledge gaps, I propose a novel research plan that integrates several disciplines to investigate public attitudes towards wildlife consumption, determine wildlife consumption patterns and what shapes decision-making by urban wildmeat consumers, and identify priority areas for intervention in tropical African countries. Firstly, I will investigate the attitudes and value orientations of the general public towards wildmeat consumption, health, and the environment in three African countries where face-to-face surveys are very challenging, using automated mobile phone surveys. Secondly, by combining face-to-face dietary intake surveys, choice-experiments, specialised questioning techniques, and food establishment mapping, I will identify the factors that underpin urban wildmeat consumption and determine the profiles of wildmeat consumers in several focal West and Central African towns and cities. Thirdly, using the data collected in this study, I will develop and test realistic scenarios of possible interventions to reduce wildmeat consumption (e.g., market bans, access to alternative sources of food, behaviour change campaigns), for the first time, through building a virtual laboratory that simulates urban wildmeat consumer behaviours, social networks, and their local food environment. Finally, using a newly available database of past research on urban market sales and consumption of wildmeat, I will identify priority urban areas for intervention based on positive and negative health implications of consuming wildmeat on human health. West and Central Africa was chosen as the study region because wildmeat consumption is known to be prevalent, food insecurity known to be high, and the rapidly urbanising population in sub-Saharan Africa is predicted to double in size by 2050. Simultaneously, demand for animal source foods is increasing, therefore unsustainable urban demand for wildlife poses a direct threat to species survival. By identifying the drivers underpinning wildmeat consumption, and testing management scenarios, appropriate actions can be taken to reduce urban wildmeat consumption, and consequently protect wildlife and the ecosystems that millions of people rely on.