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COVID-19, systemic crisis, and possible implications for the wild meat trade in sub-Saharan Africa
Wild animals play an integral and complex role in the economies and ecologies of many
countries across the globe, including those of West and Central Africa, the focus of this
policy perspective. The trade in wild meat, and its role in diets, have been brought into
focus as a consequence of discussions over the origins of COVID-19. As a result, there
have been calls for the closure of China’s “wet markets”; greater scrutiny of the wildlife
trade in general; and a spotlight has been placed on the potential risks posed by growing human populations and shrinking natural habitats for animal to human transmission of
zoonotic diseases. However, to date there has been little attention given to what the consequences of the COVID-19 economic shock may be for the wildlife trade; the people who
rely on it for their livelihoods; and the wildlife that is exploited. In this policy perspective,
we argue that the links between the COVID-19 pandemic, rural livelihoods and wildlife
are likely to be more complex, more nuanced, and more far-reaching, than is represented in
the literature to date. We develop a causal model that tracks the likely implications for the
wild meat trade of the systemic crisis triggered by COVID-19. We focus on the resulting
economic shockwave, as manifested in the collapse in global demand for commodities such
as oil, and international tourism services, and what this may mean for local African economies and livelihoods. We trace the shockwave through to the consequences for the use
of, and demand for, wild meats as households respond to these changes. We suggest that
understanding and predicting the complex dynamics of wild meat use requires increased
collaboration between environmental and resource economics and the ecological and conservation sciences
Diet-related buccal dental microwear patterns in central african pygmy foragers and bantu-speaking farmer and pastoralist populations.
Pygmy hunter-gatherers from Central Africa have shared a network of socioeconomic interactions with non-Pygmy Bantu speakers since agropastoral lifestyle spread across sub-Saharan Africa. Ethnographic studies have reported that their diets differ in consumption of both animal proteins and starch grains. Hunted meat and gathered plant foods, especially underground storage organs (USOs), are dietary staples for pygmies. However, scarce information exists about forager-farmer interaction and the agricultural products used by pygmies. Since the effects of dietary preferences on teeth in modern and past pygmies remain unknown, we explored dietary history through quantitative analysis of buccal microwear on cheek teeth in well-documented Baka pygmies. We then determined if microwear patterns differ among other Pygmy groups (Aka, Mbuti, and Babongo) and between Bantu-speaking farmer and pastoralist populations from past centuries. The buccal dental microwear patterns of Pygmy hunter-gatherers and non-Pygmy Bantu pastoralists show lower scratch densities, indicative of diets more intensively based on nonabrasive foodstuffs, compared with Bantu farmers, who consume larger amounts of grit from stoneground foods. The Baka pygmies showed microwear patterns similar to those of ancient Aka and Mbuti, suggesting that the mechanical properties of their preferred diets have not significantly changed through time. In contrast, Babongo pygmies showed scratch densities and lengths similar to those of the farmers, consistent with sociocultural contacts and genetic factors. Our findings support that buccal microwear patterns predict dietary habits independent of ecological conditions and reflect the abrasive properties of preferred or fallback foods such as USOs, which may have contributed to the dietary specializations of ancient human populations