Motivations for the use and consumption of wildlife products

The dominant approach to combating the illegal wildlife trade has traditionally been to restrict the supply of wildlife products. Yet conservationists increasingly recognize the importance of implementing demand-side interventions that target the end consumers in the trade chain. Their aim is to curb the consumption of wildlife or shift consumption to more sustainable alternatives. However, there are still considerable knowledge gaps in understanding of the diversity of consumer motivations in the context of illegal wildlife trade, which includes hundreds of thousands of species, different uses, and diverse contexts. Based on consultation with multiple experts from a diversity of backgrounds, nationalities, and focal taxa, we developed a typology of common motivations held by wildlife consumers that can be used to inform conservation interventions. We identified 5 main motivational categories for wildlife use: experiential, social, functional, financial, and spiritual, each containing subcategories. This framework is intended to facilitate the segmentation of consumers based on psychographics and allow the tailoring of interventions—whether behavior change campaigns, enforcement efforts, or incentive programs—to the specific context in which they will be used. Underlining the importance of consumer research and collaborating with local actors is an important step toward promoting a more systematic approach to the design of demand reduction interventions.     

Estimating the extent and structure of trade in horticultural orchids via social media

The wildlife trade is a lucrative industry involving thousands of animal and plant species. The increasing use of the internet for both legal and illegal wildlife trade is well documented, but there is evidence that trade may be emerging on new online technologies such as social media. Using the orchid trade as a case study, we conducted the first systematic survey of wildlife trade on an international social‐media website. We focused on themed forums (groups), where people with similar interests can interact by uploading images or text (posts) that are visible to other group members. We used social‐network analysis to examine the ties between 150 of these orchid‐themed groups to determine the structure of the network. We found 4 communities of closely linked groups based around shared language. Most trade occurred in a community that consisted of English‐speaking and Southeast Asian groups. In addition to the network analysis, we randomly sampled 30 groups from the whole network to assess the prevalence of trade in cultivated and wild plants. Of 55,805 posts recorded over 12 weeks, 8.9% contained plants for sale, and 22–46% of these posts pertained to wild‐collected orchids. Although total numbers of posts about trade were relatively small, the large proportion of posts advertising wild orchids for sale supports calls for better monitoring of social media for trade in wild‐collected plants.     

Prevalence and perspectives of illegal trade in cacti and succulent plants in the collector community

Although illegal wildlife trade (IWT) represents a serious threat to biodiversity, research into the prevalence of illegal plant collection and trade remains scarce. Because cacti and succulents are heavily threatened by overcollection for often illegal, international ornamental trade, we surveyed 441 members of the cacti and succulent hobbyist collector community with a mixed quantitative and qualitative approach. We sought to understand collector perspectives on the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna (CITES) and on the threats IWT poses to cactus and succulent conservation. Most respondents (74% of 401 respondents) stated that illegal collection in cacti and succulents represents a “very serious problem” and that the problem of wild plant collection is increasing (72% of 319 respondents). Most forms of illegal collection and trade were seen as very unacceptable by respondents. Self-reported noncompliance with CITES rules was uncommon (11.2% of 418 respondents); it remains a persistent problem in parts of the cacti and succulent hobbyist community. People engaging in rule breaking, such as transporting plants without required CITES documents, generally did so knowingly. Although 60.6% of 381 respondents regarded CITES as a very important tool for conservation, sentiment toward CITES and its efficacy in helping species conservation was mixed. Collectors in our survey saw themselves as potentially playing important roles in cactus and succulent conservation, but this potential resource remains largely untapped. Our results suggest the need for enhanced consultation with stakeholders in CITES decision-making. For challenging subjects like IWT, developing evidence-based responses demands deep interdisciplinary engagement, including assessing the conservation impact of species listings on CITES appendices.     

The scope and severity of white-nose syndrome on hibernating bats in North America

Assessing the scope and severity of threats is necessary for evaluating impacts on populations to inform conservation planning. Quantitative threat assessment often requires monitoring programs that provide reliable data over relevant spatial and temporal scales, yet such programs can be difficult to justify until there is an apparent stressor. Leveraging efforts of wildlife management agencies to record winter counts of hibernating bats, we collated data for 5 species from over 200 sites across 27 U.S. states and 2 Canadian provinces from 1995 to 2018 to determine the impact of white-nose syndrome (WNS), a deadly disease of hibernating bats. We estimated declines of winter counts of bat colonies at sites where the invasive fungus that causes WNS (Pseudogymnoascus destructans) had been detected to assess the threat impact of WNS. Three species undergoing species status assessment by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Myotis septentrionalis, Myotis lucifugus, and Perimyotis subflavus) declined by more than 90%, which warrants classifying the severity of the WNS threat as extreme based on criteria used by NatureServe. The scope of the WNS threat as defined by NatureServe criteria was large (36% of Myotis lucifugus range) to pervasive (79% of Myotis septentrionalis range) for these species. Declines for 2 other species (Myotis sodalis and Eptesicus fuscus) were less severe but still qualified as moderate to serious based on NatureServe criteria. Data-sharing across jurisdictions provided a comprehensive evaluation of scope and severity of the threat of WNS and indicated regional differences that can inform response efforts at international, national, and state or provincial jurisdictions. We assessed the threat impact of an emerging infectious disease by uniting monitoring efforts across jurisdictional boundaries and demonstrated the importance of coordinated monitoring programs, such as the North American Bat Monitoring Program (NABat), for data-driven conservation assessments and planning.     

Forecast-based action for conservation

Extreme weather events pose an immediate threat to biodiversity, but existing conservation strategies have limitations. Advances in meteorological forecasting and innovation in the humanitarian sector provide a possible solution—forecast-based action (FbA). The growth of ecological forecasting demonstrates the huge potential to anticipate conservation outcomes, but a lack of operational examples suggests a new approach is needed to translate forecasts into action. FbA provides such a framework, formalizing the use of meteorological forecasts to anticipate and mitigate the impacts of extreme weather. Based on experience from the humanitarian sector, I suggest how FbA could work in conservation, demonstrating key concepts using the theoretical example of heatwave impacts on sea turtle embryo mortality, and address likely challenges in realizing FbA for conservation, including establishing a financing mechanism, allocating funds to actions, and decision-making under uncertainty. FbA will demand changes in conservation research, practice, and governance. Researchers must increase efforts to understand the impacts of extreme weather at more immediate and actionable timescales and should coproduce forecasts of such impacts with practitioners. International conservation funders should establish systems to fund anticipatory actions based on uncertain forecasts.     

Impacts of hunting on tropical forests in Southeast Asia

Although deforestation and forest degradation have long been considered the most significant threats to tropical biodiversity, across Southeast Asia (Northeast India, Indochina, Sundaland, Philippines) substantial areas of natural habitat have few wild animals (>1 kg), bar a few hunting‐tolerant species. To document hunting impacts on vertebrate populations regionally, we conducted an extensive literature review, including papers in local journals and reports of governmental and nongovernmental agencies. Evidence from multiple sites indicated animal populations declined precipitously across the region since approximately 1980, and many species are now extirpated from substantial portions of their former ranges. Hunting is by far the greatest immediate threat to the survival of most of the region's endangered vertebrates. Causes of recent overhunting include improved access to forests and markets, improved hunting technology, and escalating demand for wild meat, wildlife‐derived medicinal products, and wild animals as pets. Although hunters often take common species, such as pigs or rats, for their own consumption, they take rarer species opportunistically and sell surplus meat and commercially valuable products. There is also widespread targeted hunting of high‐value species. Consequently, as currently practiced, hunting cannot be considered sustainable anywhere in the region, and in most places enforcement of protected‐area and protected‐species legislation is weak. The international community's focus on cross‐border trade fails to address overexploitation of wildlife because hunting and the sale of wild meat is largely a local issue and most of the harvest is consumed in villages, rural towns, and nearby cities. In addition to improved enforcement, efforts to engage hunters and manage wildlife populations through sustainable hunting practices are urgently needed. Unless there is a step change in efforts to reduce wildlife exploitation to sustainable levels, the region will likely lose most of its iconic species, and many others besides, within the next few years.     

Network analysis of a stakeholder community combatting illegal wildlife trade

The illegal wildlife trade has emerged as a growing and urgent environmental issue. Stakeholders involved in the efforts to curb wildlife trafficking include nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), academia, and state government and enforcement bodies. The extent to which these stakeholders work and communicate among each other is fundamental to effectively combatting illicit trade. Using the United Kingdom as a case study, we used a social network analysis and semistructured interviews of stakeholders to assess communication relationships in the counter wildlife trafficking community. The NGOs consistently occupied 4 of the 5 most central positions in the generated networks, whereas academic institutions routinely occupied 4 of the 5 most peripheral positions. However, NGOs were the least diverse in their communication practices compared with the other stakeholder groups. Stakeholders identified personal relationships as the most important aspect of functioning communication. Participant insights also showed that stakeholder-specific variables (e.g., ethical and confidentiality concerns), competition, and fundraising can have a confounding effect on intercommunication. Evaluating communication networks and intrastakeholder communication trends is essential to creating cohesive, productive, and efficient responses to the challenges of combatting illegal wildlife trade. Article impact statement: Communication among those combatting illegal wildlife trade is confounded by stakeholder variables (ethics, confidentiality), competition, and fundraising.     

Addressing social attitudes toward lethal control of wildlife in national parks

The extraordinary population growth of certain ungulate species is increasingly a concern in agroforestry areas because overabundance may negatively affect natural environments and human livelihoods. However, society may have negative perceptions of killing wildlife to reduce their numbers and mitigate damage. We used an online survey that included a choice experiment to determine Spanish citizens’ (n = 190) preferences toward wildlife population control measures related to negative effects of ungulate overabundance (negative impacts on vegetation and other wildlife species and disease transmission to livestock) in 2 agroforestry national parks in Spain. We used latent-class and willingness-to-pay in space models to analyze survey results. Two percent of respondents thought a national park should have no human intervention even if lack of management may cause environmental degradation, whereas 95% of respondents favored efforts to reduce damage caused by overabundant ungulate species. We estimated human well-being losses of survey respondents when sustainable effects of deer overabundance on the environment became unsustainable effects and well-being gains when sustainable effects transitioned to no visible effects. We found that the type of wildlife-control program was a very relevant issue for the respondents; indirect control in which killing was avoided was the preferred action. Sixty-six percent of respondents agreed with the option of hunters paying for culling animals to reduce ungulate impacts rather than management cost coming out of taxes, whereas 19% of respondents were against this option and willing to pay for other solutions in national parks. Our results suggest that killing wildlife in national parks could be a socially acceptable tool to manage overabundance problems in certain contexts, but it could also generate social conflicts.     

Tracking Chinese newspaper coverage of elephant ivory through topic modeling

Mass media worldwide has contributed to increasing awareness of the illegal wildlife trade and its significant impact on wildlife conservation. We used mass media coverage as a proxy for macro-level public opinion to analyze the media framing of elephant ivory in 6394 Chinese newspaper articles published from 2000 to 2021 and thus determine the effects of wildlife policies on public opinion. We focused on 2 events: the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) approval of China as a trading partner in the purchase and import of ivory stockpiles from Africa in July 2008 and the Chinese government's announcement of a domestic ivory ban in December 2016. Using latent Dirichlet allocation topic modeling, we identified 8 topics about elephant ivory and grouped them into 3 frames: ivory arts and culture, ivory crimes, and elephant conservation. Over the last 2 decades, topics related to ivory crimes remained the most prevalent in news articles. Topics about ivory arts and culture showed a significant shift in media salience before and after the 2 events (from 0.44 to 0.19 and from 0.08 to 0.15, respectively, p < 0.05), whereas the other 2 frames did not change significantly. Contrary to popular belief, our results indicated that Chinese macro-level public opinion on ivory had become more negative following the CITES approval of ivory importation and less negative after the ivory ban announcement, at least for certain periods. The relationship between mass media, public opinion, and wildlife trade policies is complex and requires further examination of the sociopolitical dynamics that influence media narratives. Our results showed the value of topic modeling in monitoring and assessing media representations of wildlife issues in the era of big data. Conservationists should remain vigilant of mass media coverage and collaborate with media practitioners to produce comprehensive narratives on wildlife issues if resources permit.     

Implications for biological invasion of non-native plants for sale in the world's largest online market

Internet trade is increasingly recognized as a dispersal pathway of non-native plant species that is difficult to monitor. We sought to identify non-native flora present in the Chinese online market, the largest e-commerce market globally, and to decipher the effect of existing trade regulations, among other variables, on e-trading patterns and to inform policy. We used a comprehensive list of 811 non-native plant species in China present in 1 of the 3 phases of the invasion continuum (i.e., introduced, naturalized, and invasive). The price, propagule types, and quantities of the species offered for sale were retrieved from 9 online stores, including 2 of the largest platforms. Over 30% of the non-native species were offered for sale in the online marketplaces; invasive non-native species dominated the list (45.53%). No significant price difference was observed across the non-native species of the 3 invasion categories. Among the 5 propagule types, a significantly higher number of non-native species were offered for sale as seeds. The regression models and path analyses consistently revealed a direct positive effect of the number of uses and species’ minimum residence time and an indirect effect of biogeography on the pattern of trade in non-native plant species when minimal phylogenetic signal was detected. A review of the existing phytosanitary regulations in China revealed their inadequacy in managing e-trading of non-native plant species. To address the problem, we propose integration of a standardized risk assessment framework that considers perceptions of stakeholders and is adaptable based on continuous surveillance of the trade network. If implemented successfully, the measures could provide a template for other countries to strengthen trading regulations for non-native plant species and take proactive management measures.     

An interdisciplinary review of current and future approaches to improving human–predator relations

In a world of shrinking habitats and increasing competition for natural resources, potentially dangerous predators bring the challenges of coexisting with wildlife sharply into focus. Through interdisciplinary collaboration among authors trained in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences, we reviewed current approaches to mitigating adverse human–predator encounters and devised a vision for future approaches to understanding and mitigating such encounters. Limitations to current approaches to mitigation include too much focus on negative impacts; oversimplified equating of levels of damage with levels of conflict; and unsuccessful technical fixes resulting from failure to engage locals, address hidden costs, or understand cultural (nonscientific) explanations of the causality of attacks. An emerging interdisciplinary literature suggests that to better frame and successfully mitigate negative human–predator relations conservation professionals need to consider dispensing with conflict as the dominant framework for thinking about human–predator encounters; work out what conflicts are really about (they may be human–human conflicts); unravel the historical contexts of particular conflicts; and explore different cultural ways of thinking about animals. The idea of cosmopolitan natures may help conservation professionals think more clearly about human–predator relations in both local and global context. These new perspectives for future research practice include a recommendation for focused interdisciplinary research and the use of new approaches, including human‐animal geography, multispecies ethnography, and approaches from the environmental humanities notably environmental history. Managers should think carefully about how they engage with local cultural beliefs about wildlife, work with all parties to agree on what constitutes good evidence, develop processes and methods to mitigate conflicts, and decide how to monitor and evaluate these. Demand for immediate solutions that benefit both conservation and development favors dispute resolution and technical fixes, which obscures important underlying drivers of conflicts. If these drivers are not considered, well‐intentioned efforts focused on human–wildlife conflicts will fail.     

A stochastic model for estimating sustainable limits to wildlife mortality in a changing world

Human-caused mortality of wildlife is a pervasive threat to biodiversity. Assessing the population-level impact of fisheries bycatch and other human-caused mortality of wildlife has typically relied upon deterministic methods. However, population declines are often accelerated by stochastic factors that are not accounted for in such conventional methods. Building on the widely applied potential biological removal (PBR) equation, we devised a new population modeling approach for estimating sustainable limits to human-caused mortality and applied it in a case study of bottlenose dolphins affected by capture in an Australian demersal otter trawl fishery. Our approach, termed sustainable anthropogenic mortality in stochastic environments (SAMSE), incorporates environmental and demographic stochasticity, including the dependency of offspring on their mothers. The SAMSE limit is the maximum number of individuals that can be removed without causing negative stochastic population growth. We calculated a PBR of 16.2 dolphins per year based on the best abundance estimate available. In contrast, the SAMSE model indicated that only 2.3–8.0 dolphins could be removed annually without causing a population decline in a stochastic environment. These results suggest that reported bycatch rates are unsustainable in the long term, unless reproductive rates are consistently higher than average. The difference between the deterministic PBR calculation and the SAMSE limits showed that deterministic approaches may underestimate the true impact of human-caused mortality of wildlife. This highlights the importance of integrating stochasticity when evaluating the impact of bycatch or other human-caused mortality on wildlife, such as hunting, lethal control measures, and wind turbine collisions. Although population viability analysis (PVA) has been used to evaluate the impact of human-caused mortality, SAMSE represents a novel PVA framework that incorporates stochasticity for estimating acceptable levels of human-caused mortality. It offers a broadly applicable, stochastic addition to the demographic toolbox to evaluate the impact of human-caused mortality on wildlife.     

A multispecies assessment of wildlife impacts on local community livelihoods

Conflicts between the interests of agriculture and wildlife conservation are a major threat to biodiversity and human well-being globally. Addressing such conflicts requires a thorough understanding of the impacts associated with living alongside protected wildlife. Despite this, most studies reporting on human–wildlife impacts and the strategies used to mitigate them focus on a single species, thus oversimplifying often complex systems of human–wildlife interactions. We sought to characterize the spatiotemporal patterns of impacts by multiple co-occurring species on agricultural livelihoods in the eastern Okavango Delta Panhandle in northern Botswana through the use of a database of 3264 wildlife-incident reports recorded from 2009 to 2015 by the Department of Wildlife and National Parks. Eight species (African elephants [Loxodonta africana], hippopotamuses [Hippopotamus amphibious], lions [Panthera leo], cheetah [Acinonyx jubatus], African wild dogs [Lycaon pictus], hyenas [Crocuta crocuta], leopards [Panthera pardus], and crocodiles [Crocodylus niloticus]) appeared on incident reports, of which 56.5% were attributed to elephants. Most species were associated with only 1 type of damage (i.e., either crop damage or livestock loss). Carnivores were primarily implicated in incident reports related to livestock loss, particularly toward the end of the dry season (May–October). In contrast, herbivores were associated with crop-loss incidents during the wet season (November–April). Our results illustrate how local communities can face distinct livelihood challenges from different species at different times of the year. Such a multispecies assessment has important implications for the design of conservation interventions aimed at addressing the costs of living with wildlife and thereby mitigation of the underlying conservation conflict. Our spatiotemporal, multispecies approach is widely applicable to other regions where sustainable and long-term solutions to conservation conflicts are needed for local communities and biodiversity.     

Dealing with the Clandestine Nature of Wildlife‐Trade Market Surveys

Abstract: Illegal international trade in wildlife (excluding fisheries and timber) has been valued at more than US$20 billion. A more precise figure has not been determined in part because of the clandestine nature of the trade, and for this same reason even regional and local levels of wildlife trade are difficult to assess. The application of recent developments in wildlife field‐survey methods (e.g., occupancy) now allows for a more‐accurate estimation of wildlife trade occurrence, including its hidden components at a variety of scales (e.g., regional, local) and periods (e.g., single season, 1 year, multiple years). Occupancy models have been applied in wildlife field studies to address the problem of false absences when conducting presence–absence surveys. Occupancy surveys differ from traditional presence–absence surveys because they incorporate repeat surveys, allowing for the likelihood of detecting a species (the probability of detection) to be estimated explicitly (in contrast to traditional surveys that often incorrectly treat this probability as close to one to allow for estimation of presence). Occupancy methods can be applied to a variety of wildlife‐trade surveys, including, for example, single‐species availability, links between two illegally traded species (i.e., co‐occurrence), and disease occurrence in live trade. In addition, free user‐friendly software (i.e., PRESENCE) allows even nonstatisticians to adequately address this issue. I simulated a hypothetical wildlife‐trade market survey that resulted in an apparent 20% decline in naïve occupancy (proportion of surveyed towns engaged in the trade) over 2 years, but when I accounted for change in probability of detection over the years the difference in occupancy was not statistically significant. As more sophisticated methods, such as occupancy, are applied to wildlife‐trade market surveys, results will be more robust and defensible and therefore, theoretically, more powerful when presented to conservation policy and decision makers.     

Governing trade-offs in ecosystem services and disservices to achieve human–wildlife coexistence

Sustaining wildlife populations, which provide both ecosystem services and disservices, represents a worldwide conservation challenge. The ecosystem services and Ostrom's social–ecological systems frameworks have been adopted across natural and social sciences to characterize benefits from nature. Despite their generalizability, individually they do not include explicit tools for addressing the sustainable management of many wildlife populations. For instance, Ostrom's framework does not specifically address competing perspectives on wildlife, whereas the ecosystem services framework provides a limited representation of the social and governance context wherein such competing perspectives are embedded. We developed a unified social–ecological framework of ecosystem disservices and services (SEEDS) that advances both frameworks by explicitly acknowledging the importance of competing wildlife perspectives embedded in the social and governance contexts. The SEEDS framework emulates the hierarchical structure of Ostrom's social–ecological systems, but adds subsystems reflecting heterogeneous stakeholder views and experiences of wildlife-based services and disservices. To facilitate operationalizing SEEDS and further broader analyses across human–wildlife systems, we devised a list of variables to describe SEEDS subsystems, such as types and level of services and disservices, cost and benefit sharing, and social participation of stakeholders. Steps to implement SEEDS involve engaging local communities and stakeholders to define the subsystems, analyze interactions and outcomes, and identify leverage points and actions to remedy unwanted outcomes. These steps connect SEEDS with other existing approaches in social–ecological research and can guide analyses across systems or within individual systems to provide new insights and management options for sustainable human–wildlife coexistence.     

Importance of greater interdisciplinarity and geographic scope when tackling the driving forces behind biological invasions

Invasive non-native species are important drivers of ecosystem change, yet the driving forces of biological invasions themselves are poorly understood. Such information is essential to ensure policies focus on the most relevant drivers, and that future scenarios capture the full range of potential outcomes for invasive non-native species. I carried out a bibliometric analysis of articles published from 2000 to 2020 that address either invasive non-native species or biodiversity and ecosystem services and that also mention 1 or more drivers of ecosystem change. I examined 5 indirect drivers (demographic, economic, governance, sociocultural, and technological) and 6 direct drivers (climate change, invasive non-native species, land-use or sea-use change, natural hazards, pollution, and resource extraction). Using the Web of Science core collection of citation indexes, I undertook searches of article titles and keywords and retrieved 27,462 articles addressing invasive non-native species and 110,087 articles dealing with biodiversity or ecosystem services. Most research to date on biological invasions as well as on biodiversity and ecosystem services has focused on anthropogenic direct drivers of ecosystem change rather than indirect drivers. Yet currently, less than 18% of articles addressing biological invasions examined drivers of ecosystem change, a similar level to that found over 20 years ago for biodiversity or ecosystem services. Knowledge of the drivers of biological invasions is limited, emphasizes tractable drivers over those that require an interdisciplinary approach, and is biased toward developed economies. Drivers generally deemed important for biological invasions, such as governance and resource extraction, accounted for less than 2% of research effort. The absence of a systematic understanding of the forces that drive invasive non-native species and how they interact means that attempts to mitigate or forecast biological invasions are likely to fail. To address biological invasions requires a much better orientation of national and international research on drivers in relation to both their actual importance as well as their policy relevance.     

Catalyzing success in community-based conservation

Efforts to devolve rights and engage Indigenous Peoples and local communities in conservation have increased the demand for evidence of the efficacy of community-based conservation (CBC) and insights into what enables its success. We examined the human well-being and environmental outcomes of a diverse set of 128 CBC projects. Over 80% of CBC projects had some positive human well-being or environmental outcomes, although just 32% achieved positive outcomes for both (i.e., combined success). We coded 57 total national-, community-, and project-level variables and controls from this set, performed random forest classification to identify the variables most important to combined success, and calculated accumulated local effects to describe their individual influence on the probability of achieving it. The best predictors of combined success were 17 variables suggestive of various recommendations and opportunities for conservation practitioners related to national contexts, community characteristics, and the implementation of various strategies and interventions informed by existing CBC frameworks. Specifically, CBC projects had higher probabilities of combined success when they occurred in national contexts supportive of local governance, confronted challenges to collective action, promoted economic diversification, and invested in various capacity-building efforts. Our results provide important insights into how to encourage greater success in CBC.     

Role of Prices and Wealth in Consumer Demand for Bushmeat in Gabon, Central Africa

Abstract:  Unsustainable hunting of wildlife for food is often a more immediate and significant threat to the conservation of biological diversity in tropical forests than deforestation. Why people eat wildlife is debated. Some may eat bushmeat because they can afford it; others may eat it because it is familiar, traditional, confers prestige, tastes good, or adds variety. We completed a survey of 1208 rural and urban households in Gabon, Africa, in 2002–2003 to estimate the effect of wealth and prices on the consumption of wildlife and other sources of animal protein. Consumption of bushmeat, fish, chicken, and livestock increased with increasing household wealth, and as the price of these commodities rose, consumption declined. Although the prices of substitutes for bushmeat did not significantly, in statistical terms, influence bushmeat consumption, as the price of wildlife increased and its consumption fell, the consumption of fish rose, indicating that fish and bushmeat were dietary substitutes. Our results suggest that policy makers can use economic levers such as taxation or supply reduction through better law enforcement to change demand for wildlife. These measures will help to regulate unsustainable exploitation and reduce the risk of irreversible loss of large-bodied and slow-reproducing wildlife species. If policy makers focus solely on reducing the unsustainable consumption of wildlife, they may see adverse impacts on the exploitation of fish. Furthermore, policy makers must ensure that raising household wealth through development assistance does not result in undesirable impacts on the conservation status of wildlife and fish.     

Conservation impacts of commercial cultivation of endangered and overharvested plants

Overharvesting is one of the greatest threats to species survival. Farming overharvested species is a conservation strategy that can meet growing market demand and conserve wild populations of the target species. This strategy is compatible with the international community's desire to uphold the right of local communities to use biological resources to support their livelihoods. However, studies investigating whether farming can alleviate poaching pressure have focused almost exclusively on animals. To address the shortfall in plant-focused studies, we compiled information on commercial cultivation of threatened plants to assess its conservation benefits. Because China's rising middle class has rapidly intensified demand for wildlife products, we searched the scientific literature published in Chinese (China National Knowledge Infrastructure and Baidu) and in English. We found 32 reports that contained data on 193 internationally or nationally threatened plant species that were under commercial cultivation. These reports showed that cultivations of 82% of the 193 species were sustained by collecting whole plants from the wild periodically or continuously. Although based on a small sample size, species that were maintained in cultivation only through artificial propagation or seeds collected in the wild were likely associated with a reported reduction in wild harvesting of whole plants. Even so, results of correlation analyses suggested that production system, scale, and when a species began being cultivated had little effect on conservation status of the species, either globally or in China. However, species brought into cultivation relatively recently and on a smaller scale were more likely to have undergone a reduction in collecting pressure. Farming of nonmedicinal plants was most problematic for species conservation because wild plants were laundered (i.e., sold as cultivated plants). For effective conservation, policy to guide cultivation operations based on the target species’ biological characteristics, cultural significance, market demand, and conservation status is needed.     

Association of reproductive traits with captive- versus wild-sourced birds in trade

The wildlife trade is a billion-dollar global business, involving millions of people, thousands of species, and hundreds of millions of individual organisms. Unravelling whether trade targets reproductively distinct species and whether this preference varies between captive- and wild-sourced species is a crucial question. We used a comprehensive list of all bird species traded, trade listings and records kept in compliance with the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), and a suite of avian reproductive parameters to examine whether wildlife trade is associated with particular facets of life history and to examine the association between life-history traits and captive- and wild-sourced traded volumes over time. Across all trade, CITES listing, and CITES trade, large birds were more likely to be traded and listed, but their longevity and age at maturity were not associated with CITES listing or trade. We found species across almost the full range of trait values in both captive and wild trade between 2000 and 2020. Captive trade volumes clearly associated with relatively longer lived and early-maturing species; these associations remained stable and largely unchanged over time. Trait–volume associations in wild-sourced trade were more uncertain. Only body mass had a clear association, and it varied from negative to positive over time. Although reproductive traits were important in captive-sourced trade, species-level variation dominated trade, with even congeneric species varying greatly in volume despite similar traits. The collection and incorporation of trait data into sustainability assessments of captive breeding facilities are crucial to ensure accurate quotas and guard against laundering.