For thousands of years indigenous people living in and around the tropical rain forests have hunted local animals for food. With such an amazing diversity of animal life, African forest dwellers have had an extremely varied diet of monkeys, apes, rats, termites, snails, antelopes, elephants, pangolins, and a variety of other types of animal. The collective term for this food gathered directly from the forest is bush meat.

While confined to people living in the forest, hunting for their own needs, hunting for bush meat poses little or no threat to the animal population. It is only when hunting becomes commercialised that the trouble really begins. In the past, rain forests have frequently been almost inaccessible, offering very little opportunity for the commercial hunter, but the expanding logging industry has constructed new roads through the forest - and with them new opportunities for those who seek to make easy money from forest wildlife.

The impact of the timber trade on bush meat has been threefold. First, new roads. Second, timber trade workers who hunt to provide their own food. And third, the increased population due to the arrival of forestry workers provides a demand for meat which gives commercial hunters a market. In addition, forest workers often provide the means of transport by which bush meat is taken to market.

Exploration | Tropical rain forests |  Bush meat  | On the Line home page