The COVID-19 pandemic has focused global attention on the safety of wildlife trade and consumption. Amid growing concerns around its impact on biodiversity conservation, there is recognition that wild meat is key for food security in many communities as well as global food systems.
This IIED Debates event will explore emerging research into why people eat wild meat and how this evidence can be used to help sustainable wild meat alternatives succeed.
Unsustainable hunting and consumption of wild meat is a known driver of biodiversity loss and can also have implications for public health. The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in a call for a total ban on wild meat trade and consumption.

Yet millions of people across the globe depend on wild meat as an important contribution to food security. In many rural areas, wild meat is the key source of protein in peoples’ diet and so preventing its consumption would pose a major threat to their livelihoods and wellbeing. It is therefore critical to improve understanding of why people eat wild meat, in order to design interventions that can help improve sustainability and safety.

At this online IIED Debates event, co-hosted by the Interdisciplinary Centre for Conservation Science at Oxford University, The Conservation Foundation and Fondation Camerounaise Terra Vivante we will hear findings from research in Cameroon that sought to understand the key drivers – cultural, economic, nutritional – of wild meat as a food choice and the impacts of COVID-19 on that choice.

Our speakers will discuss what kind of ‘wild meat alternative’ interventions local people do and do not find acceptable.

How can decision-support tools help intervention designers think through critical issues? And what are the implications of these findings for the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) guidance on wild meat and for the design of future projects?