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Seasonal Bushmeat Hunger in the Congo Basin

EcoHealth volume 14, pages 575–590 (2017)Cite this article

Abstract

Unlike the Sudano-sahelian regions, which are confronted to severe periods of food shortage, tropical rainforests are known to provide a constant supply of a great diversity of food resources that mitigates the risk of food starvation for omnivorous humans. Nevertheless, several African forest ethnic groups suffer from a seasonal hunger induced by depletion in the procurement of bushmeat, which is a food of paramount importance. Although the diet remains well balanced and meets all the nutritional needs, the bushmeat cravers loose weight and experience a stress that affects their well-being. Bushmeat hunger is a psychocultural form of hunger that generates several mental disorders. We present results from nutritional anthropology studies carried out among various Congo Basin forest peoples, which regularly suffer from bushmeat hunger. We expose the physiological risks that result from this psychological unrest, we argue that this type of unsatisfied compiling desire for meat should be considered as a factor of food insecurity and we conclude on its incidence on bushmeat trade. The immoderate craving for bushmeat compromises the attempts to replace bushmeat by other sources of meat and is a persisting obstacle to conservation initiatives that fail to take the psychocultural values of bushmeat into consideration.

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Fig. 1

Adapated from Pagezy (1990)

Fig. 2

Reproduced from Koppert et al. (1993)

Notes

  1. Bushmeat hunger has also a physiological basis; the major crops in humid forest areas, cassava and other root crops, in particular, are extremely poor in protein contents—1–3 g/100 g part eaten—compared with seed crops in the savanna zone, which have around 10 g protein/100 g part eaten (Woot-Tsuen 1968). Hence, diseases deriving from protein deficiency, such as kwashiorkor, are more common in the humid forest areas than in drier areas.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to Nathalie van Vliet from the CIFOR Bushmeat Research Initiative and Ferran Jori Massanas from Cirad for having invited us to make an oral communication at the ICCB/ECCB Congress held in Montpellier (France) on August 2015. The present paper was directly elaborated from this communication. This work was supported by funding from the French National Research Institute for Sustainable Development (IRD), the Center for Functional and Evolutionary Ecology in Montpellier (CEFE) and the Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research of the MEXT, Japan (No. 15H02598).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. UMR5175 CEFE, IRD-CIFOR, Campus CNRS 1919 route de Mende, 34293, Montpellier Cedex 5, France

    Edmond Dounias

  2. Emeritus at the Center for African Area Studies, Kyoto University, Inamori Foundation Memorial Hall, 46 Yoshida-Shimoadachi, Sakyo, Kyoto, 606-8501, Japan

    Mitsuo Ichikawa

Authors
  1. Edmond Dounias
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  2. Mitsuo Ichikawa
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Correspondence to Edmond Dounias.

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This article is dedicated to our regretted colleague and friend Hélène Pagezy (1945–2013).

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Dounias, E., Ichikawa, M. Seasonal Bushmeat Hunger in the Congo Basin. EcoHealth 14, 575–590 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10393-017-1252-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10393-017-1252-y

Keywords

  • Congo Basin forest dwellers
  • Meat
  • Hunger
  • Craving
  • Food insecurity
  • Mental health
  • Bushmeat trade
  • Conservation

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