Quantity and significance of wild meat off-take by a rural community in the Eastern Cape, South Africa

Kaschula, Sarah A H; Shackleton, Charlie M

Title: Quantity and significance of wild meat off-take by a rural community in the Eastern Cape, South Africa
Creator: Kaschula, Sarah A H
Creator: Shackleton, Charlie M
Date Issued: 2009
Date: 2009
Type: Article
Identifier: vital:6638
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1006864
Description: When compared to tropical forest zones in west and central Africa, off-take of wild meat from savannah and grassland biomes by local rural communities has not been well assessed. This case study of wild meat collection activities within a rural community in the Mount Frere region of the Eastern Cape (South Africa) uses last-catch records derived from 50 wild meat gatherers to calculate average off-take of taxa, species and fresh mass of wild meat per collection event. When per-event off take is overlaid onto household hunting frequency data, annual off-take would be 268.6 kg km−2 yr−1 or 3 kg person−1 yr−1 presuming constant off-take over an annual period. Monetary value of off-take would be South African R 307 (US$ 39) per household annually. For some species, off-take weight per km2 shows similar values to data from tropical forest zones, but high human population densities tend to dilute off-takes to less nutritionally significant amounts at the per person scale. However, unlike many tropical zones, none of the species harvested can be considered high-priority conservation species. Even densely populated and heavily harvested communal lands appear to offer high wild meat off-takes from low conservation priority species.
Format: 9 pages
Format: pdf
Language: English
Relation: Kaschula, S. A. H. and Shackleton, C.M. (2009) Quantity and significance of wild meat off-take by a rural community in the Eastern Cape, South Africa. Environmental Conservation, 36 (3). pp. 192-200. Available: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0376892909990282

Hits: 642
Visitors: 718
Downloads: 86

Collections

RU Department of Environmental Science

Shackleton, Charles Michael (Distinguished Prof)

SDG 11. Sustainable Cities and Communities

SDG 15. Life On Land

		Thumbnail	File	Description	Size	Format
View Details Download			SOURCEPDF	PDF	99 KB	Adobe Acrobat PDF	View Details Download