page_title: Deforestation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
section_title: Bushmeat
hierarchical_section_title: Deforestation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo / Consequences of deforestation / Bushmeat
caption_attribution_description: English: Eastern Lesser Bamboo Lemurs (Hapalemur griseus) killed in northeast Madagascar for bushmeat
context_page_description: Deforestation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is a significant transnational issue. In the DRC, forests are cleared for agricultural purposes by utilizing slash and burn techniques.
  Aside from the visible depletion of resources, deforestation of the DRC also leads to a lost habit for the mountain gorilla among other rare species like the okapi, resulting in decreased biodiversity, soil erosion, and contribute to climate change.
  Since 1990 till 2015, the rate of deforestation in the DRC has remained constant at 0.20%, which equates to the loss of 311,000 hectares, or roughly 1,200 square miles, annually. This amounts to destroying forests the size of Delaware every two years. The fact that the rate of deforestation has remained constant over more than twenty years is misleading as one might believe that government or non-government organizations interventions have been responsible for the decline, but reports indicate otherwise.
context_section_description: While road access has been shown to increase land clearing for farming, it also has other indirect yet significant implications for hunting and the bushmeat trade.  Bushmeat refers to wildlife that live in the forest.  In Africa, the forest are often referred to as "the bush", thus creating the term bushmeat.  Bushmeat may include any sort of animal that lives in the forest that is hunted for its meat.  In the DRC, the majority of bushmeat consists of artiodactyla species and make up almost 90% of all bushmeat trade.  After artiodactyla species, primates consist of the next largest group at about 5% of all traded bushmeat.
  Even elephants which are known for being hunted for ivory are considered targets for bushmeat trade as a single elephant can provide thousands of kilos of meat which can be easier to sell than its ivory. From 2002 to 2013, the DRC elephant population decreased dramatically from roughly 62,000 to 5,000. In the DRC, with the wide expanses of forest, high income can be obtained from the meat trade; consequently, almost no sort of wildlife protection enforcement can prevent the consumption and trade of bushmeat, which continues to rise.
  Road construction from logging and mining operations decreases the distance hunters have to walk to reach a given section of the forest to hunt, making what was previously a multi-day trip possible to complete within a day. Additionally it has been shown that as logging increases, wages and demand for bushmeat increases as well; this leads to the increased export of bushmeat from the forest.
  Further, loggers themselves consume high amounts of bushmeat, eating it at a rate of two to three times more often than rural families who eat bushmeat roughly two days per week.  Logging also allows hunters to kill many more animals on each hunting trip as the hunters no longer need to carry the dead animals such long distances as logging vehicles can transport the animals.
  Currently, it is reported that over 1.7 million tonnes of bushmeat are consumed each year in the DRC at an estimated value of over US$1 billion. The bushmeat trade, besides having a direct effect on the animal populations which are being hunted, has disastrous effects on the ecosystem as a whole.  Depletion of animal populations directly threatens the ability for some of the larger forest carnivores.  Additionally, decreases in the populations of seed-dispersing animals directly affects tree regeneration rates, forest structure, and composition.
caption: An example of bushmeat, meat that is from the "bush". In the Congo over 1.7 million tons of bushmeat are consumed annually.
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