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| Regulation of illegal bushmeat trade is a major conservation challenge in Africa. We investigated
what factors are most likely to induce actors in the bushmeat trade to shift to an alternative occupation by
conducting a choice experiment with 325 actors in the bushmeat trade in the Kilombero Valley, Tanzania.
Specifically, we asked respondents to choose between hunting or trading bushmeat and alternative salarypaying
work, in a set of hypothetical scenarios where the attributes of these alternatives were varied and
included measures of command and control, price of substitute meat, daily salary in the work option, and
whether or not cows were donated to the respondent. We modeled the choice contingent on socioeconomic
characteristics. The magnitude of fines and patrolling frequency had a significant but very low negative effect
on the probability of choosing to engage in hunting or trading bushmeat compared with the salary of an
alternative occupation. Donation of livestock and the price of substitute meats in the localmarket both affected
the choice significantly in a negative and a positive direction, respectively. The wealthier a household was
the more likely the respondent was to choose to continue hunting or trading bushmeat. On the margin, our
results suggest that given current conditions in the Kilombero Valley on any given day 90% of the respondents
would choose salary work at US$3.37/day over their activities in the bushmeat trade, all else equal. | |
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