Across the Global South, wildlife is harvested for food and livelihoods and for cultural and medicinal purposes, yet the dynamics of the wild meat sector are changing as remote areas become more accessible, more people are living in urban areas, and the world is becoming increasingly connected. The research articles in this special issue explore the contemporary use of wild meat in the lives and livelihoods of people across a rural-urban gradient, provide examples of how use may be evolving in relation to the changing social, political, economic, cultural, and environmental contexts, and what this means for sustainable wildlife management and biodiversity conservation. Urbanization, social change, and cultural dynamics contribute to the diversity of, and motivation for, wild meat uses, while human population growth and the changing state of the natural environment can ultimately influence sustainability. Given the diversity of wild meat uses across social-ecological contexts, and the potential for inequitable management decisions, incorporating social justice in wild meat management will ensure human-wellbeing while curbing biodiversity loss.

Subsistence hunting is an essential livelihood strategy of Indigenous people in the Amazon. The present study examines the aspects influencing hunting practices by the Indigenous Maraguá people in the central Amazon, Brazil. We used a Generalized Additive Model to test the effects of economic (breeding of domestic animals), demographic (individual age), cultural (preference for hunting vs. fishing), and religious (Adventism, an Evangelical denomination vs. other Christian beliefs) factors on the frequency of hunting. We used a Principal Coordinate Analysis to assess how religious taboos associated with Adventism determine the composition of target taxa. The average hunting frequency of the 26 interviewees was 10.2 trips per month. Sixty-five percent (n = 17) of the interviewees were non-Adventists, and 35% (n = 9) were Adventists. Both younger and older people hunted less frequently than those in the middle age group (c. 50 years old). We found no influence of religious affiliation or breeding of domestic animals on the frequency of hunting. Ten taxa were cited as favorite game by the informants, and while Adventists avoided eating several mammalian taxa, non-Adventists did not declare any religious dietary restrictions. This study is one of the first to approach the influence of modern Christian belief systems on hunting habits of Indigenous Amazonian people. We highlight the importance of considering of cultural and religious particularities in research on subsistence hunting and design of management plans for Indigenous lands in Amazonia.

Hunting is one of the leading causes of declines in tropical wildlife. Yet, for many traditional and Indigenous Peoples, hunting and associated rituals are integral to establishing and maintaining social identities and reciprocal relations with nature. Taboos that restrict hunting and forest use are widely prevalent in traditional societies and have been likened to informal culture-based conservation mechanisms. However, where taboos have been formally co-opted by conservation programs, the results have been largely ineffective. A recent study showed that taboos in the Idu Mishmi community of Northeast India significantly reduced wild meat consumption and contributed to biodiversity protection, including an endangered tiger population. In this study, we explore what motivates Idu taboos, their role in everyday Idu life, how they impact hunting, and whether they will endure with changing circumstances. We find that by conditioning social and personal prosperity on ancestrally mandated, morally correct behavior in the forest, Idu taboos ensure that people understand that human well-being is inextricably linked to restrictive hunting. Violation of taboo does not just bring misfortune to the violator but to all kin, forging interdependence and cohesion in the society. Taboos form the moral and practical basis of interaction between and among humans, spirits, and animals. Taboos are not an isolated component of the Idu culture; they make the Idu the Idu, the reason why they have endured through rapidly changing times. Conservation should pay careful attention not just to the outcomes of cultural institutions, but to their meanings and processes to co-create sustainable and ethical programs.

Wild meat has been shown to engender social capital—building and strengthening of social networks and creating cultural pathways for the poor, the urban, and the diaspora to maintain cultural identity. This paper explores wild meat consumption among a very small group of Jamaican Maroons who maintain the declining practice of parrot hunting. Bycatch (incidental take of non-parrot species), particularly pigeons, is often highly valued and consumed together by the group during hunts. The hunters were observed over two hunting seasons, where significant changes to catch yields between one year and the next resulted in a reduction in hunt attendance by young hunters. This transformed group dynamics among the remaining hunters; cohesion relied on the shared consumption of bycatch. Wild meat consumption among the Maroons of Cockpit Country does not build social capital and create social bonds between members of the community and the diaspora. Rather, it accompanies highly specialized practices undertaken by small groups of villagers deep in the forest and is a mechanism through which membership of these groups is determined and maintained. The shared consumption of wild meat, instead, creates symbolic capital, which helps to maintain traditional practice amidst environmental and social change and protects very specific forms of knowledge—including the possible decline of the Black-billed Parrot (Amazona agilis).

Wild animals are an important source of food and income throughout the Amazon basin, particularly for forest-dependent communities living in the more remote regions. Through interviews in 51 households within 16 communities in the Jutaí River Extractive Reserve, Amazonas, Brazil, we determined animal taxa consumed and frequency of wild meat consumption, as well as patterns of wild meat trade. We then investigated the influence of social and biological factors on wild meat consumption and trade. People declared consuming wild meat on an average of 3.2 ± 2.8 days/month/household, amounting to 198.85 kg/month consumed by all sampled households. The vast majority of respondents got wild meat by hunting themselves or it was given to them by their neighbors. The most consumed taxa were paca (Cuniculus paca) and collared peccary (Pecari tajacu). Approximately two-thirds of respondents declared selling wild meat; meat destined for urban markets was more expensive and was primarily sold from houses of relatives living in the city. Wild meat consumption was determined by taste preferences, while prices were related to the body mass of the taxa concerned. Frequency of wild meat consumption and the probability of selling wild meat were positively associated with the number of hunters in the household. We highlight the importance of wild meat for remote communities, and, importantly, the prominent links these communities have with urban markets. These findings are useful in developing strategies to ensure the sustainable use of wildlife in the Amazon.

Wild meat has long been a staple of rural communities in West Papua Province, Indonesia. However, development of commercial networks has resulted in wild meat being increasingly transported in from forests to urban areas. This study describes the structure and operation of the wild meat trade chain along the coast of the Bird's Head Peninsula (BHP) of West Papua, including how wild meat flows from forests to urban areas and contributes to local livelihoods across the trade chain. Commercial networks have developed and wild meat is transported from forests to urban areas and contributes to livelihoods along the entire value chain. A survey was conducted on three groups of hunters: “focal respondents” (N = 220), including “participating hunters” (N = 33); “random respondents” (N = 800); and other actors (“intermediaries” [N = 6], “market traders” [N = 3], and “restaurant owners” [N = 4]) involved in the meat trade. Results indicate that hunting for trade is still a secondary livelihood activity, with more than half of our respondents selling hunted wildlife within their home villages. Hunters, intermediaries, market traders, and restaurant owners are involved in longer-distance wild meat trade and their roles are well defined from hunting to trading. The trade in wild meat along the coast of the BHP mirrors patterns found in other parts of the tropics. Market-oriented hunting that is emerging along the coast of the BHP may increase hunters' dependence on trading, which may increase the number of stakeholders involved. Consequently, wild meat harvest rates may be affected as modern techniques are used to increase the efficiency of hunting. Improving local agriculture productivity may be important to boost incomes and reduce the need to supplement income by selling wild meat. Development and conservation efforts should be focused on creating jobs for remote rural communities and to changing the behavior of wild meat purchasers.

People throughout the world are adapting to alternative livelihoods as climate change transforms the earth. The western Amazon basin has recently gone through extreme flood levels that resulted in population declines of species used for wild meat, principally white-lipped peccary (Tayassu pecari), collared peccary (Pecari tajacu), red brocket deer (Mazama americana), lowland paca (Cuniculus paca), and black agouti (Dasyprocta fuliginosa). The Cocama (Kukama) people of the Samiria River have adapted to the declining wild meat populations by greatly reducing hunting and increasing their fishing activity. We evaluated the sustainability of subsistence hunting of peccaries, deer, lowland tapir (Tapirus terrestris), large rodents, and primates in flooded forests of the Pacaya-Samiria National Reserve using camera trap capture rates, density from distance transects, and participatory interviews with Cocama villagers from 2009 to 2018. Peccaries, deer, and large rodents are recovering from population declines that occurred during extreme floods, which suggests that hunting levels are allowing these populations to grow. The primates and lowland tapir have healthy population sizes and stable numbers, which suggests people are hunting these species at sustainable levels. Our results indicate that changes in hunting patterns by the Cocama have permitted peccary, deer, and large rodent populations to recover to varying degrees during years of normal flood levels. The Cocama people are adapting to climate change in a way that agrees with conservation goals and reinforces the importance of community-based approaches to conservation in the Amazon.

African pangolins are exceptionally difficult to monitor in the wild, which means that assessing threats and impacts to these species also remains a challenge. Local ecological knowledge (LEK) surveys have been recommended as an important tool to collect data for small elusive species. We carried out community-based interviews in 20 villages surrounding Mpem et Djim and Deng-Deng National Parks to gather information on local ecological and traditional medicine knowledge, perceived population status, and the level of conservation awareness amongst local people concerning giant pangolin (Smutsia gigantea), white-bellied pangolin (Phataginus tricuspis), and black-bellied pangolin (Phataginus tetradactyla). The arboreal black-bellied pangolin was least known by local people, and along with the giant pangolin was the least recently observed species. The white-bellied pangolin was reported to be the most recently observed species by most people. Local people reported seeing giant pangolins most around forest and savannah burrows and white-bellied pangolins in forests, commonly crossing dead fallen trees. Limited traditional or cultural uses of pangolins were reported, and most respondents were aware of threats to pangolins. Respondents showed great interest in pangolin conservation, suggesting various strategies for conservation activities, such as trade controls and provisioning of alternative sources of food. We show that working with local communities can provide useful information for pangolin conservation and management efforts within protected areas.

The lack of cost-effective methods to detect game species in tropical forests hinders reliable assessments of their population status and the planning of effective actions for their sustainable use. Tortoises are among the most hunted species in Amazonia, but present low detectability in the wild when using current scientific methods. Traditional hunters in the region use specialized methods to capture tortoises, and such knowledge could provide useful insights for improving monitoring methods and, thus, scientific research on this species. Here, we compare the capture rates and cost-effectiveness of two methods to capture the endangered yellow-footed tortoise (Chelonoidis denticulatus) in Amazonia: the conventional active search and an adaptation of pitfall traps using attractive baits employed by Indigenous and non-Indigenous people to hunt tortoises. We sampled 40 sites in upland forests and whitewater flooded forests during the dry and wet seasons in central Amazonia and captured 37 yellow-footed tortoises. The highest capture rate (0.29 tortoises/hour) was obtained using traps in upland forests, fourfold higher than by active search. Traps also presented greater cost-effectiveness than the active search (US$63 vs US$256 per captured tortoise). Our capture rate with traps was 67 times greater than those obtained using line transects in western and northern Amazonia. The success exhibited by this widespread hunting technique is a result of centuries of hunters' traditional knowledge in the Amazon. The unveiling of a cost-effective method for capturing tortoises shows the importance of exchanging traditional and scientific knowledge; efficient capturing methods favor the inclusion of the species in long-term monitoring programs and foster in situ studies that help develop strategies for its conservation.

Understanding the repertoire of hunting techniques used by traditional peoples in tropical forests is crucial for recognizing the role of traditional knowledge in hunting activities, as well as assessing the impact of harvests on game species. We describe the hunting techniques used across Amazonia by Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples for hunting yellow-footed tortoises (Chelonoidis denticulatus), one of the most consumed species in the biome. We interviewed 178 local people in 25 communities living in seven study areas in the Peruvian and Brazilian Amazon. We used a Principal Coordinate Analysis (PCoA) and Analysis of Similarity (ANOSIM) to compare the hunting techniques between ethnic groups and the ages of the interviewees. Four different techniques were reported: (1) trapping with bait (46%; n = 122); (2) hunting with dogs (35%; n = 92); (3) active searching (14 %; n = 37); and (4) visiting fruiting trees (5%; n = 14). Trapping with bait was alleged to be the most cost-effective technique by 67% of the interviewees. Among the baits used, 93% involved the use of wild species as rotten meat. Hunting with dogs was also frequently cited and involved eight different methods of training. The hunting techniques recorded were not significantly different among ethnic groups or generations. The consonance among the technique repertoire likely reflects a shared knowledge still in use across different cultural groups. There is a potential for applying the hunting techniques to large scale community-based monitoring and management programs, but the impact on additional species affected, such as species intentionally captured to be used as bait, should be considered. Local assessments and community-based management plans that incorporate traditional ecological knowledge are recommended to guarantee the maintenance of livelihoods and ensure the species' conservation in Amazonia.