[MPWG] NWFP-Digest-L No. 3/05
Patricia_DeAngelis at fws.gov
Patricia_DeAngelis at fws.gov
Wed Apr 6 09:19:07 CDT 2005
Now, in March '05, Non-Wood Forest Products Digest informed us on several
"new" medicinal plant products, intriguing NTFP events and several new
publications (you'll see our own Pankaj Oudhia mentioned in this one!).
Patricia S. De Angelis, Ph.D.
Botanist - Division of Scientific Authority
Chair - Plant Conservation Alliance - Medicinal Plant Working Group
US Fish & Wildlife Service
4401 N. Fairfax Dr., Suite 750
Arlington, VA 22203
703-358-1708 x1753
FAX: 703-358-2276
Working for the conservation and sustainable use of our green natural
resources.
<www.nps.gov/plants/medicinal>
NWFP-Digest-L
No. 3/05
Welcome to FAO’s NWFP-Digest-L, a free e-mail journal that covers all
aspects of non-wood forest products. A special thank you to all those who
have shared information.
Back issues of the Digest may be found on FAO's NWFP home page:
www.fao.org/forestry/site/12980/en
==============================================================
IN THIS ISSUE:
NEWS
1. Seventeenth Session of the FAO Committee on
Forestry (COFO)
2. COFO: Full agenda for high-level FAO meetings on
forests
3. COFO: Nobel Peace laureate Wangari Mathai to
address high-level FAO meetings on forests
4. Biopiracy: EPO revokes neem patent rights
5. Biopiracy: Biodiverse countries call for tighter
patent rules
6. Generating forest data for proper policy
formulation
PRODUCTS
7. Bark: Birch bark promises better health
8. Bark: Hanji, the “Korean paper”
9. Bushmeat on the Menu
10. Bushmeat: New retroviruses jump from monkeys to
humans
11. Elderberries: Medicinal uses and treating problems
with herbs
12. Medicinal plants: Garcinia indica
13. Medicinal plants: Cranesbill (Geranium maculatum)
COUNTRY INFORMATION
14. Brazil: Forest has lost 14% of its original coverage
15. Chile's flourishing market for indigenous medicine
16. China: Southwest hot spot for biodiversity
17. Ghana: Mushroom production and edible insect rearing
18. Ghana: Yelwoko women receive funds for income
generation
19. Iran: More than 28,000 tons of honey produced
20. Malaysia: Use of Sarawak's biodiversity
21. Philippines: Honey wine
22. Uganda: Honey sector not supported by government
23. Vietnam, Germany sign technical cooperation deal
EVENTS
24. Non-Timber Forest Products Conference. Non-Timber
Forest Products and aboriginal peoples exploring the connection
between tradition & NTFP production
25. Seminar on NTFP certification
26. California Forest Futures 2005
LITERATURE REVIEW AND WEB SITES
27. APANews
28. Bamboo Update
29. Chhattisgarh herbs
30. Plant Talk
31. State of the World’s Forests 2005
32. UN Millennium Development Library
33. Other publications of interest
34. Web sites and e-zines
REQUESTS
35. Anyone interested in basketry?
36. Request for assistance: Ecological implications of
the use of minilivestock
EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITIES
37. Director - TRAFFIC South Asia regional programme
MISCELLANEOUS
38. Rare mushrooms may save reservoir in UK
39. Australia: Scientists find submerged forest under
Queensland seabed
40. Measuring loss of biodiversity the expert way
41. Forest plunder ruining major hydro-power dams in
Kenya
NEWS
Seventeenth Session of the FAO Committee on Forestry (COFO)
14-19 March 2005
Rome, Italy
Daily coverage on COFO can be found at: www.iisd.ca/FAO/COF17/
Also, please visit the FAO Newsroom at www.fao.org/ or www.fao.org/forestry
BACK TO TOP
2. COFO: Full agenda for high-level FAO meetings on forests
Source: FAO Newsroom, 15 March 2005
International cooperation on forest fires, combating deforestation and the
role of the forest sector in post-tsunami rehabilitation and in achieving
the Millennium Development Goals are among key issues being discussed at
the FAO Ministerial Meeting on Forests and the Committee on Forestry this
week in Rome.
International cooperation on forest fires
Leading nations from around the world concerned with the future of forests
pledged at the third Ministerial Meeting on Forests on Monday (14 March) to
continued pursuit of the development of international cooperation on forest
fires in order to address uncontrolled forest fires and their root causes.
"While fire is an important land management tool, severe
wildland fires have catastrophic effects. Lives are lost, livelihoods
imperiled, local economies devastated, and the environment seriously
degraded," Dr. Jacques Diouf, Director-General of FAO said.
Globally, an average of 400 to 500 million hectares burn each
year from forest fires. As a response, bilateral and multilateral
cooperation in forest fire management has increased over the past few
years. Until now, however, cooperation on forest fire management has
focused on fire suppression rather than prevention.
Post-tsunami rehabilitation
The ministers discussed, among other things, the role of forestry in the
rehabilitation of Asian communities following the recent tsunami disaster.
They called for comprehensive assessment of forest damage from
the tsunami and wood needs for reconstruction in order to better respond to
the emerging challenges of post-tsunami rehabilitation. Issues at stake are
the rehabilitation of damaged forests; wood salvage; meeting the immediate
needs for wood for the reconstruction of piers, bridges, boats, houses and
other buildings as well as fuelwood; and the spread of pests and diseases
through wood and non-wood products.
FAO is currently analyzing available information and assisting
affected countries in their reconstruction efforts in order to restore
people's livelihoods within an integrated coastal management programme.
Deforestation and Millennium Goals
The ministers decried the state of global forest degradation and
reconfirmed their commitment to sustainable forest management and to
improved coordination of economic, environmental and social policies for
enhanced contribution of forests to development and achievement of the
Millennium Development Goals.
More than 9 million hectares of forests are lost globally each
year, whereas forests provide multiple economic, environmental, social and
cultural functions. They help to conserve biodiversity, mitigate climate
change, provide clean water and energy, enhance soil fertility and support
livelihoods, among others. Forests contribute directly to achieving two of
the Millennium Goals, namely reducing extreme poverty and ensuring
environmental sustainability.
Committee on Forestry
Some 400 representatives of member countries, non-governmental
organizations and the private sector will discuss during this week ways to
implement the commitments to which ministers agreed during their meeting on
Monday. The State of World's Forests 2005, a biennial FAO publication, will
also be launched during the committee meeting.
The committee meets every two years in Rome to debate key
global forestry issues and give advice to FAO on its work programme on
forests. It is one of the committees of the FAO's Council.
Over twenty complementary events will be held on the side,
covering topics such as forest law compliance; forests and climate change;
forests and biodiversity; invasive species and the links between forested
areas and violent conflict.
For full story, please see:
www.fao.org/newsroom/en/news/2005/100228/index.html
BACK TO TOP
3. COFO: Nobel Peace laureate Wangari Mathai to address high-level
FAO meetings on forests
Source: FAO Newsroom, 14 March 2005
President of the Republic of the Congo and the Prime Minister of Finland to
address the opening sessions
Wangari Mathai, who received the Nobel Peace prize last year
for her dedication to the conservation of the environment by planting trees
all over Africa, will address a high-level FAO meeting on forests tomorrow
in Rome.
His Excellency Sassou Nguesso, President of the Republic of the
Congo, will address the opening session today. He recently hosted a summit
of heads of state for the conservation of the Congo Basin forests in
central Africa and was instrumental in forging the first regional
conservation treaty for the basin. At 241 million hectares, the basin is
the world's second largest rainforest.
The Prime Minister of Finland, His Excellency Matti Vanhanen,
will give a keynote speech tomorrow. As a country very active in
international forestry and with one of the highest percentage of forest
cover in the world, Finland has been a staunch supporter of FAO's work in
forestry. The forestry sector contributes eight percent to its gross
domestic product, second only to the electronics industry.
A native of Kenya, Wangari Mathai has worked for the past 30
years to promote ecologically viable social, economic and cultural
development in Kenya and other countries in Africa, in recognition of the
contribution of the environment to peace and poverty eradication. Her Green
Belt Movement, founded in 1977, has since catalyzed women all over Africa
to plant trees.
Mathai is the first woman from Africa to be honored with the
Nobel Peace Prize and receive a Ph.D. and the first female professor in
Kenya. She is currently the Deputy Minister of Environment of Kenya and an
Ambassador at large for the Congo Basin forests.
"It is a great honour to have such prominent personalities here
in Rome and we hope that they will continue to serve as examples of
courage, dedication and vision for sustainable forest management," said
Hosny El-Lakany, Assistant Director-General of the FAO Forestry Department.
It is also hoped that their presence would contribute to raising forestry
to higher levels on the global political agenda.
Some 50 ministers and 400 representatives of national forestry
agencies, international organizations and non-governmental organizations
will discuss international cooperation on forest fires, deforestation,
post-tsunami rehabilitation and the role of forests in achieving the
Millennium Development Goals this week in Rome at the third Ministerial
Meeting on Forests and the seventeenth session of the Committee on
Forestry.
The committee is held every two years to discuss the most
prominent global issues in forestry and the last ministerial meeting was
held in 1999.
For full story, please see:
www.fao.org/newsroom/en/news/2005/100219/index.html
BACK TO TOP
4. Biopiracy: EPO revokes neem patent rights
Source: The Financial Express, India, 10 March 2005
The European Patent Office (EPO) finally decided to revoke in entirety a
patent right it had earlier granted on a fungicide derived from an Indian
medicinal plant, neem. It said the patent application was an act of
biopiracy.
EPO, in September 1994, had granted patent rights to US
Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the multinational agribusiness
corporation, WR Grace of New York, vide No 436257. USDA and WR Grace had
applied for patent rights in December 12, 1990 on the basis of a US
priority application of December 26, 1989 covering a method for controlling
fungi on plants by the aid of a hydrophobic extracted neem oil.
Subsequently with adequate evidences of traditional use of the
fungicide, EPO revoked the patent in May 2000. But this victory was
shortlived as the revocation was followed by an appeal. It was finally on
the evening of March 8, 2005 EPO finally revoked the patent rights once and
for all.
In June 1995, a legal opposition to the grant of this patent
was filed jointly by Dr Vandana Shiva, director of Delhi-based Research
Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology (RFSTE), Ms Magda Aelvoet of
the Green Group in European Parliament and Ms Linda Bullard of
International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM). These
three women were assisted by their attorney, Dr Fritz Dolder of the faculty
of law in the University of Basel.
Speaking from Munich, Dr Vanadana Shiva said: “What a lovely
celebration for the women of India. The EPO verdict upholds the value of
traditional knowledge of millions of women not only in India, but
throughout the South. ”
The former president of the Green Group in the European
Parliament and presently Belgian minister of state for health and
environment, Ms Magda Aelvoet said: “This is the first time that a patent
has been rejected on grounds of biopiracy.” The former IFOAM president,
Linda said: “We are able to establish that traditional knowledge can be
used as a means for establishing prior art and thus destroy the false
claims of novelty and inventiveness.”
For full story, please see:
www.financialexpress.com/fe_full_story.php?content_id=84816
BACK TO TOP
5. Biopiracy: Biodiverse countries call for tighter patent rules
Source: SciDev.Net, 28 February 2005
Developing countries that are rich in biodiversity have called for tighter
patent rules to prevent their biological resources being misappropriated
and to ensure that benefits arising from their use are shared fairly.
The proposal was made at a meeting of the parties to the UN
Convention on Biological Diversity held from14-18 February in Bangkok,
Thailand.
Its proponents included the Like-Minded group of Mega-diverse
Countries (LMMCs) — so called because they contain most of the world's
biodiversity — and a negotiating group representing Africa.
They proposed a legally binding regime that would require users
of biological resources to first seek informed consent of the country of
origin, and to ensure that the origin of the resources were disclosed in
patent applications. Developing countries said the regime should be broad
enough to also cover products derived from patented resources.
However, developed countries at the meeting, including
Australia, Canada, the European Union and Japan (the United States is not a
signatory) maintained an 'open' position, suggesting that benefit sharing
could be enforced through existing instruments. Among these are the Bonn
Guidelines, drawn up in 2002 to help parties to the Convention on
Biological Diversity implement fair access to genetic resources.
But many developing countries, including the LMMCs, stressed at
the Bangkok meeting that these voluntary guidelines were not enough to
prevent violations of national legislation or ensure compliance with
benefit sharing.
Their chief concern is 'biopiracy', whereby biological
resources could be appropriated by foreign researchers and used to develop
new, patent-protected products, without benefits being returned to the
country of origin.
The South African representative told delegates that some
intellectual property instruments undermine rather than promote benefit
sharing. Developing countries said that instead they sought an
international regime that supports and complements — rather than overrides
— national legislation.
Critics of the developing countries' proposal include Alan
Oxley, based at the APEC Study Centre at Monash University, Melbourne,
Australia.
In a report published to coincide with the Bangkok meeting,
Oxley warned that going down a "litigious" path in which patents are
tightly regulated "risks destroying benefits for everyone". He argues that
a market-based approach, in which agreements between users and providers of
genetic resources are designed on a case-by-case basis, represents the way
forward.
However, an internationally flexible system that relies on such
ad hoc agreements would mean that developing countries would be forced to
police their own biodiversity — and not all countries have the resources to
do this.
The LMMCs want the convention on biological diversity to ensure
that countries can determine how products derived from their biological
resources can be used.
Oxley maintains that the LMMC proposal would "block the
development of biotechnology" and halt bioprospecting by deterring
pharmaceutical companies from investing in research into drugs based on
indigenous resources.
The LMMCs are Bolivia, Brazil, China, Colombia, Costa Rica,
Democratic Republic of Congo, Ecuador, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Madagascar,
Malaysia, Mexico, Peru, Philippines, South Africa and Venezuela.
For full story, please see:
www.scidev.net/gateways/index.cfm?fuseaction=readitem&rgwid=4&item=News&itemid=1954&language=1
BACK TO TOP
6. Generating forest data for proper policy formulation
Source: FAO Newsroom, 7 March 2005
FAO is supporting developing countries in preparing forest and tree
resource assessments
In Guatemala and a number of other developing countries FAO is
helping governments assess and improve their forest management through
inventories of forest and tree resources, including their uses and
benefits. "Reliable national data on forest and tree resources in
developing countries is necessary for scientific research and proper policy
formulation at all levels - local, national and international," said
Mohamed Saket, a forestry expert at FAO.
Many developing countries, however, lack the capacity to
conduct proper forest resource assessments. FAO is therefore assisting
developing countries across the world in conducting inventories and
assessments to produce accurate information.
The findings are analyzed and used to tackle existing
shortcomings and improve forestry policies for sustainable forest
management.
Growing need for reliable data
Before the comprehensive FAO inventory in Guatemala in 2003 and 2004,
representative data on the quality of forests, their species distribution
and the geographical location of timber resources and other non-wood forest
products in the country did not exist. Forest institutions did not have the
data needed to support implementation of forest management plans, track the
evolution of forest and tree resources, or follow up policies and laws.
The absence of data on forest benefits, including wood and
non-wood forest products as well as environmental and sociocultural
services, made it difficult to develop policies that would optimize the
benefits from forest and tree resources while sustainably managing them to
the benefit of the country's economy, environment and people.
Trees are increasingly grown outside forests and the
contribution of these trees to the forest sector, food security and other
benefits needs to be accounted for. An analysis of the forest sector within
an environmental and socio-economic context and its role in the local
economies of communities was overdue.
Cost-efficient and accurate
To overcome these shortcomings, FAO helped Guatemala launch a project in
2003 to develop and strengthen national capacities for assessment of forest
resources.
FAO assists in the planning and execution of systematic field
sampling of forests and trees outside forests using methods that, at low
cost, generate accurate estimates within a reasonable time, usually two
years.
The method is designed as a compromise between the volume of
data needed, the precision of results and the cost of the survey. National
personnel are trained in planning and conducting the inventories and in
analyzing data, which will secure long-term monitoring of forest resources.
Use of data for policy formulation
As a result of the project, the government of Guatemala is now able to
evaluate problems in its forest management, which contributes to suitable
policies and legislation.
An analysis of data collected in Guatemala shows, for example,
to what extent agricultural and forestry interests create conflicts when
user rights of products and services provided by forests and trees are not
clear.
The collected data also reveals that despite the high
production capacity of forests in Guatemala, conversion of land to other
uses continues, with possible repercussions on the economy in the long run.
And it suggests that current agroforestry and silvopastoral activities may
not be optimal, taking into account the actual situation of tree resources
outside forests.
The study also highlights the potential of natural forest
management in providing not only products, but also services related to
disaster prevention, proper water resource management, carbon
sequestration, protection of genetic resources, food security as well as
recreation and tourism.
FAO has six similar ongoing projects in Bangladesh, Cameroon,
Honduras, Lebanon, the Philippines and Zambia, and a project in Costa Rica
has been completed. Twelve other such projects are in the pipeline and an
online reference to help implement these assessments has been developed and
launched by FAO together with the International Union of Forest Research
Organizations.
For full story, please see:
www.fao.org/newsroom/en/field/2005/99981/index.html
BACK TO TOP
PRODUCTS
7. Bark: Birch bark promises better health
Source: Minnesota Public Radio (USA), 10 March 2005
Birch bark has been used to make baskets and canoes for a long time, but a
company in Duluth is marketing a new product made from it. A chemical in
the papery bark is an ingredient in skin creams, and scientists are
studying it for use in treating rashes, and even cancer. Native American
healers have been using birch bark for years, and some of them are worried
about the future supply.
The inside of the birch tree rots away quickly, but the bark
lasts much longer. "The birch tree has some incredible defence mechanisms
that protect the tree from weather, from rain, from sun, keep the moisture
in, keep moisture out," says David Peterson. He knows birch trees pretty
well. Peterson was a top manager at the Potlatch paper mill in Cloquet. The
plant processes thousands of trees every day, and burns the bark to make
steam.
"I always was interested in trying to come up with a way of
using some of these low value waste streams, generated from pulp and paper
mills and other places," Peterson says. "It seemed like such a horrible
waste, to take these really interesting compounds and put them in a boiler
for boiler fuel." So Peterson created a new company, NaturNorth
Technologies, to make something worth a lot more than boiler fuel. The
company has patented a process to extract large quantities of a chemical,
betulin, which gives birch bark its anti-bacterial and anti-fungal
qualities. Mill workers remove bark from a tree that's harvested for lumber
or papermaking. The bark is shredded into pellets, and put through a
chemical process that extracts the betulin. It ends up looking something
like salt.
Apparently, what birch bark does for the birch tree, it can
also do for human skin -- protect it from the assaults of the physical
world. Betulin is already used in some creams and cosmetics, but NaturNorth
plans to be the first company in the world to market it on a large scale.
The idea of selling lots of betulin from birch bark makes Skip
Sandman nervous. Sandman is a traditional healer for the Mille Lacs band of
Ojibwe. He uses birch bark for medicine, as a painkiller and blood-thinner.
Sandman says it can also be used for intestinal disorders. "Fortunately,
when people use it for medicines, one small tree does go a long ways,"
Sandman says. "But you might have to travel 15 or 20 miles to find the
right type of tree."
Sandman says the bigger trees, 10-12 inches in diameter, have a
bigger supply of the properties he uses in medicine. And lately he's had to
go farther to find those big trees. "You see the logging trucks go by, and
they're just whacking down everything," Sandman says. "They think it's only
a tree. But when the trees are gone, then what do we do?"
Sandman says in the Ojibwe creation story, each plant and
animal promised to help people in some way, and birch trees offered their
healing qualities. He says it's important to use them respectfully, and not
for profit, but only to help people.
The folks at NaturNorth are hoping to make money from birch
trees, but they're also excited about helping people. David Peterson says
he gets letters from people who want some betulin to treat a skin
condition.
NaturNorth has started marketing betulin to cosmetics
companies, and scientists are studying betulinic acid for its
disease-fighting potential. Peterson says it'll be several years before
NaturNorth generates a profit.
(Embedded image moved to file: pic13977.gif)For full story, please see:
http://news.minnesota.publicradio.org/features/2005/03/10_hemphills_birchbark/
BACK TO TOP
8. Bark: Hanji, the “Korean paper”
Source: Yonhap News, SEOUL, March 11
"Hanji" is paper made of mulberry bark and is one of Korea's finest
products, dating back to the Three Kingdoms period around 130 A.D. "Han"
refers to the Korean people and "ji" means paper. The name is revealing of
the history and life of Korea it holds within its stretched and bleached
fibers.
Over the past few thousand years there has been no diminishment
in the production and quality of the paper or its many uses, although its
value has fast been eclipsed by modern paper production. Today, in Pungsan,
near the Hahoe Folk Village in North Gyeongsang Province, and Jeonju city,
factories continue this ancient and relevant craft. In these factories and
showrooms visitors are invited to participate in the craft of paper and its
tactile hold on Korea's culture.
Little is known about the history of hanji, but without it
little would be known about much of the history of the Joseon Dynasty
(1392-1910 A.D.). From its introduction in the late Silla Kingdom around
751 A.D. and from its first factory in 1415, hanji documents and paintings
recorded who was who at a time when communication was highly limited. Their
high resilience both in use and over time have kept documents intact today
that would otherwise have deteriorated beyond recognition.
The presence of mulberry trees in Korea was noted as early as
105 A.D., about the time of the first major paper production in the Chinese
empire. Mulberry trees grow fast, and provide the most flexible and rugged
bark for paper making, even compared to today's chemically treated pulp and
paper mills. In one year, a tree can grow large enough to be harvested for
its bark and wood (which will be put to separate use). Although rice,
bamboo, pine and willow were all used for paper production in China, hanji
is exclusively made from mulberry bark.
Mulberry bark allows for the production of neutral paper (low
acidity) of medium thickness. Its fibers are not woven too thickly, giving
the paper good ventilation. Each fiber is long and thin, which gives it
flexibility and dexterity, as well as high resilience to weather and
moisture. These qualities have made it one of the longest-lasting paper
products in the world, lasting longer than a millennia.
Thousands of documents and artworks made of hanji have been
collected and archived thanks to the strength of the paper it is printed
on. Most people papered their walls and windows with hanji because of its
breathable but sturdy texture. Hanji was also used for packaging and money,
but is no longer used for the latter. With the wide range of uses that
Koreans found for mulberry paper, it became known as "Korean paper."
Yet despite its legacy, hanji was made by ordinary people,
mainly in cottage industries around Korea. The skills to make paper were
not secret, but widely disseminated. This is probably because the work is
painstaking, detailed, and entirely manual, today and 500 years ago.
For full story, please see:
http://english.yna.co.kr/Engnews/20050311/301900000020050311090024E1.html
BACK TO TOP
9. Bushmeat on the Menu
Source: Susan Milius, Science News Online, 26 February 2005
At a market in a warehouse, a dozen or so vendors display tables stacked
with smoked meat priced from $5 to $8 per pound. Sellers cheerfully answer
questions about their wares, which come from monkeys, small antelopes, and
rodents such as the cane rat. Biologist Justin Brashares, who studies wild
animals that are hunted for meat in Ghana, paid a visit to this market last
year, not in rural Africa, but in New York City. Given that the meat was
almost certainly smuggled into the United States, the market "was more open
than I thought it would be," says Brashares of the University of
California, Berkeley.
Brashares adds that many people don't realize that there are
bushmeat markets all over the world. There's a large one in Paris, but many
other cities, including San Francisco, Chicago, and Montreal, also have
them, he says.
Brashares' New York adventure highlights several themes in
current investigations of African bushmeat. First, researchers are
exploring why people eat these meats. Is it because they don't have much
else to eat? New York certainly offers alternative foods. In such a case,
is bushmeat a prestige item or a nostalgia food? And does increasing wealth
actually fuel the trade? Furthermore, how do the activities of other
countries influence the demand for bushmeat in Africa? The answers to these
questions will have global ramifications.
People have always hunted wild animals for their flesh. What's
changed, according to wildlife biologist Elizabeth Bennett of the Wildlife
Conservation Society in New York City, is that so many hunters now stalk
the tropical forests of the world that animal populations there are
dwindling dramatically. In some cases, whole species are at risk.
Tropical forests may look lush in photos, but they're only
one-tenth as productive as savannahs are in producing animals hunted for
their meat, according to data assembled by Bennett and her colleague John
Robinson. If people got all their protein from local wild meat, tropical
forests typically couldn't support more than one person per square
kilometre over the long term. Yet Bennett reported that, by 2002, hunters
in central Africa were taking six times as much meat as would amount to a
sustainable harvest.
Overhunting ranks as a major problem for a third of the mammals
and birds threatened with extinction, according to a recent analysis of the
Red List, in which the International Union for Conservation of Nature and
Natural Resources reports the degree of peril for plant and animal species
worldwide. For 8 percent of mammals in greatest peril, overexploitation is
the major threat.
The bushmeat trade takes dozens of species, from elephants to
birds. For example, a new report by longtime bushmeat analyst John Fa of
the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust on the island of Jersey lists 71
species of mammals that are traded in seven countries of west and central
Africa: Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Congo, Democratic Republic of
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