Towards a Sustainable, Participatory and Inclusive Wild Meat Sector

Abstract

First paragraph: Expanding human demands on land, sea and fresh water have led to our planet experiencing unprecedented levels of wildlife declines and extirpations (Ceballos et al., 2017). The Living Planet Index (LPI) as an indicator of global vertebrate abundance declined by up to 58% between 1970–2012 (WWF, 2016). In the most recent version of the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) Red List as many as 32% of assessed vertebrate species are decreasing in terms of both population size and range (IUCN 2017). Larger species are suffering the steepest and most irreversible declines (Dirzo et al., 2014; Ripple et al., 2014, 2015). As wildlife is lost, biodiversity is reduced and ecosystem integrity suffers (Dirzo et al., 2014; Young et al., 2016).