Impact of wild meat consumption on greenhouse gas emissions

Date:
October 7, 2021
Source:
University of East Anglia
Summary:
Consuming sustainably sourced wild meat instead of domesticated
livestock reduces greenhouse gas emissions and retains precious
tropical forest systems, which in turn mitigates the effects of
climate change.



FULL STORY ========================================================================== Consuming sustainably sourced wild meat instead of domesticated livestock reduces greenhouse gas emissions and retains precious tropical forest
systems, which in turn mitigates the effects of climate change.


========================================================================== That's according to new research from the University of East Anglia (UEA)
and Brazil's Universidade Federal do Mato Grosso do Sul, published today
in the journal Scientific Reports.

The research team also estimated the carbon credit value of emissions
from tropical forest communities who consume wild meat instead of
domesticated livestock.

Andre' Nunes from the Universidade Federal do Mato Grosso do Sul
and Carlos Peres, Professor of Conservation Science at UEA, working
with Brazilian and Danish colleagues, looked at people living in both Afrotropical and Neotropical countries, including Nigeria, Ghana and
Tanzania, Brazil, Peru and Bolivia.

The team estimated potential revenues from the sale of associated carbon credits and how this could generate financial incentives for forest conservation and sustainable wildlife management through PES and REDD+ projects.

Payments for ecosystem services (PES) are a range of schemes through
which the beneficiaries, or users, of ecosystem services provide payment
to the stewards, or providers, of those services. Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD+) is a multilateral carbon
credit trading mechanism enabling polluters in usually high-income
countries to pay low-income countries for reducing deforestation and
forest degradation.



========================================================================== Based on 150,000 residents in the Amazonian and African forests, the researchers found that an annual per capita consumption of 41.7kg of wild
meat would spare 71 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (MtCO2-eq)
under a bovine beef substitution scenario, and 3 MtCO2-eq if replaced
by poultry.

For these tropical forest dwellers alone, this could generate US $3M
or US $185K per year in carbon credit revenues under full compliance
with the Paris Agreement. Under a more conservative, lower-carbon price,
the wild meat substitution could generate US $1M or US $77K per year in
carbon credits.

Prof Peres, a co-author in the study, said the calculations "represent considerable incentives for forest wildlife conservation, as well as
potential revenues for local communities.

"Our results clearly illustrate the potential value and importance of considering sustainable game hunting within the REDD+ political process
at both national and international scales." Tropical forest populations
that harvest wild meat instead of beef, poultry or other domesticated
meat generate a much lower carbon footprint because of the emissions
associated with livestock production.



==========================================================================
Beef production from ruminant livestock involves deforestation, with
strikingly detrimental repercussions for both biodiversity conservation
and carbon emissions.

Land-use conversion to croplands and cattle pastures are the principal
driver of deforestation worldwide. Cattle ranching is, for instance,
directly responsible for 71 per cent of all Latin American deforestation,
and pasture expansion has been the single-largest driver of deforestation across the region since the 1970s.

The livestock sector also disproportionally contributes to the
environmental cost of agriculture through high resource misuse, including water, land, and soils.

Intact tropical forests act as carbon sinks, absorbing more carbon from
the atmosphere than they release. Tropical forests fulfil an essential
service by storing an estimated 460 billion tons of carbon, more than
half the total atmospheric content.

Across the vast Amazon basin, for example, intact forest areas are
concentrated mainly within indigenous territories and protected areas,
which collectively store some 42 gigatonnes of carbon (GtC).

Prof Peres said: "Tropical grazeland expansion for ruminant livestock production to feed domestic meat consumption and exports is a
double-jeopardy because we both lose the carbon stocks from formerly
pristine old-growth forests and woody savannahs and generate a powerful perennial methane pump.

"Subsistence hunting of game animals by local communities, which is
pervasive in tropical forests, needs to become a sustainable mechanism
of both helping justify and add economic value to otherwise undisturbed
forests in terms of low-carbon animal protein production." Wild meat
provides nutritional and symbolic value for communities living in tropical forests. But, the researchers say, traditional hunting must be done sustainably, both to maintain intact forests and support the food chain.

Dr Nunes, lead author of the study, said: "Securing the sustainable
consumption of wild meat for populations that are socially vulnerable
is very important, not just in terms of food security and well-being,
but also to serve the interests of climate change mitigation efforts in
REDD+ accords through avoided greenhouse gas emissions.

"Tropical forest biodiversity conservation, and how forest dwellers
use forest resources, need urgent financial investments." Unsustainable
hunting can have cascading effects that suppress the long-term carbon
storage capacity of natural forests by depleting large-bodied bird and
mammal species serving essential ecosystem functions, such as dispersal of large-seeded carbon-dense tree species. Unsustainable hunting, therefore,
can lead to shifts in the species composition of tropical tree assemblages
that ultimately reduce the forest carbon storage capacity.

On the other hand, hunting can provide a sustainable source of protein and essential micronutrients if appropriately monitored and managed. Forecasts predict widespread protein deficiency in a range of tropical countries,
and case studies suggest increased risk of anemia in children if wild
meat is insufficient to the point where the prevalence of child growth
stunting can be negatively related to game abundance.

Dr Nunes said: "These challenges should be confronted in collaboration
with local communities through community-based wildlife management
projects to safeguard relatively intact forests, carbon storage, and
long-term hunting yields.

"Enabling resource co-management by marginalized
tropical forest communities will require transparency and
devolution of tangible benefits from carbon credit revenues." ========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by University_of_East_Anglia. Note:
Content may be edited for style and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Andre' Valle Nunes, Carlos A. Peres, Pedro de Araujo Lima
Constantino,
Erich Fischer, Martin Reinhardt Nielsen. Wild meat consumption in
tropical forests spares a significant carbon footprint from the
livestock production sector. Scientific Reports, 2021; 11 (1) DOI:
10.1038/s41598- 021-98282-4 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/10/211007122051.htm

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