The Sustainable Wildlife Management (SWM) project in Gabon is making its research results available to all. SWM Gabon announces the launch of its Legal Hub. It is a digital platform open to all, especially non-lawyers that presents data and analysis on the law governing sustainable wildlife management in Gabon.
“You will find information on the historical and political context of the country, you will have access to relevant national and international normative texts by sector, you will find a legal assessment of the sectoral legislation and a description of the relevant national institutions and their roles,” says Hadrien Vanthomme, the SWM Gabon coordinator for the International Center for Agricultural Research for Development (CIRAD).
The establishment of this platform will contribute to the achievement of SWM Gabon’s objectives, particularly the sustainable management of hunting in rural communities.
Meeting the growing demand for bush meat
The forests of the Congo Basin are home to an extremely rich animal and plant biodiversity. In the Ogooué-Lolo province, Mulundu department in southeast Gabon, wildlife is diverse and abundant. It provides an important source of protein and income for the small rural communities that live there. However, the increasing demand for bush meat from secondary towns and cities could affect the availability of resources for these rural communities.
The SWM Project in Gabon therefore aims to promote sustainable management of hunting and local bush meat trade, while increasing the supply of alternative proteins. Since its launch in Gabon in December 2018, the project has obtained the free, informed, and prior consent of 8 rural communities with whom the monitoring of hunting activities is conducted. In 2019, approximately 112 trap cameras were used during over 5,500 hours of trapping to assess the status of hunted wildlife. The project also studied meat consumption and consumer and hunter perceptions in 409 households in Mulundu Division.
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The SWM Gabon project is a component of the global SWM program, an initiative of the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Group of States, funded by the 11th European Development Fund (FED). Its activities in Gabon are coordinated by CIRAD, in collaboration with local communities and the ministry responsible for water and forests.
Boris Ngounou