In tropical rainforests around the world, there are growing concerns about the decline of wildlife due to excessive hunting, leading to the implementation of strict conservation policies. However, these policies are also threatening the survival of local hunting cultures. To resolve this wild meat crisis, cooperation between local knowledge and science is essential, based on equal dialogue between local communities and conservation organisations. Through coproduction research, we aim to establish locally led, sustainable hunting management systems.

Why do this research?

Tropical rainforest wildlife, such as duikers, wild boars, monkeys, and crocodiles, support rich biodiversity through processes like the food chain and seed dispersal. At the same time, these animals provide valuable protein and income to the people living in the forests and have contributed to developing unique social norms and worldviews, acting as a source of cultural diversity. And there is a livelihood connecting wildlife and people—hunting.

Through the 20th century, however, hunting pressure in tropical rainforest regions rapidly increased, and significant declines in wildlife populations were reported. This issue gained international attention as the wild meat crisis, leading to top-down conservation measures, such as protected areas and strict hunting restrictions. As a result, even subsistence hunting by local communities has been restricted, causing conflicts between conservation officials and local people.

The wild meat crisis represents a typical example of a global environmental problem driven by the friction between global values (wildlife conservation) and local values (the survival of hunting culture). At the root of this issue lies a fundamental misunderstanding between scientific ecology and local knowledge. While there are many commonalities in practical applications, there are significant differences in their basic approaches and priorities. Consequently, methods and decisions based solely on one knowledge system are often not seen as fair or sustainable by the other. The true solution to the wild meat crisis requires a deeper mutual understanding between scientific and local knowledge, alongside the development of a locally based wildlife management system that actively incorporates subsistence hunting.

Project aims

The Fashloks project aims to develop fair and sustainable wildlife monitoring methods and hunting management systems across five sites in the three major tropical rainforests. To achieve this, the project adopts a coproduction research approach, where researchers and local communities collaborate as equals in designing, implementing, and evaluating studies.

We will jointly test scientific methods proposed by ecologists and methods based on local knowledge from skilled hunters to create wildlife monitoring methods. At two main sites in Cameroon and Colombia, we will also establish platforms where all stakeholders can equally participate in decision-making. Furthermore, we will describe and compare the research processes at the five sites to assess the effectiveness of the coproduction approach in addressing global environmental issues.

What we want to do

The project aims to introduce fair and sustainable hunting management systems in five sites in the world’s three largest rainforest regions. To achieve this, we will adopt a “coproduction research” approach, in which local people, conservation administrations, and researchers design, conduct and evaluate research on an equal footing. Scientific propositions of ecologists and the local knowledge-based indices proposed by skilled hunters will be tested jointly, and we will provide wildlife monitoring methods that bring together both actors’ knowledge. Moreover, we will establish management platforms in the Priority Sites in Cameroon and Colombia, which ensure equitable involvement of all stakeholders in management decision-making.
With an approach that bears in mind the equality of local knowledge and science, the five sites will create different management systems aiming at the common goal of “use while conserving.” By describing and comparing the five processes in coproducing the hunting management systems that respond to site-specificities, we test the effectiveness of coproduction research in global environmental issues.