Subsistence Hunting and Wild Meat Trade in Brazilian Amazonia

Lemos L.P.; Ferreira D.S.S.; Oliveira M.A.; Morcatty T.Q.; Antunes A.P.; de Souza Jesus A.; El Bizri H.R.; Pezzuti J.; Ramos R.M.; Santos-Fita D.; Pimenta N.C.; Calouro A.M.; de Vasconcelos Neto C.F.A.; de Paula M.J.; Fonseca R.; Mayor P.; Chaves W.A.; Durigan C.C.; Valsecchi J.; Constantino P.A.L. · Amazonian Mammals: Current Knowledge and Conservation Priorities (2024) · DOI: 10.1007/978-3-031-43071-8_9

Resumen

Subsistence hunting is a widespread human activity in Brazilian Amazonia, rooted in diverse and complex socioecological universes and intrinsic to a continental-wide region. In this sense, hunting needs to be understood in its whole complexity, encompassing material factors as well as immaterial attributes of peoples and cultures that use wildlife across Amazonia. Mammal species occur in a variety of hunting profiles and together are the most targeted game taxa in this biome. In addition, mammal meat trade is undertaken in poor sanitary conditions and in an unregulated manner in this region, affecting social, ecological, and sanitary security. Nowadays, people who deal with hunting management in Brazil are in a virtual “limbo,” where hunting continues to be carried out by rural and urban populations, surveillance campaigns are hampered by a poor legal framework to prevent overhunting, and hunting comanagement or other forms of sustainable use of wildlife are inactive. In this chapter, we provide a literature review and case studies concerning subsistence hunting and the wild meat trade of mammals, with the aim of highlighting that wildlife management is imperative to achieving biodiversity conservation in Brazilian Amazonia. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023.