West Africa Bushmeat Conference

Introduction

The West African Bushmeat Conference took place in Accra, Ghana from 22-24 February 2005. It was supported by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Ghana Wildlife Society (GWS), World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and Conservation International Ghana (CI). Here you can download the background document and the agenda of the conference.

At this conference, participants from twelve West African countries were present, namely Benin, Burkina Faso, Cote d'Ivoire, Gabon, Ghana, Guinea, Liberia, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Togo. Besides, there were also representatives of UEMOA, OCSFA, ZSL, WWF head office in Switzerland, WCS, USAID and WAPCA.

Conference contents

Five topics were discussed during the conference: Food Security, Trade, Socio-cultural Aspects, Education and Awareness and Threatened Species. After presentations group discussions were held, in which participants could exchange information with each other and come to agreement on important action points regarding the topics. There were overview presentations on the last day, summarizing the work of all these groups. Based on all the issues discussed and points that were put forward, the secretariat produced a Draft Action Plan for the region.

Questionnaires

A brief questionnaire was filled in by the country representatives, to create an overview of the bushmeat situation in the different countries. The results of this questionnaire can be downloaded below.

• Results of the survey

Outcomes

An initial Draft Action Plan was created and participants made some preliminary comments. The secretariat of the conference is currently working on the revised draft. The Action Plan will be available in the near future. The Conference proceedings are available here in English and French.