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Wildlife and protected area management

Masai Maara, Kenya

Context

Wildlife is essential to regulating the natural processes of the food chain at all levels, including seed dispersal, nutrient cycling and even landscape structure. Wildlife delivers provisioning services (such as those that produce food and income) to a substantial number of the world’s poorest people, including forest-dependent communities as well as urban populations. It also contributes to national economies through tourism and the legal and sustainable trade in wild animal products. The sustainable use of wildlife and wildlife conservation are vital for forest ecosystem services, and are among the seven sustainable forest management criteria.  

Wildlife and protected areas contribute to the success of the key areas of FAO’s Strategic Framework 2022–31 and the Programme Priority Areas of the four betters. These include Biodiversity and ecosystem services for food and agriculture in better environment, One Health in better production, and Nutrition for the most vulnerable in better nutrition. Wildlife also contributes directly toward SDG 1 (No Poverty), SDG 2 (Zero Hunger) and SDG 15 (Life on Land). 

Key facts: 

  • Around 50 000 wild species worldwide, captured by terrestrial animal harvesting and gathering, have diverse uses. More than 20 percent (over 10 000 species) are crucial for human food, underscoring the importance of sustainable practices for food security and improved nutrition (IPBES, 2022).
  • As many as 2 000 wild animal species are used as wild meat across the world, and most are harvested from forest ecosystems (Redmond et al., 2006). Many communities in tropical and subtropical regions get more than 50 percent of their protein intake from wild meat (Coad et al., 2019). 
  • Between 1970 and 2020, wild animal populations decreased with an alarming average drop of 74 percent (WWF, 2024). 
  • Unsustainable hunting affects more than 1 300 wild mammal species, including 669 that were assessed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as threatened, with mainly large-bodied species facing declines due to hunting pressure (IPBES, 2022). 
  • Illegal wildlife trade is the fourth largest crime globally after arms, drugs and human trafficking, and its estimated worth is between USD 5 billion and 23 billion annually, involving more than 7 000 species (Nellemann et al., 2016).  
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