Poaching and bushmeat trade in the Congo River Basin

The tragedy of silenced rainforests

A monkey moseys slowly up a tree, looks around and rests for a while on a branch. A gunshot rings. The monkey falls to the ground. Two men pick up the dead animal, string it to a pole and take it back to the village for a quick sale.

Taken alone, there is nothing worrying about this event. But multiply it a few hundred thousand times within a year and you have a problem. Or, more accurately, a crisis.

Today, the bushmeat trade is a leading cause of biodiversity loss in the Congo River Basin forests, a crisis decimating a host of nature’s innovations from elephants to small primates. The logging industry and a rapidly increasing human population are 2 factors which are worsening the problem.