Wild meat consumption in tropical forests spares a significant carbon footprint from the livestock production sector.

ABSTRACT: Whether sustainable or not, wild meat consumption is a reality for millions of tropical forest dwellers. Yet estimates of spared greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from consuming wild meat, rather than protein from the livestock sector, have not been quantified. We show that a mean per capita wild meat consumption of 41.7 kg yr^-1 for a population of ~ 150,000 residents at 49 Amazonian and Afrotropical forest sites can spare ~ 71 MtCO₂-eq annually under a bovine beef substitution scenario, but only ~ 3 MtCO₂-eq yr^-1 if this demand is replaced by poultry. Wild meat offtake by these communities could generate US$3M or US$185K in carbon credit revenues under an optimistic scenario (full compliance with the Paris Agreement by 2030; based on a carbon price

SUBMITTER: Nunes AV 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8497605 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature