Acoustic monitoring of forest exploitation to establish community perspectives of sustainable hunting

Unsustainable hunting is one of the most pervasive threats to forest wildlife [1], which together with forest disturbance have large impacts on biodiversity and leads to defaunation. Defaunation has far-reaching ecological, social, economic and gendered implications for rural communities, where wild meat contributes to food security and livelihoods [2]. The consequences on biodiversity and rural communities intensify with increased pressure from land conversion. Whilst land conversion is detectable from satellite imagery, cryptic activities such as hunting, and resource extraction have gone under-reported. Recent developments in acoustic sensors [3] provide us an opportunity to address this data gap.  

This project will take an interdisciplinary approach to evaluating the socio–ecological sustainability of hunting practices within tropical forests in Belize, Central America. The region has seen rapid deforestation, with increased isolation of forest areas. The project will add to the global knowledge on the deployment strategies for acoustic sensors to collect ground-level data on hunting pressures in forest areas; will explore the socio-ecological systems where land-use change is influencing hunting activities and consequential environmental impacts; and establish community perspectives of sustainable hunting, providing novel approaches to governance and regularity frameworks of hunting activities.

For full project details visit the Inspire project page.