The ‘bushmeat trade’ is a highly complex issue with few, if any, general solutions. The general characteristics of the situation have been well researched, and because of the growing urgency of the issue it is now time to concentrate on the specifics from an
action-oriented perspective. The bushmeat issue is not easily compartmentalised and, although this report uses a format fitting with the respective authors’ expertise and examines the issue in terms of institutions and policy, biodiversity, and livelihood perspectives, many of the key questions remaining to be solved are crosscutting. Our approach was, therefore, to identify questions that need to be answered and prioritise these within the context of the reality of the situation in West and Central Africa. This region is probably the geographical area on which most has been written in recent years with regards the hunting of wild game. However, it should be recognised that the bushmeat problem is global, and that hunting in the Asian and American tropics shares many of the characteristics noted below, and warrants the same kind of attention.