Safe, sustainable, legal use and trade in wild species: testing a new five-dimensional sustainability assessment

The Kunming Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, adopted by the UN Convention on Biological Diversity in 2022, sets ambitious targets to ensure that the use, harvesting and trade of wild species is sustainable, safe and legal. While the definition of ‘sustainable’ is traditionally inclusive of ecological, social, and economic dimensions, many practically applied standards and regulations often exclude non-ecological perspectives such as human health and animal welfare. Recognising the challenge of assessing sustainability in a comprehensive, but accessible, way, a five-dimensional sustainability assessment framework (5DSAF) was developed, explicitly focusing on social, ecological, economic, animal welfare, and human health dimensions of sustainability. This paper documents the experiences of applying and testing the 5DSAF in multiple species use examples: geographically, by different sectors, and socio-economically. Its application in the United Republic of Tanzania (game meat industry), in South Africa (game meat sector), in Indonesia (reticulated python skins), and in Zimbabwe (Nile crocodile) is discussed. It proposes the steps for the future adaptations, and application of 5DSAF beyond the initial case studies aiming to assist conservation practitioners, policymakers, as well as indigenous peoples and local communities and private sector actors to demonstrate that the use of wild animal species and products is safe, legal and sustainable and, meeting the objectives of One Health approach, and where it is not, to identify the necessary improvements that need to be made.