Antunes, André Pinassi, de Araujo Lima Constantino, Pedro, Fa, Julia E., Munari, Daniel P., Morcatty, Thais Q., Jacob, Michelle C. M., Nelson, Bruce W., Cassino, Mariana Franco, Carvalho, Elildo A. R., Ickowitz, Amy, and others. (2025) Healthy forests safeguard traditional wild meat food systems in Amazonia. Nature, 648 (8094). pp. 625-633. ISSN 1476-4687. (doi:10.1038/s41586-025-09743-z) (KAR id:112429)
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| Official URL: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-09743-z |
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Abstract
Amazonia is the largest1 and the most species-rich tropical forest region on Earth2, where hundreds of Indigenous cultures and thousands of animal species have interacted over millennia3, 4. Although Amazonia offers a unique context to appraise the value of wildlife as a source of food to millions of rural inhabitants, the diversity, geographic extent, volumes and nutritional value of harvested wild meat are unknown. Here, leveraging a dataset comprising 447,438 animals hunted across 625 rural localities, we estimate an annual extraction of 0.57 Mt of undressed animal biomass across Amazonia, equivalent to 0.34 Mt of edible wild meat. Just 20 out of 174 taxa account for 72% of all animals hunted and 84% of the overall biomass extracted. We show that this amount of wild meat can meet nearly half of protein and iron dietary requirements for rural peoples, along with a substantial portion of their needs for B vitamins (18–126%) and zinc (23%). However, wild meat productivity is likely to have decreased by 67% in nearly 500,000 km² of highly deforested areas of Amazonia. Furthermore, the availability of wild meat per capita decreases significantly in areas with higher human population, greater proximity to cities, and more extensive deforestation. These findings highlight the urgent need to preserve the forest to safeguard biodiversity and traditional wild meat food systems, which will be essential for ensuring Amazonian peoples’ well-being and achieving several of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals5.
| Item Type: | Article |
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| DOI/Identification number: | 10.1038/s41586-025-09743-z |
| Subjects: | Q Science > QH Natural history > QH75 Conservation (Biology) |
| Institutional Unit: | Institutes > Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology |
| Former Institutional Unit: |
There are no former institutional units.
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| Funders: |
National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (https://ror.org/03swz6y49)
UK Research and Innovation (https://ror.org/001aqnf71) |
| SWORD Depositor: | JISC Publications Router |
| Depositing User: | JISC Publications Router |
| Date Deposited: | 17 Feb 2026 12:03 UTC |
| Last Modified: | 17 Feb 2026 12:03 UTC |
| Resource URI: | https://kar.kent.ac.uk/id/eprint/112429 (The current URI for this page, for reference purposes) |
University of Kent Author Information
Bodmer, Richard E..
| Creator's ORCID: |
 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8777-2967
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