The Business of Wild Bush Meat

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Preying on endangered species as food for the table. Bush meat is an industry that is by some estimates worth a billion dollars a year in Africa alone. We go to Malawi, where hippo is being sold in a local market. As well as the alarming reduction in endangered creatures, from lizards to jungle primates, bush meat hunting is also having a direct human impact. The spread of various diseases has been blamed on its consumption, including the recent West African outbreak of Ebola. Despite a formal government ban on bush meat in Sierra Leone, all the signs are that it's very much back on the menu in rural parts of that country. We hear from local journalist Steve Bockarie in the north-eastern town of Kabala. And from Neville Ash of the UN's Environmental Programme, the main global body tasked with the protection of wild-life. Photo: A man walks past bush meat, including pangolins, bush rats and tiger cats for sale on the roadside outside Bata, Equatorial Guinea. Credit: Getty.