Alive cameleon species sold in the zoo-therapeutical market. alive cameleon are common on the displays of the fetish market in Benin.

This project will highlight the neglected importance of hunting for animal based medicine and help each actor to consider the risk of depletion and eventual extinction of some species due to that practice. It is expected that the project produce an analytical and operational basis which will guide the forestry and wildlife agency to consider animal based medicine in the conservation strategies, politics, priorities and laws. It will guide the reorganization of hunters, merchants into more professional actors in respect to environment. This work will propose and achieve if possible guides and actions for the sustainable use of animals for medicine and also seek conservation alternatives for species highly killed, rare, threatened, vulnerable or endangered. The project will elaborate a statistic on animal based medicine which has never been done in Benin. It will initiate a global debate based on the key elements which have to be considered for defining conservation strategies of wildlife in Benin. This project will help the country to have basic elements on a participatory approach to define a conservation vision for the conservation of wildlife taking into account animals used for medicinal purposes.

Alive giant rat (Crycetomys eminis) sold in the Dantokpa fetish market in Benin.

And the project will be set up in three steps as highlighted in the following lines:

Field data collection: Information on the use and commercialization of animal for medicinal purposes will be collected through interviews with merchants from several ethnic groups acting on nine main markets in Benin

Analytical workshop: Data collected will be synthesized and resituated during workshop which will bring together scientists, decision makers, forest officers, traditional practicians, animal merchants to better understand the other’s perspective, and to offer fresh insights.

Education awareness, sensitization and lobbying: The output of the workshop will allow us to develop and implement several sensitization activities of the communities living around the mains forests which represent the source of provision and the trader. Moreover we will develop a lobbying based on our results to facilitate the inclusion of certain species in laws, decision making on conservation strategies and policies in Benin since many of the official documents are still in revision.