Hotspots, refuges, and rising risk: mapping tropical hunting pressure across space and time

Martin Philippe-Lesaffre, Iago Ferreiro-Arias, Jedediah F. Brodie, Dominik Schüßler, Laura Maeso-Pueyo, Ana Benítez-López¹

Hunting is a major driver of global extinctions, yet the spatial footprint and temporal trend of this pressure is lacking at global scale, limiting our ability to achieve international policy targets. Here, we present the first standardized global maps of hunting pressure across the tropics, based on a machine learning algorithm trained on 2,463 hunted and non-hunted tropical sites, spatially and temporally matched to ecological and socio-economic predictors. We estimate that the spatial footprint of hunting pressure extends over 29 mill. km2 of tropical forests, with distinct hotspots of high hunting pressure in the Indomalayan realm (e.g., China, Sri Lanka, Western India), the Atlantic Forest, and parts of West Africa. Refuges of low hunting pressure persist in remote areas of interior Borneo, Papua New Guinea, Central Africa, and the western Amazon. Enhanced human accessibility has facilitated the spread of hunting pressure between 2000-2015, most notably in traditionally considered undisturbed remote regions like the Amazon basin, as well as in areas already facing high pressure such as China and Indonesia. Spatio-temporal dynamics varied among realms: the Indomalayan region experienced marked increases in hunting within existing hotspots, the Neotropics exhibited no clear temporal trends, and the Afrotropical realm remained relatively stable. Our standardized spatio-temporal assessment provides a blueprint to inform conservation priorities, allowing for targeted management actions and informed policy interventions to mitigate hunting impacts. Our pan-tropical maps of hunting pressure can also contribute to integrated assessments of multiple threats to biodiversity at broad scales, facilitating the monitoring of progress towards international policy targets.