Bushmeat represents an important source of animal protein for humans in tropical Africa. Unsustainable bushmeat hunting is a major threat to wildlife and its consumption is associated with an increased risk of acquiring zoonotic diseases, such as Ebola virus disease (EVD). During the recent EVD outbreak in West Africa, it is likely that human dietary behavior and local attitudes toward bushmeat consumption changed in response to the crisis, and that the rate of change depended on prevailing socio-economic conditions, including wealth and education. In this study, we therefore investigated the effects of income, education, and literacy on changes in bushmeat consumption during the crisis, as well as complementary changes in daily meal frequency, food diversity and bushmeat preference. More specifically, we tested whether wealthier households with more educated household heads decreased their consumption of bushmeat during the EVD crisis, and whether their daily meal frequency and food diversity remained constant. We used Generalized Linear Mixed Models to analyze interview data from two nationwide household surveys across Liberia. We found an overall decrease in bushmeat consumption during the crisis across all income levels. However, the rate of bushmeat consumption in high-income households decreased less than in low-income households. Daily meal frequency decreased during the crisis, and the diversity of food items and preferences for bushmeat species remained constant. Our multidisciplinary approach to study the impact of EVD can be applied to assess how other disasters affect social-ecological systems and improve our understanding and the management of future crises.

There is unequivocal evidence in the literature that epidemics adversely affect the livelihoods of individuals, households and communities. However, evidence in the literature is dominated by the socioeconomic impacts of HIV/AIDS and malaria, while evidence on the impact of the Ebola virus disease (EVD) on households’ livelihoods remains fragmented and scant. Our study investigates the effect of the EVD epidemic on the livelihoods of Liberian households using the Sustainable Livelihood Framework (SLF). The study also explores the effect of the EVD epidemic on agricultural production and productive efficiency of farm households using Spatial Stochastic Frontier Analysis (SSFA). We collected data from 623 households across Liberia in 2015, using a systematic random sampling design. Our results indicated that the annual income of sample households from communities where EVD occurred did not differ from the annual income of households from communities where EVD did not occur. Nonetheless, the majority of sample households reported a decrease in their income, compared to their income in the year before the survey. This suggests that the impact of the EVD epidemic might not only have been limited to communities directly affected by the epidemic, but also it may have indirectly affected communities in areas where EVD was not reported. We also found that the community-level incidence of EVD negatively affected crop production of farm households, which may have exacerbated the problem of food insecurity throughout the country. Moreover, we found that the EVD epidemic weakened the society’s trust in Liberian institutions. In a nutshell, our results highlight that epidemics, such as the recent EVD outbreak, may have long-lasting negative effects on the livelihoods of a society and their effect may extend beyond the communities directly affected by the epidemics. This means that the nation’s recovery from the impact of the epidemic would be more challenging, and the social and economic impacts of the epidemic may extend well beyond the end of the health crisis.

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Payment for ecosystem services has become one of the most important conservation policy options worldwide. In developing countries, however, payments are often targeted toward communities instead of individuals. Nonetheless, there is little evidence for the effectiveness of different payment schemes in promoting proconservation behavior. We compare three payment schemes (community-based payments [CBP], equality-based individual payments [EBIP], and performance-based individual payments [PBIP]) using dynamic behavioral experiments with 450 participants in 34 Ugandan villages. We further assess the interplay of the payment schemes with stylized local organizations including communication, leadership, and external advice. We find that PBIP lead to better conservation outcomes than EBIP and CBP. Furthermore, PBIP outperform CBP under all tested conditions. Thus, our results provide important insights for the design of future incentive-based conservation interventions, and we underscore how our novel and low-cost approach can be used to increase the effectiveness of conservation policies.

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In recent decades, there has been a major shift in natural resource conservation policies in developing countries, and community-based natural resource management has become the integral part of the policies. Nonetheless, the link between the local communities' dependence on forest resources for their livelihood and the likelihood of the success of community forest management has been understudied. Thus, this study investigates how forest dependence influences the contribution of local communities to the management of community forest, using the data collected from 190 households participating in community forest management in rural Ethiopia. It was found that the sample households derived almost 38% of their annual income from community forest. Moreover, results from mixed effects linear regression models show that forest dependence promotes contribution to collective action in the management of community forest. When households derive more income from the community forest relative to their total income, they contribute more to the management of the community forest. This suggests that the more the households depend on the community forest for their livelihood, the more they value the resource and the more they participate in the management of the forest. Thus, the results underline that the success of local communities in managing community forest may be significantly influenced by their level of dependence on the resources from the forest.

This paper examines the relationship between chemical fertilizer adoption and agricultural productivity in Ethiopia. Our results suggest that average returns to fertilizer adoption are high. Further, we find substantial heterogeneity across farm households in returns to fertilizer adoption, with comparative advantage playing a significant role in the adoption decision of farmers. While the adoption decision of farmers was largely rational, fertilizer use across plots was sub‐optimal. The results of this paper underscore the importance of improving farmers awareness about proper use of fertilizer through site‐specific extension services for improving agricultural productivity.

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