Immigrant-driven hunting and wildlife decline in an Afrotropical rainforest landscape

Community-based conservation in Afrotropical rainforests often prioritizes native communities, recognized as traditional land custodians. However, immigrant communities are increasingly settling in these landscapes, and their ecological impact remains poorly understood due to limited long-term ecological data. We aimed to assess how native and immigrant human communities differentially shape hunting and wildlife dynamics in the Ebo forest, Cameroon, an unprotected but globally significant biodiversity hotspot. We used sociological insights to classify surrounding villages into five socially homogeneous native and immigrant community groups and leveraged cost-distance modelling to define their potential hunting territories. We then applied Bayesian regression models to monitoring data collected from 2008 to 2023 on seven large and medium-sized mammals, and hunting indicators to assess the occurrence probability and temporal trends of wildlife and hunting in the defined hunting territories. Areas exposed to immigrant communities exhibited higher hunting intensity, lower wildlife occurrence, and more negative occupancy trends. Chimpanzee occurrence probability was lowest in immigrant hunting territories, while elephant occurrence declined sharply there but increased in adjacent native territories. Although gun hunting was common in all areas, between 2016 and 2023, shotgun cartridge occurrence increased more strongly in areas exposed to immigrants. Our findings suggest that immigrants exert relatively higher hunting pressure, driving more rapid wildlife declines. This study, the first to integrate cost-distance modelling and monitoring data to disentangle the ecological impact of different human communities, highlights the need for conservation strategies that account for migration dynamics and engage both native and immigrant communities in culturally sensitive approaches.