Final answer:
Bush meat trade provides income but at the cost of threatening species with extinction. Efforts to reduce the bush meat trade involve imposing fines to encourage sustainable economic alternatives.
Step-by-step explanation:
The bush meat trade involves the hunting and selling of wild animals for food, a practice that provides income for merchants, particularly in regions such as equatorial Africa and parts of Asia. However, this trade has led to unsustainable harvest rates due to the commercialization and availability of bush meat in grocery stores. The income generated is countered by the ecological damage caused by threatening several species with extinction, including mammals like monkeys and great apes in the Congo basin. Furthermore, efforts to curb the bush meat trade through bioeconomic modeling suggest imposing fines to reduce profits and encourage the shift of labor towards more sustainable practices such as agriculture.