Annette HübschleUniversity of Cape Town | UCT · Department of Public Law
Annette Hübschle
PhD in Social Science and Economics
Currently busy with a book manuscript on community responses to wildlife crime
About
45
Publications
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Introduction
Annette Hübschle researches illicit economies and transnational criminal networks operating at the interface between legality and illegality.
My recent focus has been on rural African futures, criminogenic collectables, policing, resilience to climate change and the illegal trade in wildlife.
Additional affiliations
April 2016 - February 2022
January 2015 - March 2016
October 2011 - April 2015
Education
October 2011 - January 2016
Field of study
- Economic sociology and political economy
Publications
Publications (45)
Illicit supply networks (ISNs) are composed of coordinated human actors that source, transit, and distribute illicitly traded goods to consumers, while also creating widespread social and environmental harms. Despite growing documentation of ISNs and their impacts, efforts to understand and disrupt ISNs remain insufficient due to the persistent lac...
An iterative participative research methodology developed for research on conservation matters and community safety in communities living in the Greater Kruger Landscape.
Report on the findings of a mixed methods study on wildlife poisoning in the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Conservation Area between 2008 and mid-2019
Book review of The Illicit Economy in Turkey: How Criminals, Terrorists, and the Syrian Conflict Fuel Underground Markets.
In this chapter, we first argue for a green criminological perspective on culture as well as nature, as those concepts are framed in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Second, from within this green criminological perspective we discern a neocolonial hegemony in the resource extraction from developing countries that is represented by...
Vulture declines are uniquely problematic for socioecological systems because they are nature's most important scavengers. Intentional and unintentional poisoning, human-wildlife conflict, energy infrastructure, belief-based use, and illegal hunting activities remain threats to vulture populations across Africa. Conservation stakeholders have ident...
Counterfeit commodities and sweatshops in Argentina, diamonds in Sierra Leone and rhinoceros horn in southern Africa were the research themes of Matias Dewey, Nina Engwicht and Annette Hübschle. As part of their program of research on illegal markets at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies, the researchers conducted
hundreds of inter...
A large number of anti-poaching, conservation and management measures have been implemented to protect rhinos. None of these responses has achieved tangible results in lowering unnatural rhino deaths through illegal hunting in southern Africa. The international donor community, conservation NGOs and governments have disbursed millions of dollars to...
A large number of anti-poaching, conservation and management measures have been implemented to protect rhinos. None of these responses has achieved tangible results in lowering unnatural rhino deaths through illegal hunting in southern Africa. The international donor community, conservation NGOs and governments have disbursed millions of dollars to...
A large number of anti-poaching, conservation and management measures have been implemented to protect rhinos. None of these responses has achieved tangible results in lowering unnatural rhino deaths through illegal hunting in southern Africa. The international donor community, conservation NGOs and governments have disbursed millions of dollars to...
Short piece on the importance of local communities in mitigating wildlife crime and poaching. Available at: https://theconversation.com/the-fight-against-poaching-must-shift-to-empowering-communities-83828
In spite of the regulation, financial assistance and securitisation of responses to rhino poaching, rhino deaths have escalated over the past decade. This article discusses why efforts to disrupt illegal flows of rhino horn have been unsuccessful by honing in on structural and functional aspects of the broader rhino horn economy. Existing scholarly...
A multitude of measures, including regulatory changes, law enforcement measures and demand
reduction campaigns, appear to have done little to stem the tide against organised environmental
crimes. However, fewer rhinos were poached in South Africa’s signature national park, the Kruger
National Park (KNP), in 2015 and 2016 than in the year before and...
A plethora of protective and regulatory national and international measures have failed to disrupt the consumer markets and criminal networks that allow wildlife trades to flourish. While conservation is often regarded as a pastime of economic elites, the impact of environmental degradation disproportionately affects poor people. The role of local...
The paper provides a brief analysis of the SNA model created by Salcedo– Albaran et al (2015) of the Groenewald gang’s involvement in illegal transnational rhinoceros horn trade between southern Africa and Asia. What renders the case particularly interesting is the demonstrable interface between legality and illegality. This paper provides a brief...
The following paper provides a brief analysis of the SNA model created by Salcedo–Albaran et al (2015) of the Groenewald gang’s involvement in illegal transnational rhinoceros horn trade between southern Africa and Asia. What renders the case particularly interesting is the demonstrable interface between legality and illegality. This paper provides...
In the run up to CITES CoP17, the Portfolio Committee on Environmental Affairs invited the Minister of Environmental Affairs to provide feedback on South Africa's readiness for the international event and the status of the country's anti-poaching strategies. A number of external presentations were also heard, including Dr Sam Ferreira and Mr Xolani...
This report is the final product of a one-year research project that delved into the socio-economic impacts of specific drug markets in South Africa. The research forms part of a USAID-funded three-year project analyzing the intersections of transnational organized crime (TOC) and development in Africa. This particular study focuses on the socio-ec...
Interview on the preliminary findings of my doctoral research project on illegal rhino horn markets
During 2005 representatives of the Institute for Security Studies (ISS) and the Secretariat of the Southern African Regional Police Chiefs Cooperation Organisation (SARPCCO) discussed the lack of reliable information and research on organised crime and how it impacted law enforcement in southern Africa. The lack of credible homegrown research data...
Anti-poaching measures, regulatory interventions and demand reduction campaigns have been instituted to curb the flow of illegal wildlife contraband. While these measures are laudable, they appear to achieve limited success in disrupting illegal wildlife markets. Using the example of the illegal market in rhinoceros horn, this article focuses on se...
In discussions around southern Africa’s wildlife crime challenges, is usually assumed that there is a high degree of engagement by communities that live adjacent to national parks. Common wisdom suggests that this is predominantly for economic reasons, but a recent research study undertaken by Global Initiative member Annette Hübschle-Finch suggest...
A multi-sectorial regime of protection including international treaties, conservation and security measures, demand reduction campaigns and quasi-military interventions has been established to protect rhinos. Despite these efforts, the poaching of rhinos and trafficking of rhino horn continue unabated. This dissertation asks why the illegal market...
Organized crime scholars have paid scant attention to gender and stereotyped roles of women in the commission of organized crime activities. Traditionally, organized crime is seen as a form of criminality perpetrated by men only. Women are usually portrayed as victims of organized crime or as “mean girls”, girlfriends, wives, lovers of brides of no...
From the early 1990s onwards, research and policies concerning organised crime in the southern African region have grown apace. But the quest for both quantitative and qualitative research is far from being satisfied. The paper uses an ambitious research project (titled Enhancing Regional Responses to Organised Crime, or EROC) as a case study in or...
A growing body of scholarly literature suggests confluence or even convergence of organized
crime and terrorism in various parts of the world. However, links remain somewhat nebulous at
this stage and vary considerably, based on region and context. Africa has come under the
spotlight due to perceived weaknesses in the criminal justice sector, limit...
September 11 2001 has put the spotlight on terrorism, and it has been at the apex of the international security agenda ever since. Politicians, lawmakers, scholars and others have been debating the meaning and definition of terrorism for many years. Numerous myths and misconceptions persist on this highly debated issue. With the aid of historical c...
Tough anti-money laundering and terrorist financing regimes have become the key tools in fighting terrorism in the
post 9/11 world. The stakes in what the Bush government in the United States has called a ‘war on terrorism’, have
been raised on account of the inevitable friction between the trappings of development, on one hand, and the
imperative...
September 11 2001 precipitated the introduction of anti-terrorism legislation in most states and enhanced cooperation between states around the world. Africa may not have witnessed many incidents of international terrorism on its soil, yet the continent has, in the post 9/11 era, often been referred to as the ‘breeding ground of terrorism’ or the c...
South Africa’s anti-terror legislation, the Protection of Constitutional Democracy against Terrorism and Related Activities Act (Act 33 of 2004), came into operation on 20 May 2005. Throughout the drafting process concerns were raised from a number of civil society and faith
organisations that aspects of the new law could detract from basic human r...
The structural, economic, social and political weaknesses in southern Africa, combined with well-organised
and firmly entrenched criminal networks would, on the face of it, suggest that linkages between organised crime and terrorism are plausible. However, none of the cases examined in this paper could establish a clear linkage between organised cr...
Questions
Question (1)
Projects
Projects (5)
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The Kruger National Park (KNP) and its GLTP partner parks as well as neighbouring communities, commercial farms and private game, safari and hunting reserves have been affected by an increase in poisoning incidents over the past decade. Initial findings suggest that highly-toxic agricultural pesticides including the banned Temik (Aldicarb) have been added to the poacher’s tool box. In other instances, rural farmers employ poisons in retaliatory or vendetta killings to deal with crop-raiding elephants or predators that attack livestock and endanger peoples’ lives. The objective of the study is to better understand the magnitude, impacts and trends of wildlife poisoning across the transfrontier conservation area and neighbouring local communities. I am also looking at remedial actions such as curbing the flow of toxic pesticides and awareness raising campaigns to alert local communities and commercial farmers to the dangers of using, storing or trading dangerous toxins.
My doctoral research project explored the structure and functioning of the illegal rhino horn economy. The overarching research question was why rhinos are not better protected in spite of the myriad responses. During 14 months of ethnographic fieldwork, I followed rhino horn from the source to the market.
