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Ending wildlife trafficking: Local communities as change agents
Abstract
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 fight this illegal wildlife trade, and continue to do so. We argue in this report that
these measures are bound to fail, as they do not engage with the most important change agents in conservation: local people who live in or near protected areas and game reserves. The report therefore aims to provide a better understanding of why African rural communities participate in wildlife economies, both legal and illegal, and how
alternative, community-oriented strategies can help build a more resilient response to organized wildlife crime than has hitherto been achieved.
... Overall, there appears to have been limited integration of local communities into the benefit schemes offered by PAs, management or co-management, and ownership of PAs and wildlife. Moreover, the fight against rhino poaching and IWT has put local communities in the spotlight with some conservation officials referring to their neighbours as "criminalised communities", "poaching villages" and "false economies" (Hübschle and Shearing 2018). ...
... Some recurring themes in previous research studies in and adjacent to the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park (GLTP) since the rise of rhino poaching in the landscape, were community disenchantment, alienation and a limited sense of belonging of local people in the broader wildlife conservation landscape. Some communities living adjacent or in the GLTP reported increased levels of crime and social decay from lawlessness associated with poaching and wildlife trafficking networks (Hübschle 2016, Hübschle and Shearing 2018, Fenio 2014, Valoi 2017, Valoi and Oxpeckers Investigative Environmental Journalism 2018. Community members were concerned that the state was focusing its attention solely on IWT investigations while the safety and security concerns of local communities were treated as less important. ...
... The following excerpt from a focus group discussion in the GLTP summarises the sentiments succinctly (Hübschle and Shearing 2018): ...
Several southern African countries have implemented community-focused conservation management approaches with varying levels of success. Community-based approaches are recognised as requiring long-term commitment and resources through genuine partnerships between local people and protected areas (PA). The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) South Africa Khetha programme, supported by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), embarked on a research project to better understand the relationship between local people and PAs, test perceptions and find leverage points for enhancing neighbourly relations. A second line of inquiry looked into perceptions of safety and security of local communities living in the research area, within the context of high levels of illegal wildlife trade (IWT) taking place in the landscape.
... Most of these aforementioned scientific aspects of vulture poisoning have until now been restricted to the purview of conservation biology and applied ecology disciplines; harms and risks associated with human-wildlife conflicts, intentional poisoning and poaching have been delineated by conservation biology experts and communicated with conservation professionals. Criminology is just starting to be applied in conservation crime/environmental harm contexts (see for example Lemieux, 2014;Moreto and Pires, 2018, Moreto, 2018, Petrossian, 2019Gibbs et al., 2010;Gore, 2017;Brisman and South, 2019;Hübschle and Shearing, 2018). Criminological explorations of conservation problems are yielding new and diverse theoretical insights, many with effective practical implications for on-the-ground conservation strategies and tactics (e.g., Kahler, 2018;Hübschle and Shearing, 2018). ...
... Criminology is just starting to be applied in conservation crime/environmental harm contexts (see for example Lemieux, 2014;Moreto and Pires, 2018, Moreto, 2018, Petrossian, 2019Gibbs et al., 2010;Gore, 2017;Brisman and South, 2019;Hübschle and Shearing, 2018). Criminological explorations of conservation problems are yielding new and diverse theoretical insights, many with effective practical implications for on-the-ground conservation strategies and tactics (e.g., Kahler, 2018;Hübschle and Shearing, 2018). Such conservation crime-based assessments have the ability to complement other conservation interventions guided by social marketing (e.g., Smith et al., 2010)), risk communication (e.g., Gore and Knuth, 2009) or community-based management (Hübschle and Shearing, 2020). ...
... With regards to wildlife poaching, recent research on illicit flows of rhino horn (Hübschle, 2016(Hübschle, , 2017aHübschle & Shearing, 2018) shows that rhino poachers claim to be fulfilling important societal functions such as social welfare, community development and political leadership. Akin to latter-day Robin Hoods, they see rhino horn as instrumental in achieving these altruistic goals in an environment where the state is largely absent or failing to deliver public services. ...
... Compared to the meagre livelihoods of most rural communities, wildlife criminals have purchasing power, allowing them to buy greater volumes of goods and services, which indirectly benefits community members. These modest local benefits are, however, tempered by an awareness that there is a ceiling to rhino horn fortunes: poachers acknowledged the existential threat to rhinos through poaching and that they would have to seek new sources of income or return to their old ones once the rhinos were gone (Hübschle & Shearing, 2018). The influx of hard cash into some communities has also had negative consequences, including increased alcohol consumption, illicit drug use and prostitution (Hübschle & Shearing, 2018, pp. ...
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 international trafficking markets in looted cultural heritage and poached wildlife. In other words, developed nations benefit from these trades while developing nations suffer, and governance regimes attempting to control these global criminal trades prioritise the rational interests and cultural norms of the more powerful market nations over the local interests and cultural histories of communities at the source of the chain of supply. Finally, our third argument is that the emerging intellectual framework of sustainable development, as represented in the UN's goals, may provide a perspective on the issue of trafficking culture and nature that can push back against the neocolonial hegemony of international criminal markets such as these.
... The notion that wildlife is valued more highly than rural people was a common theme in interviews with local communities in the three countries (compare with recent research by Hübschle and Shearing, 2018). A recent study on community perceptions in the GLTFCA (Ntuli et al., 2019) found that local community members in South Africa and Zimbabwe were positively inclined towards the GLTFCA and respected the rules governing the park when they received benefits. ...
Report on the findings of a mixed methods study on wildlife poisoning in the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Conservation Area between 2008 and mid-2019
... In South Africa, research indicates that remote coastal communities, such as Buffeljagsbaai, are under siege by organized criminal gangs that illegally harvest abalone on their doorsteps 50,59 , with women in the woman-lead households becoming accomplices to organized poaching operations with the result that they are subject to criminal prosecution 59 . Given the central role of communities in the supply chain of organized criminal networks, a community-based approach to complement a law enforcement response is arguably valuable and the community, similarly, has a potential preventative role [59][60][61][62] . ...
The threat of criminal activity in the fisheries sector has concerned the international community for a number of years. In more recent times, the presence of organized crime in fisheries has come to the fore. In 2008, the United Nations General Assembly asked all states to contribute to increasing our understanding the connection between illegal fishing and transnational organized crime at sea. Policy-makers, researchers and members of civil society are increasing their knowledge of the dynamics and destructiveness of the blue shadow economy and the role of organized crime within this economy. Anecdotal, scientific and example-based evidence of the various manifestations of organized crime in fisheries, its widespread adverse impacts on economies, societies and the environment globally and its potential security consequences is now publicly available. Here we present the current state of knowledge on organized crime in the fisheries sector. We show how the many facets of organized crime in this sector, including fraud, drug trafficking and forced labour, hinder progress towards the development of a sustainable ocean economy. With reference to worldwide promising practices, we highlight practical opportunities for action to address the problem. We emphasize the need for a shared understanding of the challenge and for the implementation of intelligence-led, skills-based cooperative law enforcement action at a global level and a community-based approach for targeting organized crime in the supply chain of organized criminal networks at a local level, facilitated by legislative frameworks and increased transparency.
... Numerous reports and analyses describing various aspects of the rhino horn market were already published. The environmental, legal and economic aspects of the trade and the situations in source and destination countries and basic mechanisms of rhino horn trafficking are thoroughly described in these studies (Milliken and Shaw 2012;Ayling 2013;Nelleman et al. 2014;Rademeyer 2012Rademeyer , 2016aEmslie et al. 2012Emslie et al. , 2016Hübschle 2016Hübschle , 2017Hübschle and Shearing 2018;EAL 2017;Shelley 2018, etc.). However, the problem of some transit territories, and the IWT groups operating on/across these territories, needs to be studied more deeply. ...
This article focuses on the trafficking segment of the illegal wildlife market, or more specifically on organised trafficking in rhino horns from South Africa to Vietnam via the Czech Republic. Composed as a criminological case study, the article analyses how the wildlife trafficking networks were established by Vietnamese nationals in cooperation with providers in Africa and Central Europe, how they operate by crossing national borders and ethnic barriers, and how the illegal wildlife trade is incorporated into the Vietnamese criminal activities in Central Europe. Two important cases of rhino “pseudo-hunting” that were investigated by the Czech security forces, Operation Rhino and Operation Osseus, are discussed in this context.
Online access: https://rdcu.be/b44LN
This Problem Analysis is a review of the efficacy and opportunities for using social norm and behaviour change (SNBC) approaches to combat illegal wildlife trade (IWT) and other natural resource-related corruption.
Behavioural science is a rich and expansive field that has received prominent coverage in recent years for the promise it offers as a foundational yet underutilised approach to achieving biodiversity conservation. Extensive literature shows how SNBC initiatives can help combat diverse corruption problems, although for those related to natural resource management the evidence for doing so is sparse.
This report synthesises the available information and suggests the next steps to redress this current lack of evidence. It seeks to:
Understand what SNBC approaches might or might not work in fighting corruption.
Identify entry points for designing SNBC interventions that can effectively reduce corruption related to IWT.
Available here: https://www.traffic.org/publications/reports/behavioural-drivers-of-corruption-facilitating-illegal-wildlife-trade-problem-analysis-and-state-of-the-field/
This Problem Analysis is a review of the efficacy and opportunities for using social norm and behaviour change (SNBC) approaches to combat illegal wildlife trade (IWT) and other natural resource-related corruption. Behavioural science is a rich and expansive field that has received prominent coverage in recent years for the promise it offers as a foundational yet underutilised approach to achieving biodiversity conservation. Extensive literature shows how SNBC initiatives can help combat diverse corruption problems, although for those related to natural resource management the evidence for doing so is sparse. This report synthesises the available information and suggests the next steps to redress this current lack of evidence. It seeks to: Understand what SNBC approaches might or might not work in fighting corruption. Identify entry points for designing SNBC interventions that can effectively reduce corruption related to IWT. This Analysis has been produced in association with the Targeting Natural Resource Corruption (TNRC) project. The TNRC project is working to improve biodiversity outcomes by helping practitioners to address the threats posed by corruption to wildlife, fisheries and forests. TNRC harnesses existing knowledge, generates new evidence, and supports innovative policy and practice for more effective anti-corruption programming. Learn more at tnrcproject.org. This publication is made possible by the generous support of the American people through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The contents are the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of USAID, the United States Government, or individual TNRC consortium members.
At unsustainable rates and in illegal contexts, the wild meat trade is a driver of species extinction; it can also threaten ecosystem services, local food security and contribute to the risk of zoonotic disease spread. The restaurant and catering sectors are understudied groups in conservation, both with regards to the legal and illegal wild meat trade and particularly in urban areas. Restaurateurs are key actors between wild meat consumers and suppliers and thus play a central role in the supply chain. This study applied a crime science hot product approach to characterize: (a) restaurateur perceptions of urban wild meat consumption; (b) wildlife species most at risk in the urban wild meat trade; and (c) the differences between restaurants in Kinshasa (Democratic Republic of the Congo) and Brazzaville (Republic of the Congo). Through focus groups in both cities, participants affirmed that in urban centers wild meat is considered a luxury item and sign of wealth. Monkeys were seen as a hot product in both cities, but we found a greater variety of hot wild meat products in Brazzaville. When looking at the differences between the restaurant tier levels, middle‐tiered restaurants identified pangolin and antelopes as being hot products, rather than monkeys as with upper and lower‐tiered restaurants. By applying a hot product analysis, we identified the wild meat groups most likely to be targeted by the urban wild meat trade. Findings herein offer novel opportunities to better tailor and prioritize conservation interventions against illegal trade using design against crime or other crime prevention strategies.
The question of how to balance conservation and development for communities living adjacent to protected areas is difficult. Win-win solutions that meet the needs of people and the needs of conservation seem difficult to find. Nepal is one of the poorest countries in the world and yet it is also a model for successful biodiversity conservation. A large percentage of its land is protected and populations of endangered species such as tiger and rhinoceros have been increasing for the past five decades. It has achieved this conservation success to some extent because of its globally renowned community forestry and protected area buffer zone policies. The objective of this paper is to explore how Nepal's national protected area policies address conservation and development issues and how those policies translate into conservation and development activities in protected area buffer zones. We find that one of the strengths of Nepal's approach, in policy and practice, is that it allows for a mix of activities to address both conservation and development without defining outcomes or framing conservation and development as polarized goals. Comparison of four protected areas highlights the need to balance conservation and development in terms of the larger context and opportunities and constraints on people's livelihoods and opportunities.
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 steady decline was evident
at the time of the interview in June 2017. The KNP is home to the largest number of free roaming
rhinos in the world. The park has been in the ‘eye of the storm’, losing close to 4 000 rhinos
to poaching between 2006 and 2016. In 2012, the South African National Parks (SANParks)
management formed a unit named Special Projects. The function of the project team was to
develop and implement mitigation measures to deal with the drastic increase in wildlife crime and,
in particular, rhino poaching in the KNP. Major General Johan Jooste (Ret) heads the unit. Critical
voices have questioned the efficacy of the anti-poaching strategy, suggesting that park authorities
are waging a ‘war on poaching’ with unintended long-term consequences for protected areas
management and community relations. Scholars have argued that ‘green militarisation’ has led to
an arms race between poachers and rangers and, moreover, that ‘green violence’ has led to the
deployment of violent instruments and tactics in pursuit of the protection of nature, and ideas and
aspirations related to nature conservation. In May 2017 Annette Hübschle interviewed Major General Johan Jooste (Ret.) to explore his views on the successes and failures of the South African anti-poaching strategy. The pair also discussed whether claims of ‘green militarisation’ in South Africa’s protected areas were justified.
The modern history of protected area
management in Nepal dates back to 1973 when the
National Parks and Wildlife Conservation Act (1973)
was promulgated and Chitwan National Park was
established. In the years immediately following these
key events, protected area acts and regulations were
strictly applied and the role of local people in
managing natural resources was neglected. However
with the passage of time, and with changes in the
socio-political and economic characteristics of Nepal,
management regimes have shifted towards a more
liberal model which recognizes more clearly the
contributions of people living and working within
protected areas. Recently, landscape level
conservation models including the designation of
multiple use areas have been utilized in the
development of management plans for protected
areas in Nepal. It is likely that increasing buffer zone
and conservation area management might face
sustainable funding for local development efforts.
Conservation agencies have attempted to tackle
challenges such as land use conflict, poaching and
smuggling of wildlife parts and illegal harvesting of
highly valued medicinal herbs through regulation, but
these efforts are not always successful. We
recommend a holistic conflict resolution approach
which recognizes and resolves the different needs of
all stakeholders.
In this article, we seek to explain how one police organization, the Dutch police, has situated itself in various partnership arrangements that make innovative use of its authority and capacities. Such arrangements are notable for their strategic attention to high-risk places, and the flows of people, information and other goods in the spaces between them. We use the term ‘policing assemblages’ to capture the eclectic and rather fluid character of such partnerships. Four particular initiatives in Amsterdam are used to illustrate the ways in which such assemblages can emerge and function. We adopt the metaphor of ‘team play’ to characterize the relations between police and their partners in this ‘nodal’ policing field. We suggest that if nodal policing continues, the public police may play more varied and indirect roles in managing risky spaces and behaviors. Nodal policing could be helpful in a period of high public demand for security, but its stability and longevity requires further consideration.
In light of the high incidence of rhino poaching in southern Africa, the African rhinoceros might become extinct in the wild in the near future. Scholars from a variety of disciplines have analysed drivers of illegal hunting and poaching behaviour in general terms. Existing scholarship on rhino poaching proffers a simplistic concurrence of interlinked drivers, including the entry of transnational organized crime into wildlife crime, opportunity structures and the endemic poverty facing people living close to protected areas. By engaging with the lived experiences and social worlds of poachers and rural communities, this article reflects on empirical evidence gathered during ethnographic fieldwork with poachers, prisoners and local people living near the Kruger National Park. It is argued that the socio-political and historical context and continued marginalization of local people are significant factors facilitating poaching decisions at the grassroots level. Green land grabs and the systematic exclusion of local people from protected areas, as well as the growing securitization of anti-poaching responses, are aiding the perception that the wild animal is valued more highly than black rural lives. As a consequence, conservationists and law enforcers are viewed with disdain and struggle to obtain cooperation. The article critiques the current fortress conservation paradigm, which assumes conflict-laden relationships between local people and wildlife. The accepted version is available on Researchgate. The published version is behind a paywall: http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0011392116673210
African elephants (Loxodonta africana) are imperiled by poaching and habitat loss. Despite global attention to the plight of elephants, their population sizes and trends are uncertain or unknown over much of Africa. To conserve this iconic species, conservationists need timely, accurate data on elephant populations. Here, we report the results of the Great Elephant Census (GEC), the first continent-wide, standardized survey of African savannah elephants. We also provide the first quantitative model of elephant population trends across Africa. We estimated a population of 352,271 savannah elephants on study sites in 18 countries, representing approximately 93% of all savannah elephants in those countries. Elephant populations in survey areas with historical data decreased by an estimated 144,000 from 2007 to 2014, and populations are currently shrinking by 8% per year continent-wide, primarily due to poaching. Though 84% of elephants occurred in protected areas, many protected areas had carcass ratios that indicated high levels of elephant mortality. Results of the GEC show the necessity of action to end the African elephants' downward trajectory by preventing poaching and protecting habitat.
The poaching of rhino for their horns has reached unprecedented levels, and the world can expect to witness their extinction in the wild by 2035 if a breakthrough is not made. The links between poaching, global instability and possibly terrorism have led to substantial investment from the developed world into conservation security development in Africa. Such an investment requires a quantitative monitoring approach that allows for the effectiveness of the expenditure to be determined. By combining criminological deterrence theory and spatially explicit field-ranger patrol monitoring, we develop a framework to measure the presence of field-rangers in the landscape. We test this framework empirically by comparing the presence of field-rangers in the landscape against the presence around 40 rhino poaching incidents. We empirically demonstrate that the analysed field ranger human resources and their deployment in a well-staffed protected area in Africa did not deter rhino poachers.
Civil wars are frequent in lesser-developed nations, wherein is harbored a disproportionate share of the world's biodiversity. These wars have had serious detrimental effects, direct and indirect, on conservation programs. From 2001 to 2005, we conducted site visits, personal interviews, and document searches bearing upon this problem as exemplified by Nepal's ongoing Maoist insurgency. Cases of insurgents usurping full control of several protected areas have come to light, as has a rapid increase in poaching and illicit wildlife trade nation-wide. Staff and infrastructure of conservation agencies and non-governmental organizations have been attacked. The Nepalese situation invites reassessment of traditional “fortresses-and-fines” conservation strategies as well as more modern “community-based” approaches that require local governmental offices to remain functional. Also called into question is the role of military force in the protection of parks and reserves. In times of civil strife, we conclude, robust conservation may most likely be achieved by nongovernmental organizations that are politically neutral and financially independent.
Over a thousand rhinos were killed in 2013 and 2014 as the poaching crisis in Southern Africa reached massive proportions,
with major consequences for conservation and other political dynamics in the region. The article documents these dynamics
in the context of the ongoing development and establishment of “peace parks”: large conservation areas that cross international
state boundaries. The rhino-poaching crisis has affected peace parks in the region, especially the flagship Great Limpopo
Transfrontier Park between South Africa, Mozambique and Zimbabwe. In order to save both peace parks and rhinos, key actors
such as the South African government, the Peace Parks Foundation, and the general public responded to the poaching crisis
with increasingly desperate measures, including the deployment of a variety of violent tactics and instruments. The article
critically examines these methods of ‘green violence’ and places them within the broader historical and contemporary contexts
of violence in the region and in the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park. It concludes that attempting to save peace parks through
‘green violence’ represents a contradiction, but that this contradiction is no longer recognized as such, given the historical
positioning of peace parks in the region and popular discourses of placing poachers in a ‘space of exception’.