Crime, Security, and Illegal Wildlife Trade: Political Ecologies of International Conservation

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Rosaleen Duffy
Keyword(s):  
Political Ecology ◽  
Wildlife Trade ◽  
Security Threats ◽  
Security Threat ◽  
Human Rights Abuses ◽  
Illegal Wildlife Trade ◽  
Global Environmental ◽  
Competitive Funding ◽  
Political Ecologies ◽  
Funding Environment

Abstract This article takes a political ecology approach to understanding the integration of conservation with security in tackling the illegal wildlife trade. It builds on political ecology debates on militarization by connecting it to the dynamics of global environmental politics, specifically the discursive and material support from donors, governments, and conservation nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). The combined effects of a highly competitive funding environment and security concerns of governments has produced a context in which NGOs strategically invoke the idea of the illegal wildlife trade as a security threat. For donors and governments, tackling the illegal wildlife trade is a means through which they can address security threats. However, this has material outcomes for marginalized peoples living with wildlife, including militarization, human rights abuses, enhanced surveillance, and law enforcement.

The Integration of Conservation and Security

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rosaleen Duffy ◽  
Francis Massé
Keyword(s):  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Political Ecology ◽  
Organized Crime ◽  
Conservation Policy ◽  
Wildlife Trade ◽  
Armed Groups ◽  
Security Threat ◽  
Global Security ◽  
Illegal Wildlife Trade ◽  
Conservation Authorities

This chapter examines the intersections among violence, security, and the environment. It uses a political ecology lens to analyze the violences that arise from “enforcement-first” approaches in tackling the illegal wildlife trade (IWT) as one aspect of conservation. Growing concern about IWT as a threat to biodiversity and security has led to calls for an urgent response. This has encouraged and facilitated the development of responses that are anchored in law enforcement and militarization. This is in part due to the redefining of IWT as a global security threat because it is deemed as a source of funding for armed groups and involves organized crime networks. The intense focus on the need to tackle IWT has led to shifts in conservation policy, such that anti-poaching operations are often accompanied by considerable levels of violence by conservation authorities.

scholarly journals Conservation and crime convergence? Situating the 2018 London Illegal Wildlife Trade Conference

2020 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 23 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francis Massé ◽  
Hannah Dickinson ◽  
Jared Margulies ◽  
Laure Joanny ◽  
Teresa Lappe-Osthege ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Political Ecology ◽  
Critical Criminology ◽  
Environmental Crime ◽  
Wildlife Trade ◽  
Power Dynamics ◽  
Judicial Reform ◽  
Intelligence Gathering ◽  
Illegal Wildlife Trade ◽  
Serious Crime ◽  
The Uk

<p>The 2018 London Illegal Wildlife Trade (IWT) Conference was the fourth and biggest meeting on IWT convened at the initiative of the UK Government. Using a collaborative event ethnography, we examine the Conference as a site where key actors defined the problem of IWT as one of serious crime that needs to be addressed as such. We ask (a) how was IWT framed as serious crime, (b) how was this framing mobilized to promote particular policy responses, and (c) how did the framing and suggested responses reflect the privileging of elite voices? Answering these questions demonstrates the expanding ways in which thinking related to crime and policing are an increasingly forceful dynamic shaping conservation-related policy at the global level. We argue that the conservation-crime convergence on display at the 2018 London IWT Conference is characteristic of a conservation policy landscape that increasingly promotes and privileges responses to IWT that are based on legal and judicial reform, criminal investigations, intelligence gathering, and law enforcement technologies. Marginalized are those voices that seek to address the underlying drivers of IWT by promoting solutions rooted in sustainable livelihoods in source countries and global demand reduction. We suggest that political ecology of conservation and environmental crime would benefit from greater engagement with critical criminology, a discipline that critically interrogates the uneven power dynamics that shape ideas of crime, criminality, how they are politicized, and how they frame policy decisions. This would add further conceptual rigor to political ecological work that deconstructs conservation and environmental crime.</p><p><strong>Keywords: </strong>illegal wildlife trade, poaching, conservation, crime, event ethnography, criminology</p>

scholarly journals Mapping the frontiers and front lines of global environmental justice: the EJAtlas

2015 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 255 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leah Temper ◽  
Daniela Del Bene ◽  
Joan Martinez-Alier
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Justice ◽  
Political Ecology ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Global Perspective ◽  
Study Approach ◽  
Global Environmental ◽  
The Social ◽  
Mapping Process ◽  
Political Ecologies ◽  
Governance Processes

This article highlights the need for collaborative research on ecological conflicts within a global perspective. As the social metabolism of our industrial economy increases, intensifying extractive activities and the production of waste, the related social and environmental impacts generate conflicts and resistance across the world. This expansion of global capitalism leads to greater disconnection between the diverse geographies of injustice along commodity chains. Yet, at the same time, through the globalization of governance processes and Environmental Justice (EJ) movements, local political ecologies are becoming increasingly transnational and interconnected. We first make the case for the need for new approaches to understanding such interlinked conflicts through collaborative and engaged research between academia and civil society. We then present a large-scale research project aimed at understanding the determinants of resource extraction and waste disposal conflicts globally through a collaborative mapping initiative: The EJAtlas, the Global Atlas of Environmental Justice. This article introduces the EJAtlas mapping process and its methodology, describes the process of co-design and development of the atlas, and assesses the initial outcomes and contribution of the tool for activism, advocacy and scientific knowledge. We explain how the atlas can enrich EJ studies by going beyond the isolated case study approach to offer a wider systematic evidence-based enquiry into the politics, power relations and socio-metabolic processes surrounding environmental justice struggles locally and globally.Key words: environmental justice, maps, ecological distribution conflicts, activist knowledge, political ecology

Clouded Leopard Neofelis nebulosa (Griffith, 1821) (Mammalia: Carnivora: Felidae) in illegal wildlife trade in Nepal

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (16) ◽  
pp. 17229-17234
Author(s):  
Yadav Ghimirey ◽  
Raju Acharya
Keyword(s):  
Wildlife Trade ◽  
Illegal Trade ◽  
Body Parts ◽  
Clouded Leopard ◽  
Illegal Wildlife Trade ◽  
Neofelis Nebulosa

We document trade of the Clouded Leopard Neofelis nebulosa in Nepal based on pelt seizure reports published in wildlife trade reports and in newspapers.  Just 27 cases in three decades seem little to suggest targeted illegal trade of the species, the seizure information in recent years indicate that illegal trade of Clouded Leopard body parts is still taking place.  Hence an in-depth assessment is necessary to understand properly the intensity and magnitude of illegal trade on Clouded Leopard in the country.

Security Threat Analyses and Attack Models for Approximate Computing Systems

2021 ◽  
Vol 26 (4) ◽  
pp. 1-31
Author(s):  
Pruthvy Yellu ◽  
Landon Buell ◽  
Miguel Mark ◽  
Michel A. Kinsy ◽  
Dongpeng Xu ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Error Resilience ◽  
Security Threats ◽  
Approximate Computing ◽  
Security Threat ◽  
Security Vulnerabilities ◽  
Computing Systems ◽  
Quantitative Analyses ◽  
Resilience Mechanisms ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Attack Models

Approximate computing (AC) represents a paradigm shift from conventional precise processing to inexact computation but still satisfying the system requirement on accuracy. The rapid progress on the development of diverse AC techniques allows us to apply approximate computing to many computation-intensive applications. However, the utilization of AC techniques could bring in new unique security threats to computing systems. This work does a survey on existing circuit-, architecture-, and compiler-level approximate mechanisms/algorithms, with special emphasis on potential security vulnerabilities. Qualitative and quantitative analyses are performed to assess the impact of the new security threats on AC systems. Moreover, this work proposes four unique visionary attack models, which systematically cover the attacks that build covert channels, compensate approximation errors, terminate normal error resilience mechanisms, and propagate additional errors. To thwart those attacks, this work further offers the guideline of countermeasure designs. Several case studies are provided to illustrate the implementation of the suggested countermeasures.

scholarly journals Anthropomorphic Strategies Promote Wildlife Conservation through Empathy: The Moderation Role of the Public Epidemic Situation

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (7) ◽  
pp. 3565
Author(s):  
Dan Yue ◽  
Zepeng Tong ◽  
Jianchi Tian ◽  
Yang Li ◽  
Linxiu Zhang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
College Students ◽  
Behavioral Intention ◽  
Wildlife Conservation ◽  
Negative Emotion ◽  
Public Awareness ◽  
Negative Emotions ◽  
Experimental Studies ◽  
Wildlife Trade ◽  
Illegal Wildlife Trade ◽  
The Impact

The global illegal wildlife trade directly threatens biodiversity and leads to disease outbreaks and epidemics. In order to avoid the loss of endangered species and ensure public health security, it is necessary to intervene in illegal wildlife trade and promote public awareness of the need for wildlife conservation. Anthropomorphism is a basic and common psychological process in humans that plays a crucial role in determining how a person interacts with other non-human agents. Previous research indicates that anthropomorphizing nature entities through metaphors could increase individual behavioral intention of wildlife conservation. However, relatively little is known about the mechanism by which anthropomorphism influences behavioral intention and whether social context affects the effect of anthropomorphism. This research investigated the impact of negative emotions associated with a pandemic situation on the effectiveness of anthropomorphic strategies for wildlife conservation across two experimental studies. Experiment 1 recruited 245 college students online and asked them to read a combination of texts and pictures as anthropomorphic materials. The results indicated that anthropomorphic materials could increase participants’ empathy and decrease their wildlife product consumption intention. Experiment 2 recruited 140 college students online and they were required to read the same materials as experiment 1 after watching a video related to epidemics. The results showed that the effect of wildlife anthropomorphization vanished if participants’ negative emotion was aroused by the video. The present research provides experimental evidence that anthropomorphic strategies would be useful for boosting public support for wildlife conservation. However, policymakers and conservation organizations must be careful about the negative effects of the pandemic context, as the negative emotions produced by it seems to weaken the effectiveness of anthropomorphic strategies.

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