CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 9Wildlife Conservation and Criminology AnalysesSocial Sciences and HumanitiesConservation, Biodiversity, and Resource Management

Political ecology of security: tackling the illegal wildlife trade

Open access
Duffy, Rosaleen V., Brockington, Dan·2022·Journal of Political Ecology
DOI 10.2458/jpe.2201
Open this paper in CoChat — free accountOpen PDF

Abstract

This article sets out a political ecology approach to thinking about security. It draws together conceptual debates from IR, green criminology and political ecology in order to develop new ways of thinking about and analyzing the political ecologies of security. To date political ecologists have focused on conflicts and struggles, but have not fully engaged with thinking about security. In this article we examine the ways that responses to the illegal wildlife trade have encouraged and supported greater integration between conservation and security. We use the example of the deployment of private military companies for anti poaching training and operations to tease out the key features of a political ecology approach to security; this focuses on excavating the relations between capital, nature and security, being attentive to the dynamics of race and gender, and taking an ethically engaged positionality to highlight the voices of marginalized communities. In so doing, the purpose of this article is to act as a starting point for developing a much clearer and stronger conceptual basis for political ecologists to engage with questions of security.

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.2458/jpe.2201

Cites

1 of 1 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • Ecotourism reinforces a system where many existences, notably Indigenous peoples and their knowledges, are excluded from protected areas.

    “it reinforces a system where many existences, notably Indigenous peoples and their knowledges, are excluded from protected areas”

    From The political ecologies of "green" extractivism(s): An introduction (2024) · cites this paper as Duffy & Brockington, 2022

    The section “4. Developing a political ecology of security” says security-oriented conservation can cut out or alienate local communities. “Ethical engagement: human rights, militarization and conservation” discusses abuses affecting forest peoples and Indigenous-rights concerns. Neither section attributes exclusion from protected areas to ecotourism or says Indigenous knowledges are excluded. (LLM, conf=0.82)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Research works printed but not linked: 59

  1. Annecke, W. & Masubelele, M. (2016). A review of the impact of militarization: The case of rhino poaching in Kruger National Park, South Africa. Conservation and Society, 14(3): 195-204. http://doi.org/ 10.4103/0972-4923.191158 · DOI
  2. Bigger, P. & Neimark, B. D. (2017). Weaponizing Nature: The geopolitical ecology of the US Navy's biofuel program. Political Geography, 60: 13-22. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2017.03.007 · DOI
  3. Blaikie, P. M. & Brookfield, H. C. (1987). Land degradation and society. Routledge.
  4. Bocarejo, D., & Ojeda, D. (2016). Violence and conservation: Beyond unintended consequences and unfortunate coincidences. Geoforum, 69: 176-183. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2015.11.001 · DOI
  5. Booth, K. (1991). Security and emancipation. Review of International Studies, 17: 313-326.
  6. Burnett, S. & Milani, T. (2017). Fatal masculinities: A queer look at green violence. ACME: An International Journal for Critical Geographies, 16(3): 548-575.
  7. Büscher, B. (2021). Between overstocking and extinction: conservation and the intensification of uneven wildlife geographies in Africa. Journal of Political Ecology, 28(1). https://doi.org/10.2458/jpe.2956 · DOI
  8. Büscher, B. & Fletcher, R. (2018). Under pressure: Conceptualizing political ecologies of green wars Conservation and Society, 16(2): 105-113. http://do.org/10.4103/cs. · DOI
  9. Büscher, B., & Ramutsindela, M. (2016). Green violence: Rhino poaching and the war to save Southern Africa's Peace Parks. African Affairs, 115: 1-22. https://doi.org/10.1093/afraf/adv058 · DOI
  10. Corson, C. (2016). Corridors of power: The politics of environmental aid to Madagascar. Yale University Press.
  11. Dauvergne, P. & Clapp, J. (2016). Researching global environmental politics in the 21 st Century. Global Environmental Politics, 16(1): 1-12. https://doi.org/10.1162/GLEP_e_00333 · DOI
  12. Day, C. (2020). Sister Forces: Park rangers and regime security in African states. Civil Wars, 22(2-3): 353- 378. https://doi.org/10.1080/13698249.2020.1755162 · DOI
  13. Duffy, R. V. (2014). Waging a war to save biodiversity: The rise of militarized conservation. International Affairs 90(4): 819-834.
  14. Duffy, R. V. & Massé, F. (2021). The integration of conservation and security: Political ecologies of violence and the illegal wildlife trade. In Sowers, J., VanDeveer, S. D. & Weinthal, D. (eds.). The Oxford handbook of comparative environmental politics. Oxford University Press.
  15. Duffy, R. V., Massé, F., Smidt, E., Marijnen, E., Büscher, B., Verweijen, J., Ramutsindela, M., Simlai, T., Joanny, L. & Lunstrum, E. (2019). Why we must question the militarization of conservation. Biological Conservation 232: 66-73. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2019.01.013 · DOI
  16. Elliott, L. (2016). Criminal networks and illicit chains of custody in transnational environmental crime. In Elliott, L. & Schaedla, W.H. (eds.). Handbook of transnational environmental crime. (pp. 24-44).
  17. Felbab-Brown, V. (2017). The extinction market: Wildlife trafficking and how to counter it. Oxford University Press.
  18. Floyd, R. & Matthew, R. (2013). Environmental security: Approaches and issues. Routledge.
  19. Floyd, R. (2011). Can securitization theory be used in normative analysis? Towards a just securitization theory. Security Dialogue, 42 (4-5): 427-439. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0967010611418712 · DOI
  20. Gore, M. (2017). Global risks, conservation and criminology. In Gore, M. (ed.). Conservation criminology. (pp. 1-23). Wiley-Blackwell.
  21. Holmes, G. (2012). Biodiversity for billionaires: Capitalism, conservation and the role of philanthropy in saving/selling nature. Development and Change, 43: 185-203. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467- 7660.2011.01749.x · DOI
  22. Homer-Dixon, T. (1999). Environment, scarcity, and violence. Princeton University Press.
  23. Howell, A. & Richter-Montpetit, M. (2020). Is securitization theory racist? Civilizationism, methodological whiteness, and antiblack thought in the Copenhagen School, Security Dialogue, 51(1): 3-22. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0967010619862921 · DOI
  24. Jacoby, K. (2003). Crimes against nature squatters, poachers, thieves and the hidden history of American Conservation. University of California Press.
  25. Le Billon, P. (2012). Wars of Plunder: Conflicts, profits and the politics of resources. Columbia University Press.
  26. Le Billon, P. & Duffy, R. V. (2018). Conflict ecologies: Connecting political ecology and peace and conflict studies. Journal of Political Ecology, 25(1): 239-260. https://doi.org/10.2458/v25i1.22704 · DOI
  27. Lunstrum, E. (2014). Green militarization: Anti-poaching efforts and the spatial contours of Kruger National Park. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 104: 816-832. https://doi.org/10.1080/00045608.2014.912545 · DOI
  28. Lunstrum, E., Givá, N., Massé, F., Mate, F., & Jose, P. L. (2021). The rhino horn trade and radical inequality as environmental conflict. The Journal of Peasant Studies, 1-21. https://doi.org/10.1080/03066150.2021.1961130 · DOI
  29. Marijnen, E. (2017). The "Green Militarization" of development aid: The European Commission and the Virunga National Park, DR Congo. Third World Quarterly, 38(7): 1566-1582.
  30. Marijnen, E., de Vries, L. & Duffy, R. V. (2021). Conservation in violent environments. Political Geography 87 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2020.102253 · DOI
  31. Marijnen, E., & Verweijen, J. (2016). Selling green militarization: The discursive (re)production of militarized conservation in the Virunga National Park, Democratic Republic of the Congo. Geoforum, 75: 274-285. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2016.08.003 · DOI
  32. Massé, F. (2019). Anti-poaching's politics of (in)visibility: Representing nature and conservation amidst a poaching crisis. Geoforum, 98: 1-14. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2018.09.011 · DOI
  33. Massé, F. (2018). Topographies of security and the multiple spatialities of (conservation) power: Verticality, surveillance, and space-time compression in the bush. Political Geography, 67: 56-64. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2018.10.001 · DOI
  34. Massé, F. & Lunstrum, E. (2016). Accumulation by securitization: Commercial poaching, neoliberal conservation, and the creation of new wildlife frontiers. Geoforum, 69: 227-237. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2015.03.005 · DOI
  35. Massé, F. & Margulies, J. (2020). The geopolitical ecology of conservation: The emergence of illegal wildlife trade as national security interest and the re-shaping of US foreign conservation assistance. World Development, 132. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2020.104958 · DOI
  36. Massé, F., Dickinson, H., Margulies, J., Joanny, L., Lappe-Osthege, T. & Duffy, R. V. (2020). Conservation and crime convergence? Situating the 2018 London Illegal Wildlife Trade Conference. Journal of Political Ecology, 27: 23-42. https://doi.org/10.2458/v27i1.23543 · DOI
  37. McDonald, M. (2008). Securitization and the construction of security. European Journal of International Relations, 14: 563-587. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F1354066108097553 · DOI
  38. McDonald, M., Barnett, J., & O'Brien, K., (eds.) (2010). Global environmental change and human security. MIT Press.
  39. Moreto, W. & Charlton, R. (2021). Rangers can't be with every elephant: assessing rangers' perceptions of a community, problem-solving policing model for protected areas. Oryx, 55(1): 89-98. http://doi.org/10.1017/S0030605318001461 · DOI
  40. Nyman, J. (2016). What is the value of security? Contextualising the negative/positive debate. Review of International Studies, 42(5): 821-839. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0260210516000140 · DOI
  41. Neumann, R. P. (2004). Moral and discursive geographies in the war for biodiversity in Africa. Political Geography, 23(7): 813-837. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2004.05.011 · DOI
  42. Oels, A. (2012). From 'securitization' of climate change to 'climatization' of the security field: comparing three theoretical perspectives. in Scheffran, J., Brzoska, M., Brauch, H. G., Link P. M. & Schilling, J. (eds.) Climate change, human security and violent conflict (pp.185-205). Springer.
  43. OBrien, K., & Barnett, J. (2013). Global environmental change and human security. Annual Review of Environment and Resources, 38(1): 373-391. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-environ-032112-100655 · DOI
  44. Peluso, N. L. & Vandergeest, P. (2011). Political ecologies of war and forests: Counterinsurgencies and the making of national natures. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 101(3): 587-608.
  45. Peluso, N. L. & Watts, M. J. (eds.) (2001), Violent environments. Cornell University Press.
  46. Robbins, P. (2012). Political ecology: A critical introduction. 2 nd ed. Wiley.
  47. Rocheleau, D. E., Thomas-Slayter, B. & Wangari, E. (1996). Gender and environment: A feminist political ecology perspective. In Rocheleau, D. E., Thomas-Slayter, B. & Wangari, E. (eds.), Feminist political ecology: Global issues and local experiences. (pp. 3-24). Routledge.
  48. Selby, J., Dahi, O. S., Fröhlich, C. & Hulme, M. (2017). Climate change and the Syrian Civil War revisited. Political Geography, 60: 232-244. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2017.05.007 · DOI · Paper page
  49. Somerville, K. (2017). Ivory: Power and poaching in Africa. Oxford University Press.
  50. Soulé, M. E. (1985). What is Conservation Biology? BioScience, 35 (11): 727-734. https://doi.org/10.2307/1310054 · DOI · Paper page
  51. Spapens, T., White, R., Van Uhm, D. & Huisman, W., (eds.) (2018). Green crimes and dirty money. Routledge.
  52. Thakholi, L. (2021). Conservation labour geographies: Subsuming regional labour into private conservation spaces in South Africa. Geoforum, 123: 1-11. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2021.04.019 · DOI
  53. van Uhm, D. & Moreto, W. D. (2018). Corruption within the Illegal Wildlife Trade: A symbiotic and antithetical enterprise. British Journal of Criminology, 58: 864-885. https://doi.org/10.1093/bjc/azx032 · DOI
  54. Weldemichel, T. G. (2020). Othering pastoralists, state violence, and the remaking of boundaries in Tanzania's militarised wildlife conservation sector. Antipode, 52(5): 1496-1518. https://doi.org/10.1111/anti.12638 · DOI
  55. White, A. (2019). Soldier, contractor, trauma: The governance of post-traumatic stress disorder in the private military labour market. Illness, Crisis, and Loss, 27(4): 274-292.
  56. Witter, R. (2021). Why militarized conservation may be counter-productive: illegal wildlife hunting as defiance. Journal of Political Ecology, 28(1): 175-192. https://doi.org/10.2458/jpe.2357 · DOI
  57. Wright, E., Bhammar, H., González-Velosa, A., & Sobrevila, C. (2016). Analysis of international funding to tackle illegal wildlife trade. World Bank Group. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/25340
  58. Wyatt, T. (2013). Wildlife trafficking: A deconstruction of the crime, the victims and the offenders. Palgrave Macmillan.
  59. Ybarra, M. (2012). Taming the jungle, saving the Maya Forest: Sedimented counterinsurgency practices in contemporary Guatemalan conservation. The Journal of Peasant Studies, 39(2): 479-502.

Cited by

Sorted by citations

  • The political ecologies of "green" extractivism(s): An introduction

    Dunlap, A., Verweijen, J., & Tornel, C. (2024) · Journal of Political Ecology · doi:10.2458/jpe.6131 · Cited by 126 · see citing works

    “…ecotourism aims for the preservation of biodiversity and ecosystems, rather than their depletion, it reinforces a system where many existences, notably Indigenous peoples and their knowledges, are excluded from protected areas (Marijnen et al. , 2021; Duffy & Brockington, 2022; Fletcher, 2024).”
    Background

Authors
Duffy, R. V., & Brockington, D.
Affiliations
University of Sheffield (GB)
Corresponding author
Duffy, Rosaleen V.
ORCID
Venue
Journal of Political Ecology
Publisher
University of Arizona
Published
2022-01-20
Volume
29
Issue
1
ISSN
1073-0451 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.2458/jpe.2201
OpenAlex
W4206828913
Cited by
9
References
1
Citations by year
2025: 1 · 2024: 4 · 2023: 1 · 2022: 3
FWCI
1.52
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • Journal of Political Ecology (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • White Rose Research Online (University of Leeds, The University of Sheffield, University of York) (acceptedVersion)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion)
Funders
H2020 European Research Council (694995)
Topics
  • Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Nature and Landscape Conservation › Wildlife Conservation and Criminology Analyses
  • Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › Social Sciences and Humanities
  • Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Global and Planetary Change › Conservation, Biodiversity, and Resource Management
Keywords
illegal wildlife trade, private military companies, green criminology, race and gender, marginalized communities

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review