Introduction

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Notes

1 Jurriaan M De Vos et al., ‘Estimating the Normal Background Rate of Species Extinction’, Conservation Biology (Vol. 29, No. 2, April 2015).

2 Adam Vaughan, ‘Humans Creating Sixth Great Extinction of Animal Species, Say Scientists’, The Guardian, 19 June 2015; WWF, Living Planet Report 2014: Species and Spaces, People and Places (Geneva: WWF, 2014).

3 Elizabeth Bennett et al., ‘Hunting the World's Wildlife into Extinction’, Oryx (Vol. 36, No. 4, 2002).

4 UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), World Wildlife Crime Report: Trafficking in Protected Species, 2016 (New York, NY: UN, 2016).

5 US Department of State, ‘Remarks at the Partnership Meeting on Wildlife Trafficking’, speech given by US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, 8 November 2012, Washington, DC, <http://www.state.gov/secretary/20092013clinton/rm/2012/11/200294.htm>, accessed 5 May 2016.

6 US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, ‘Ivory and Insecurity: The Global Implications of Poaching in Africa’, 112^th Congress, Second Session, 24 May 2012, Washington, DC, <https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CHRG-112shrg76689/pdf/CHRG-112shrg76689.pdf>, accessed 25 April 2016.

7 Ibid., pp. 2–3.

8 Ibid., p. 16.

9 UN Security Council, ‘Report of the Secretary-General on the Activities of the United Nations Regional Office for Central Africa and on the Lord's Resistance Army-affected Areas', S/2013/297, 2013, p. 15, para 74.

10 Marina Ratchford, Beth Allgood and Paul Todd, Criminal Nature: The Global Security Implications of the Illegal Wildlife Trade (Yarmouth Port, MA: International Fund for Animal Welfare, 2013), p. 7.

11 Ibid., p. 11.

12 WWF and Dalberg, ‘Fighting Illicit Wildlife Trafficking: A Consultation with Governments', December 2012.

13 WWF, ‘Overview’, <http://www.worldwildlife.org/threats/illegal-wildlife-trade>, accessed 1 September 2016.

14 UNODC, ‘Wildlife and Forest Crime Analytic Toolkit’, revised edition, November 2012.

15 Elisabeth McLellan et al., ‘Illicit Wildlife Trafficking: An Environmental, Economic and Social Issue’, UN Environment Programme Perspectives No. 14, May 2014.

16 See, for example, Angus Nurse, Policing Wildlife: Perspectives on the Enforcement of Wildlife Legislation (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), pp. 13–40.

17 US Fish and Wildlife Service, ‘Illegal Wildlife Trade’, <https://www.fws.gov/international/travel-and-trade/illegal-wildlife-trade.html>, accessed 5 May 2016.

18 Christian Nellemann et al. (eds), The Rise of Environmental Crime – A Growing Threat to Natural Resources, Peace, Development and Security (Nairobi: UNEP and RHIPTO Rapid Response – Norwegian Center for Global Analyses, 2016), p. 30; Christian Nellemann et al. (eds), Elephants in the Dust: The African Elephant Crisis (Arendal: GRID-Arendal, 2013), p. 57.

19 Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), ‘Wildlife Crime’, <https://cites.org/prog/iccwc.php/Wildlife-Crime>, accessed 1 September 2016.

20 Steven Broad, Teresa Mulliken and Dilys Roe, ‘The Nature and Extent of Legal and Illegal Trade in Wildlife’, in Sara Oldfield (ed.), Trade in Wildlife: Regulation for Conservation (Abingdon: Earthscan, 2003).

21 TRAFFIC, ‘Background’, <http://www.traffic.org/trade/>, accessed 5 May 2016.

22 Ibid.

23 CITES, ‘Checklist of CITES Species', <http://checklist.cites.org/#/en>, accessed 5 May 2016. The Convention contains three separate appendices of species, and sets out the control mechanisms applicable to them. Appendix I includes species threatened with extinction in which commercial trade is not permitted. Appendix II includes species not necessarily in danger of extinction but which may become endangered if trade is not strictly regulated, and which can thus be traded only under a permit system. Appendix III includes species protected by national legislation established by the country that added them to the CITES list.

24 Vanda Felbab-Brown, ‘The Disappearing Act: The Illicit Trade in Wildlife in Asia’, Foreign Policy at Brookings Working Paper No. 6, June 2011, p. 4. It should also be noted that CITES is one of the few international conventions that can be supported by the application of sanctions.

25 UNODC, ‘Wildlife and Forest Crime Analytic Toolkit’, pp. 13–16.

26 Ibid.

27 This is in line with the International Consortium on Combating Wildlife Crime's interpretation of wildlife crime as both ‘acts committed contrary to national laws and regulations intended to protect natural resources and to administer their management and use’ and, at the international level, ‘violations of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora’. See CITES, ‘Wildlife Crime’.

28 There is, however, a strong need for a similar study of the security dimensions of illegal fishing and logging.

29 Christian Nellemann et al. (eds), The Environmental Crime Crisis – Threats to Sustainable Development from Illegal Exploitation and Trade in Wildlife and Forest Resources. (Nairobi and Arendal: UNEP and GRID-Arendal, 2014), p. 19.

30 Liana Sun Wyler and Pervaze A Sheikh, ‘International Illegal Trade in Wildlife: Threats and U.S. Policy’, Congressional Research Service Report for Congress, RL34395, 22 August 2008, p. 2.

31 Jeremy Haken, ‘Transnational Crime in the Developing World’, Global Financial Integrity, February 2011, p. 11.

32 US Department of State, ‘Secretary Clinton Hosts Wildlife Trafficking and Conservation’, media note, 8 November 2012.

33 Nellemann et al. (eds), The Rise of Environmental Crime, p. 20.

34 Nellemann et al. (eds), The Environmental Crime Crisis, p. 7.

35 Nellemann et al. (eds), The Rise of Environmental Crime, p. 7.

36 Ibid., p. 7.

37 Ibid., p. 21.

38 OECD, ‘Illegal Trade in Environmentally Sensitive Goods’, October 2012, p. 2.

39 See Office of the Director of National Intelligence, ‘The Threat to U.S. National Security Posed by Transnational Organized Crime’, special report, 2011.

40 Nellemann et al. (eds), The Environmental Crime Crisis, p. 19.

41 UNODC, World Wildlife Crime Report, p. 21.

42 John M Sellar, ‘Policing the Trafficking of Wildlife: Is There Anything to Learn from Law Enforcement Responses to Drug and Firearms Trafficking?’, Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, February 2014, p. 15, <http://beta.stoprhinopoaching.org/UploadedFiles/Knowledge/Global%20Initiative%20-%20Wildlife%20Trafficking%20Law%20Enforcement%20-%20Feb%202014.pdf>, accessed 18 October 2016.

43 UNODC, World Wildlife Crime Report, pp. 20–21.

44 Sellar, ‘Policing the Trafficking of Wildlife’, pp. 15–16.

45 Ibid., p. 16.

46 Ibid.

47 CITES, ‘New Figures Reveal Poaching for the Illegal Ivory Trade Could Wipe Out a Fifth of Africa's Elephants over Next Decade’, 2 December 2013.

48 George Wittemyer et al., ‘Illegal Killing for Ivory Drives Global Decline in African Elephants’, PNAS (Vol. 111, No. 36, 2014).

49 Samuel K Wasser et al., ‘Genetic Assignment of Large Seizures of Elephant Ivory Reveals Africa's Major Poaching Hotspots’, Science (Vol. 349, No. 6243, 2015), pp. 84–87.

50 Great Elephant Census, ‘Better Data for A Crisis: Second Tanzania Count Part of Ongoing Population Monitoring’, 9 September 2015; Karl Mathiesen, ‘Tanzania Elephant Population Declined by 60% in Five Years, Census Reveals’, The Guardian, 2 June 2015.

51 Fiona Maisels et al., ‘Devastating Decline of Forest Elephants in Central Africa’, PLOS One, 4 March 2013.

52 The study observed the possible existence of an additional 117,127–135,384 elephants in areas not systematically surveyed.

53 See C R Thouless et al., African Elephant Status Report 2016: An Update from the African Elephant Database, Occasional Paper Series of the International Union for Conservation of Nature Species Survival Commission, No. 60 (Gland, Switzerland: IUCN, 2016).

54 International Union for Conservation of Nature, ‘IUCN Reports Deepening Rhino Poaching Crisis in Africa’, 9 March 2016.

55 African Wildlife Foundation, ‘Rhinoceros’, <http://www.awf.org/wildlife-conservation/rhinoceros>, accessed 2 August 2016.

56 Numbers dropped only slightly to 1,175 in 2015. Data from South African Department of Environmental Affairs, 2016. See South African Department of Environmental Affairs, ‘Minister Edna Molewa Highlights Progress in the Fight against Rhino Poaching’, 21 January 2016.

57 John R Platt, ‘Northern White Rhino Dies, Leaving Just Three on the Planet’, Extinction Countdown blog, ScientificAmerican.com, 22 November 2015; Matthew Knight, ‘Western Black Rhino Declared Extinct’, CNN, 6 November 2013.

58 Demand in China and Vietnam relates to consumption both as food and for medicinal purposes. Pangolins also have significant cultural and historical uses in parts of Africa. For instance, the discovery and capture of a pangolin in some Mozambican provinces is seen as an indication of good luck and can elicit considerable celebration.

59 Cathy Taibbi, ‘Update on U.S. Fueling Pangolin Extinction’, Examiner.com, 30 March 2016.

60 UNODC, World Wildlife Crime Report, pp. 66–68.

61 Ibid., pp. 73–76, referencing UN Comtrade and CITES trade data.

62 Ibid., pp. 76–81.

63 Keith Somerville, Ivory: Power and Poaching in Africa (London: Hurst, 2016), pp. 9–24. Somerville also notes that the relationship between humans and elephants began long before this, with man hunting animals for meat and hides. There is evidence of the use of ivory for tools and fashion ornaments from between 25,000 and 35,000 years ago.

64 Ibid.

65 Alastair Hazell, The Last Slave Market: Dr John Kirk and the Struggle to End the East African Slave Trade (London: Constable, 2012).

66 Somerville, Ivory, pp. 9–24.

67 Ibid.

68 Ibid., pp. 57–59: in Kenya, for example, Nairobi National Park was gazetted in 1946, Tsavo in 1948 and Mount Kenya in 1949. In Uganda, Queen Elizabeth, Murchison Falls and Ruwenzori parks were set up in 1952 under the Uganda National Parks Act.

69 Clark C Gibson, Politicians and Poachers: The Political Economy of Wildlife Policy in Africa (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999).

70 Somerville, Ivory, p. 99; Ian Parker, What I Tell You Three Times is True: Conservation, Ivory, History and Politics (Kinloss: Librario Publishing, 2004).

71 Somerville, Ivory, p. 103.

72 Andrew M Lemieux and Ronald V Clarke, ‘The International Ban on Ivory Sales and its Effects on Elephant Poaching in Africa’, British Journal of Criminology (Vol. 49, No. 4, 2009).

73 CITES, ‘Ivory Auctions Raise 15 Million USD for Elephant Conservation’, press release, 7 November 2008.

74 Allan Thornton et al., ‘Lethal Experiment: How the CITES-Approved Ivory Sale Led to Increased Elephant Poaching’, Environmental Investigation Agency, April 2000; Damian Carrington, ‘Legal Ivory Sale Drove Dramatic Increase in Elephant Poaching, Study Shows’, The Guardian, 13 June 2016.

75 Daniel Stiles, ‘CITES-Approved Ivory Sales and Elephant Poaching’, Pachyderm (No. 45, July 2008–June 2009), pp. 150–52; Erwin H Bulte, Richard Damania and G Cornelis van Kooten, ‘The Effects of One-off Ivory Sales on Elephant Mortality’, Journal of Wildlife Management (Vol. 71, No. 2, April 2007), pp. 613–18.

76 Lucy Vigne and Esmond Martin, China Faces a Conservation Challenge: The Expanding Elephant and Mammoth Ivory Trade in Beijing and Shanghai (Nairobi and Lympne: Save the Elephants and the Aspinall Foundation, 2014). It must be noted, however, that ivory prices vary substantially depending on the size, quality and type of tusk; experts highlight distinctions particularly between forest elephant and savannah elephant tusks in terms of hue and density (and thus suitability for carving).

77 Nigel Leader-Williams, ‘Regulation and Protection: Successes and Failures in Rhinoceros Conservation’, in Oldfield (ed.), The Trade in Wildlife; Esmond and Chrysee Bradley Martin, Run Rhino Run (London: Chatto and Windus, 1982), p. 90.

78 On declines in African rhinos over this period, see Richard Emslie and Martin Brooks, African Rhino: Status Survey and Conservation Action Plan (Gland and Cambridge: IUCN, 1999). On Asian rhinos over this period, see Thomas J Foose and Nico van Strien (eds), Asian Rhinos: Status Survey and Conservation Action Plan (Gland and Cambridge: IUCN, 1997).

79 WildAid, ‘Rhino Horn Demand’, pp. 1–3, <http://wildaid.org/sites/default/files/resources/WEBReportRhinoHornDemand2014.pdf>, accessed 1 August 2016; Katherine Ellis, ‘Tackling the Demand for Rhino Horn’, The Horn (Spring 2013), pp. 24–25.

80 Tom Milliken and Jo Shaw, The South Africa–Viet Nam Rhino Horn Trade Nexus: A Deadly Combination of Institutional Lapses, Corrupt Wildlife Industry Professionals and Asian Crime Syndicates (Johannesburg: TRAFFIC, 2012).

81 Emslie and Brooks, African Rhino, p. 5.

82 Ellis, ‘Tackling the Demand for Rhino Horn’.

83 Ibid.

84 South African Department of Environmental Affairs, ‘Minister Edna Molewa Highlights Progress in the Fight against Rhino Poaching’.

85 For more detail on the emergence of Vietnam as a major destination market for rhino horn, see Environmental Investigation Agency, ‘Vietnam's Illegal Rhino Horn Trade: Undermining the Effectiveness of CITES’, February 2013; Julian Rademeyer, ‘Vietnam Denies Rhino Horn Charges’, Mail & Guardian (Africa), 15 March 2013; Milliken and Shaw, The South Africa–Viet Nam Rhino Horn Trade Nexus.

86 Michael ’t Sas-Rolfes, ‘The Rhino Poaching Crisis: A Market Analysis’, Save the Rhino Trust, February 2012. Estimations vary: UNODC fieldwork at the end of 2015 has indicated a whole-horn retail price of about $26,000 per kg. For details of this estimate, see online methodological annex to UNODC, World Wildlife Crime Report, <https://www.unodc.org/documents/data-and-analysis/wildlife/Methodological_Annex_final.pdf>, accessed 18 October 2016.

87 Barry Buzan, Ole Wæver and Jaap de Wilde, Security: A New Framework for Analysis (London: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1998); Richard A Matthew, Marl Halle and Jason Switzer (eds), Conserving the Peace: Resources, Livelihoods and Security (Winnipeg: International Institute for Sustainable Development, 2002); Jessica Tuchman Mathews, ‘Redefining Security’, Foreign Affairs (Vol. 68, No. 2, Spring 1989), pp. 162–77.

88 Richard A Matthew, ‘The Environment as a National Security Issue’, Journal of Policy History (Vol. 12, No. 1, 2000).

89 Geoffrey Dabelko, Steve Lonergan and Richard Matthew, ‘State-of-the-Art Review on Environment, Security and Development Co-operation’, report for the Working Party on Development Co-operation and Environment, OECD Development Assistance Committee; Matthew, Halle and Switzer, Conserving the Peace.

90 Ashok Swain, ‘Environmental Security: Cleaning the Concept’, Peace and Security (Vol. 29, December 1997), p. 32; Dabelko, Lonergan and Matthew, ‘State-of-the-Art Review on Environment, Security and Development Co-operation’.

91 Katherine Lawson and Alex Vines, Global Impacts of the Illegal Wildlife Trade: The Costs of Crime, Insecurity and Institutional Erosion (London: Chatham House, February 2014).

92 This crisis saw a reduction in Africa's elephant population of more than half, from 1.3 million to 600,000 between 1979 and 1989, eventually leading to the passage by CITES of the international commercial ban on ivory trade in 1989, which resulted for a time in a decline in poaching and the recovery of elephant populations. See Born Free, ‘The Ivory Trade’, <http://www.bornfree.org.uk/animals/african-elephants/projects/ivory-trade/>, accessed 18 September 2016.

93 In social science, such ‘tension points’ are defined as ‘power relations that are particularly susceptible to problematisation and thus to change, because they are fraught with dubious practices, contestable knowledge, and potential conflict’. See Bent Flyvbjerg, Todd Landman and Sanford Schram (eds), Real Social Science: Applied Phronesis (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), Kindle edition, p. 288.

94 Ledio Cakaj, ‘Tusk Wars: Inside the LRA and the Bloody Business of Ivory’, The Enough Project, 26 October 2015.

95 Ashok Swain, Understanding Emerging Security Challenges: Threats and Opportunities (Abingdon: Routledge, 2013), pp. 14–16.

96 OECD, The DAC Guidelines: Helping Prevent Violent Conflict (Paris: OECD, 2001), p. 38.

97 See African Union, ‘African Union Policy Framework on Security Sector Reform’, 2013, p. 5, referencing African Union, ‘Solemn Declaration on a Common African Defence and Security Policy’, February 2004, p. 3, <http://www.peaceau.org/uploads/declaration-cadsp-en.pdf>, accessed 1 August 2016.

98 See, for example, Horand Knaup and Jan Puhl, ‘“Blood Ivory”: Brutal Elephant Slaughter Funds African Conflicts’, Spiegel Online, 13 September 2012; Jeffrey Gettleman, ‘Elephants Dying in Epic Frenzy as Ivory Fuels Wars and Profits’, New York Times, 3 September 2012.