Security and Conservation: The Politics of the Illegal Wildlife Trade

302 Pages·2022·13.094 MB·English

by  Rosaleen Duffy

SECURITY AND CONSERVATION
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R O S A L E E N D U F F Y
SECURITY AND
CONSERVATION
The Politics of the Illegal Wildlife Trade
NEW HAVEN AND LONDON
Research for this book was supported by European Research Council (ERC) Advanced
Investigator Grant # 694995 entitled BIOSEC: Biodiversity and Security, Understanding
Environmental Crime, Illegal Wildlife Trade and Threat Finance.
Published with assistance from the Louis Stern Memorial Fund.
Copyright © 2022 by Rosaleen Duffy.
All rights reserved.
This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, including
illustrations, in any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of
the U.S. Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press), without written
permission from the publishers.
Yale University Press books may be purchased in quantity for educational, business, or
promotional use. For information, please e-mail [email protected] (U.S. office) or
[email protected] (U.K. office).
Set in New Aster and Syntax LT type by IDS Infotech, Ltd.
Printed in the United States of America.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2021944802
ISBN 978-0-300-23018-5 (hardcover : alk. paper)
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992
(Permanence of Paper).
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For Feargal and Oisín
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CONTENTS
Preface ix
Acknowledgments xvii
List of Abbreviations xxiii
1 Conservation and Security Converge: Political
Ecologies of the Illegal Wildlife Trade 1
2 Framings Matter: The Illegal Wildlife Trade as a
Security Threat 29
3 War for Biodiversity 56
4 Terrorism and Poaching 85
5 Surveillance, Intelligence, and Conservation 110
6 Security Technologies and Biodiversity
Conservation 136
7 Military-Security-Conservation Nexus 165
Epilogue: A Way Forward 190
Notes 201
Bibliography 231
Index 265
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PREFACE
“Look at this, it has now become an industry,” remarked a former
colleague, with a wry smile. We were standing in the center
of Battersea Evolution, the venue for the London Conference on
the Illegal Wildlife Trade in October 2018. The two-day event was
quite a spectacle with more than one thousand participants. There
was a secure mezzanine floor for heads of government and official
state delegations, and there were black-suited bodyguards every-
where. Booths advertising the latest campaigns and innovations
to tackle the illegal wildlife trade ringed the ground floor. There
were a series of rhino statues, painted with different striking designs
to draw attention to their plight. A bespoke sculpture of a person
stood at the center of an elephant’s head, holding on to the tusks.1
The heavy presence of the British Army, tech companies, and pri-
vate security services was noticeable among the usual attendees,
such as WWF, TRAFFIC International, and National Geographic.
The conference had the feel of a jamboree mixed with a trade show.
The plenaries and side events were the entertainment, but the real
deals were being made in the mezzanine floor, around the display
booths, and at the coffee stations. The delegations from govern-
ments, NGOs, and the private sector were keen to strike deals for
new collaborations and, crucially, for new streams of funding.
It was all very different from the first London conference on
the illegal wildlife trade in 2014, where there was a closed heads
ix