Biodiversity crime and economic crisis: Hidden mechanisms of misuse of ecosystem goods in Greece

Abstract

The paper presents the case of biodiversity misuse in urban and rural areas of Greece during the years of economic recession (2008–2019). The hypothesis addressed is that if fiscal crisis and economic recession lead to biodiversity misuse, then, even strong conservation strategies such as those allegedly implemented in developed countries may not be resilient to macro-economic shocks. Empirical data and official statistics are combined in an interpretive way. Mechanisms that enable criminal misuse of biotic resources in protected areas, forests and coastal areas of the country are defined and quantified through specific examples of illegal hunting, logging and fishing. They are defined as the Active Sampling effect, the Market De-concentration effect and the Underground Market effect of crisis. Such crime enablers are not, most likely, country-level singularities; they can be generalized both through their trans-boundary effects and in view of their interference with international conservation strategy and Law.