‘Conservation’ criminology: understanding and preventing illegal fishing in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park

Abstract

Wildlife crime is a significant global problem that undermines efforts to protect the environment, applies immense pressure to often fragile social and cultural structures and deprives economies of wealth and the capacity of countries to achieve sustainable development goals. Wildlife poaching, referring to the illegal removal of flora or fauna, is the most common form of wildlife crime and often occurs from within the spatial boundaries of protected areas (PAs). People poach for a variety of reasons such as, traditional use, subsistence, recreational and commercial gain. The wide-ranging motivations held by individual poachers makes it a particularly complex problem for PA managers. The rise of poaching in recent times has been largely managed through traditional detect and deter strategies that place an emphasis on increasing the risk of prosecution, and sometimes death, for poaching. While enforcement remains a key component for managing poaching, applied in isolation it represents a relatively blunt instrument for eliciting compliance.The failure of current approaches to deal with the global poaching epidemic has led to a growing acknowledgement by both academics and practitioners for a need to improve our understating and management of wildlife crime problems. In pursuit of this agenda are a growing number of criminologists with an interest in wildlife crime from the field of environmental criminology. Applying traditional environmental criminological approaches to a variety of wildlife crime problems, these researchers are forging a foundation for the inclusion of social science in conservation management. Guided by this emerging field, the current research explores the utility of applying theories and methods from environmental criminology and crime analysis for understanding poaching in Australia’s Great Barrier Reef Marine Park (Great Barrier Reef Marine Park). The aim of this research project was to, a) explore the utility of applying environmental criminology and crime analysis techniques to build a better understanding of wildlife crime in general and illegal fishing in particular, and b) develop a process for designing effective compliance management strategies using the GBRMP in Australia as a case study.Using official compliance incident data provided by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, I examine recreational poaching in no-take Marine National Parks through the theoretical lens of environmental criminology. Each of the three empirical case studies herein apply established theoretical concepts from the field of environmental criminology to advance the understanding of motivated offenders, suitable places and vulnerable targets. The final case study, applies crime script analysis to these findings to formulate prevention-based strategies through a situational crime prevention framework.Ultimately, the objective of this research project was to explore how the theories of environmental criminology could be used to improve compliance management practice in PAs. The evidence provided within this thesis suggests that poaching exhibits similar patterns to those found in traditional forms of crime. Central to the formation of these patterns are the conditions of opportunity whereby motivated offenders converge with vulnerable targets at suitable places in the absence of capable guardians. Where opportunity is the key driver for poaching, environmental criminology offers PA managers with a wide ranging collection of prevention focused compliance strategies. By providing new knowledge, this thesis advances the agenda for examining wildlife crime problems through the theoretical lens of environmental criminology.