Political ecology of security: tackling the illegal wildlife trade

Rosaleen V Duffy,Dan Brockington

doi:10.2458/jpe.2201

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.

Highlights

This article develops the idea of a political ecology of security to understand the implications of the increasing integration of biodiversity conservation with the security sector
Green criminology is a useful approach but needs to engage more fully with the global politics of how and why harms are distributed in ways that intersect with race, gender, sexuality and class
A political ecology of security builds on debates from IR, political ecology and green criminology in order to interrogate the ways that global security is articulated via environmental change, often in problematic and concerning ways

Summary

Introduction

This article develops the idea of a political ecology of security to understand the implications of the increasing integration of biodiversity conservation with the security sector It brings together conceptual debates from the fields of green criminology, international relations (hereafter IR) and political ecology to build a fresh approach. The illegal wildlife trade has risen to international prominence since the rise in poaching of elephants and rhinos from 2008, and has been the center of intense international attention following the identification of the wildlife trade as the probable source of COVID-19 This attention, and sense of emergency, have galvanized calls for urgent action to tackle the illegal wildlife trade, indicating an important shift in the global politics of biodiversity conservation – a shift that fosters, supports and deepens its integration with security. We provide an illustrative example in which we use political ecology of security to examine the growing use of private sector security companies in conservation

Political ecology of security

The rise of wildlife crime as a security problem

Developing a political ecology of security

The political ecology of security and illegal wildlife trade

Findings

Conclusion