Abstract
Poaching can contribute to the failure of biodiversity conservation efforts and inflict diverse harms on human livelihoods. We applied crime script analysis to the case of snare poaching—an illegal hunting activity—in three Vietnamese protected areas. Our goal was to enhance the understanding about the opportunity structure underlying snare poaching to advance the suite of community-based crime prevention activities. We analyzed crime scripts for three types of poachers across nine stages of the poaching process using expert-based elicitation with 13 workshop participants in Vinh, Vietnam, 2018. Five stages were similar, clustered toward the early stages, and two were different, clustered around middle crime stages. Analysis produced systematic crime-specific insight about the procedural aspects and requirements for poaching from preparation to hunt to selling one’s catch. Stages identify multiple entry points to apply prevention techniques and match techniques with different types of snare poaching or poachers. Although this research focused on protected areas, the interdisciplinary approach applied herein may be adapted to other conservation contexts.
Highlights
The loss of biodiversity from poaching, a form of illegal hunting, can have long-term effects on forests’ ability to support human and animal populations that rely on these ecosystems (Corlett 2007), resulting in, for example, empty forest effects (Antunes et al 2016)
We focused on illegal snare hunting in three protected areas in Vietnam’s Annamites ecoregion: Pu Mat National Park, Qung Nam Saola Nature Reserve, and Tha ThienHue Saola Nature Reserve—areas already designated as high priorities for conservation by diverse conservation organizations and authorities (e.g., Belecky and Gray 2020)
Inside professional hunters lived in close proximity to the PA in which they set snares, while outside professional hunters traveled into the PAs from outside the local vicinity
Summary
The loss of biodiversity from poaching, a form of illegal hunting, can have long-term effects on forests’ ability to support human and animal populations that rely on these ecosystems (Corlett 2007), resulting in, for example, empty forest effects (Antunes et al 2016). Illegal hunting may occur in a wide range of circumstances and for a large number of reasons; it may be driven by, for example, economic motivations, culture and tradition, incomplete awareness of rules and laws, restrictions on traditional access to resources, crop guarding, lack of engagement during rule-setting, and/or large-scale criminal enterprises (Kahler and Gore 2012). Gaps remain in our understanding about how to effectively and efficiently apply criminogenic solutions to the conservation problem of illegal hunting practices (e.g., Dobson et al 2019). One implication of this gap is that unintended consequences of
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