Abstract

Abstract. This paper builds on a previous paper on determining a community’s vulnerability to coercion into wildlife crimes along South African game reserves with a focus on rhinoceros poaching. This paper looks at the profiling of coastal communities along the South African coast for possible coercion into piracy and marine wildlife crime as context for a whole-of-society approach. As with the previous paper the criteria and data are based on publicly available resources to do the profiling. Criteria range from access to motorised boats, history of illegal, unregulated and unreported fishing activities, poverty, unemployment, closeness to marine reserves and levels of education. The criteria for piracy are based on articles and reports on the reasons for piracy along the Somalian coast. From the analysis the highest risk for piracy is the south-western Cape around Cape Town since the proximity to international sea routes, the ability of the local population to do deep-sea fishing and existing gang activity. The risk to marine resources is similar owing to the same reasons as for piracy. It is a known fact that gangs are involved in the poaching of abalone along the south-western Cape coast. Socio-economic risks are higher along the east coast of South Africa owing to higher unemployment, poverty and lower education levels.

Highlights

  • This paper builds on the work by Schmitz et al (2017) on determining the vulnerability to coercion of communities next to game reserves into poaching of wildlife

  • This paper investigates the use of spatial data, non-spatial data, Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and cartography to determine the vulnerability to revert or be coerced into marine wildlife crimes and/or piracy of coastal communities

  • These regions are known for current severe poaching of abalone and are regions with a history of gang problems, especially the communities in and around Cape Town (Steinberg, 2005)

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Summary

Introduction

This paper builds on the work by Schmitz et al (2017) on determining the vulnerability to coercion of communities next to game reserves into poaching of wildlife. This paper investigates the use of spatial data, non-spatial data, Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and cartography to determine the vulnerability to revert or be coerced into marine wildlife crimes and/or piracy of coastal communities. Piracy criteria are mostly based on literature by Kerins (n.d.) Jablonski & Oliver (2012); Steenhard (2012) and Allison (2017) covering piracy along the Somalian coast. These are augmented by literature from Clark et al (2002), Isaacs, (2006) and Faasen & Watts (2007) on fishing activities along the South African coast to determine whether some of the issues raised along Somali coast are happening along the South African coast. If South Africa turns to the worst in the future, the risk of piracy along the coast, especially the area around Cape Town could be very high with a significant impact on world-wide maritime traffic

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