Security and Conservation: The Politics of the Illegal Wildlife Trade

An exploration of the scale, practical reality, and future implications of the growing integration of biodiversity conservation with global security concerns.

“Offers a thorough overview of an aspect of conservation that has become increasingly important but often unfortunately fails to make the nightly news.”—Well-Read Naturalist

Debates regarding environmental security risks have generally focused on climate change and geopolitical water conflicts. Biodiversity conservation, however, is increasingly identified as a critical contributor to national and global security. The illegal wildlife trade is often articulated as a driver of biodiversity losses and as a source of finance for organized crime networks, armed groups, and even terrorist networks. Conservationists, international organizations, and national governments have raised concerns about the “convergence” of wildlife trafficking with other serious offenses, including theft, fraud, corruption, drugs and human trafficking, counterfeiting, firearms smuggling, and money laundering.

In Security and Conservation, Rosaleen Duffy examines the scale, practical reality, and future implications of the growing integration of biodiversity conservation with global security concerns. Duffy takes a political ecology approach to develop a deeper understanding of how and why wildlife conservation turned toward security-oriented approaches to tackle the illegal wildlife trade.