Accumulation by securitization: Commercial poaching,neoliberal conservation,and the creation of new wildlife frontiers

Part of a broader interest in the escalating securitization of conservation practice, scholars are beginning to take note of an emerging relationship between conservation–securitization, capital accumulation, and dispossession. We develop the concept of accumulation by securitization to better grasp this trend, positioning it in the critical literatures on neoliberal conservation, green grabbing, and conservation-security. The concept captures the ways in which capital accumulation, often tied to land and resource enclosure, is enabled by practices and logics of security. Security logics, moreover, increasingly provoke the dispossession of vulnerable communities, thereby enabling accumulation. We ground the concept by turning to the Greater Lebombo Conservancy (GLC) in the Mozambican borderlands. This is a new privately-held conservancy built as a securitized buffer zone to obstruct the movement of commercial rhino poachers into South Africa’s adjacent Kruger National Park. We show how wildlife tourism-related accumulation here is enabled by, and in some ways contingent upon, the GLC’s success in curbing poaching incursions, and, relatedly, how security concerns become the grounds upon which resident communities are displaced. In terms of the latter, we suggest security provides a troubling, depoliticized alibi for dispossession. Like broader neoliberal conservation and green grabbing, we illustrate how accumulation by securitization plays out within complex new networks of state and private actors. Yet these significantly expand to include including security actors and others motivated by security concerns.     

Precious corals become more precious in the northwestern pacific: Urgent need for integrated policy

The limited precious coral (Coralliidae) resources in the Northwestern Pacific have been managed by Taiwan with a comprehensive management plan, by Japan with a strengthened set of management measures, and by China through the listing of such coral as a Category I national treasures. However, continuous increases in coral consumption and coral prices have stimulated overexploitation and poaching of the resource, and hence have undermined the effectiveness of these management schemes. This article discusses the current precious corals supply chain and suggests that the rise of China in purchasing substantial amounts of coral products was the underlying cause for overexploitation and poaching. Several gaps in the management schemes are also identified and discussed. The article finally concludes that there is an urgent need for establishing a cross-disciplinary integrated conservation policy and a regional management platform consisting of the three participating states to address all the relevant social and ecological issues.     

A decade of illegal fishing in Table Mountain National Park (2000–2009): trends in the illicit harvest of abalone Haliotis midae and West Coast rock lobster Jasus lalandii

Illegal fishing activities are reported to be on the increase in South Africa, including in its marine protected areas (MPAs). Research is presented on the nature and the scale of illegal fishing in Table Mountain National Park (TMNP) by analysing the numbers of abalone Haliotis midae and West Coast rock lobster Jasus lalandii confiscated from fishers operating in the park's marine protected area between 2000 and 2009. Data were collected from offence logbooks maintained by South African National Parks rangers and managers, the South African Police Services, and interviews with alleged or self-confessed illegal fishers. The research findings indicate that the annual numbers of illegally fished abalone and rock lobsters have increased significantly over time. Spatial analysis suggests that confiscations of abalone occur predominantly on the east coast of the park, whereas higher confiscations of illegally fished rock lobsters occur on the west coast. It is clear from this research that new and more efficient approaches will need to be designed and implemented to minimise illegal fishing in the TMNP MPA. Context-specific conservation targets that acknowledge and integrate social as well as developmental needs are required, and may be essential for limiting biodiversity loss in the longer term, which will ultimately ensure the success of fisheries management and conservation in TMNP.     

Assessing trends and seasonal changes in elephant poaching risk at the small area level using spatio-temporal Bayesian modeling

Knowledge about changes in wildlife poaching risk at fine spatial scale can provide essential background intelligence for law enforcement and crime prevention. We assessed interannual trends and seasonal changes in elephant poaching risk for Kenya’s Greater Tsavo ecosystem for 2002 to 2012 using spatio-temporal Bayesian modeling. Poaching data were obtained from the Kenya Wildlife Service’s database on elephant mortality. The novelty of our paper is (1) combining space and time when defining poaching risk for elephant; (2) the inclusion of environmental risk factors to improve the accuracy of the spatio-temporal Bayesian model; and (3) the separate analysis of dry and wet seasons to understand season-dependent poaching patterns. Although Tsavo’s overall poaching level increased over time, the risk of poaching differed significantly across space. Three of the 34 spatial units had a consistently high poaching risk regardless of whether models included environmental risk factors. Adding risk factors enhanced the model’s predictive power. We found that highest poaching risk areas differed between the wet and dry season. The findings improve our understanding of elephant poaching and highlight high risk areas within Tsavo where action to reduce elephant poaching is required.     

Understanding the spatial distribution of elephant (Loxodonta africana) poaching incidences in the mid-Zambezi Valley,Zimbabwe using Geographic Information Systems and remote sensing

The objective of this study was to understand the factors that explain the spatial distribution of elephant poaching activities in the areas of the mid-Zambezi Valley, Zimbabwe using geographic information system (GIS) and remotely sensed data integrated with spatial logistic regression. The results showed that significant (α = 0.05) elephant poaching hot spots are located closer to wildlife protected areas. Results further demonstrated that resource availability (water and forage) are the main factors explaining elephant poaching activities in the mid-Zambezi Valley. For example, the majority of poaching activities were found to occur in areas with high vegetation fractional cover (high forage) and close to waterholes. The results also showed that poaching incidences were more prevalent during the dry season. The findings of this study highlight the significance of integrating GIS, remotely sensed data and spatial logistic regression tools for understanding and monitoring elephant poaching activities. This information is critical if poaching activities are to be minimized and it is also important for planning, monitoring and mitigation of poaching activities in similar protected areas across the sub-Saharan Africa.     

Marine reserve effects on population density and size structure of commonly and rarely exploited limpets in South Africa

Marine reserves are commonly used to conserve living resources, but their effectiveness where policing is difficult is unclear. We compared monthly population density and size structure data collected over 20 months for two rarely and two commonly exploited intertidal limpets inside and outside reserves in South Africa. Densities were greater inside reserves, but significantly so in very few months. Unexpectedly, no significant reserve effect was detected for the territorial Scutellastra longicosta, shown by surveys to be favoured by harvesters. Reserve effects for the rarely exploited S. granularis probably result from indirect effects of higher barnacle cover in reserves where trampling is reduced, while interviews indicated that Cellana capensis is not targeted but large individuals are sometimes misidentified and hence are harvested outside the reserve. There were few reserve effects on mean or mean maximum size. The results indicate a gradient of exploitation among species and sites. One non-reserve site was more heavily exploited than the other, while one reserve experienced more poaching than the other. The effectiveness of marine reserves thus differed between reserves and among species. Exploited limpets were generally larger and at higher densities in reserves, but these effects were rarely statistically significant, indicating that reserve effects are weak compared to natural variability, probably reflecting ineffective policing.     

A spatial- and age-structured assessment model to estimate the impact of illegal fishing and ecosystem change on the South African abalone Haliotis midae resource

The management of abalone stocks worldwide is complicated by factors such as illegal fishing combined with the difficulties of assessing a sedentary (but not immobile) resource that is often patchily distributed. The South African abalone Haliotis midae fishery is faced with an additional problem in the form of a relatively recent movement of rock lobsters Jasus lalandii into much of the range of the abalone. The lobsters have heavily reduced sea urchin Parechinus angulosus populations, thereby indirectly negatively impacting juvenile abalone which rely on the urchins for shelter. A model is developed for abalone that is an extension of more standard age-structured assessment models because it explicitly takes spatial effects into account, incorporates the ecosystem change effect described above and estimates the magnitude of substantial illegal (‘poached’) catches. The model is simultaneously fitted to catch per unit effort and Fishery-Independent Abalone Survey abundance data, as well as to several years of catch-at-age (cohort-sliced from catch-at-size) data for the various components of the fishery and different spatial strata. It constitutes the first quantitative approach applied to the management of this commercially valuable resource in South Africa and has provided a basis for management advice over recent years by projecting abundance trends under alternative future catch levels.