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August 2018
Local communities
as change agents
ENDING
WILDLIFE
TRAFFICKING
Annette Hübschle with
Cliord Shearing
Local communities
as change agents
Annette Hübschle
with
Clifford Shearing
August 2018
ENDING
WILDLIFE
TRAFFICKING
Cover photo: iStock/FrankvandenBergh
© 2018 Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime. All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without permission
in writing from the Global Initiative. Please direct inquiries to:
The Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime
WMO Building, 2nd Floor
7bis, Avenue de la Paix
CH-1211 Geneva 1
Switzerland
www.GlobalInitiative.net
v
Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime Ending Wildlife Tracking
Contents
Acknowledgements ..................................................................................................................................................................1
Abbreviations and acronyms ........................................................................................................................................1
Summary ................................................................................................................................................................................................ 2
Introduction: Why should we protect rhinos? ......................................................................................... 2
Research methods .....................................................................................................................................................................6
Communities: The missing link ...................................................................................................................................6
Lessons from history: From dispossession to participation? ..................................................................7
CITES and rural communities: A missed opportunity .................................................................................10
Why do local people support illegal wildlife economies?
Insights from the eldwork ..........................................................................................................................................12
‘We are using rhino horn to free ourselves’ ........................................................................................................16
Community-based initiatives in the legal wildlife economy:
Case studies from Africa and Asia ........................................................................................................................19
CAMPFIRE ...................................................................................................................................................................................... 19
Community conservancies in Namibia ...................................................................................................................21
Rhino protection in Nepal – Chitwan National Park ....................................................................................24
Legalizing rhino horn, and community-based rhino conservation initiatives:
Balepye and Selwane ...........................................................................................................................................................27
The Black Mambas: Women empowerment or more of the same? ................................................. 28
Factors that facilitate or prevent community participation in
illegal wildlife economies ...............................................................................................................................................31
How to prevent wildlife poaching: Eight design principles for
community-orientated pro-poor conservation outcomes ...................................................32
About the author ..................................................................................................................................................................... 36
Notes .................................................................................................................................................................................................. 37
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Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime Ending Wildlife Tracking
Acknowledgements
Annette Hübschle would like to thank the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime for the funding
of a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Cape Town, during which this report was produced. Special thanks
go to Mark Shaw who got the ball rolling and recognized the importance of centring communities in responses to
organized environmental crimes. I would also like to thank Tuesday Reitano for her support and Mark Ronan for an
excellent editing job. Many thanks to Jerey Barbee and Adrian Steirn of Alliance Earth for their beautiful images of
the Black Mambas and Akashinga. A special tribute goes to my mentor and supervisor, Cliord Shearing, who assisted
in developing the architecture and argument of the report, and Elaine Atkins for the sterling administrative support.
The report would not have been possible without the support and buy-in of local community members – many
thanks for your trust, honesty and time. I would also like to thank the UCT Law Faculty’s Research Ethics Committee
for an expedited research ethics clearance process, the Namibian Ministry of the Environment, and Tourism and the
SANParks Scientic Committee for granting research permissions, Colonel Johan Jooste for assisting with police
clearance, Major General (ret.) Johan Jooste for verifying information, Nico Beckert for providing access to his
book and Frank Matose, Samantha Sithole and Professor Maano Ramutsindela for sharing their thought-provoking
analyses. Many thanks for opening doors and providing important context to community-focused conservation
to Maxi Lewis from the Namibian Association of CBNRM Support Organizations, Simson Uri-Khob from the Save
the Rhino Trust, Dr Jo Shaw from WWF-SA, Chris Weaver and his team at WWF-Namibia, Damien Mander from the
International Anti-Poaching Foundation, Dr Louise Swemmer from SANParks, John Grobler, Dr Margaret Jacobsohn
and Garth Owen-Smith. There are many others who greatly assisted with the research but who shall remain nameless
due to condentiality and security considerations. I thank you for your invaluable contributions.
Thanks to the Government of Norway for funding to support the establishment of an Environmental Security
Observatory with UCT, of which this report is a product.
Abbreviations and acronyms
CBNRM community-based natural resource management
CITES Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora
CoP Conference of Parties
CSO civil-society organization
GLTP Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park
IIED International Institute for Environmental Development
IRDNC Integrated Rural Development and Nature Conservation
IUCN International Union for the Conservation of Nature
KNP Kruger National Park
LNP Limpopo National Park
RDC rural district council
WWF World Wide Fund for Nature (formerly World Wildlife Fund)
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‘The rhino has its own doctor, its own policeman, its own helicopter,
its own land and there are rangers that protect it. We don’t have these things.
If the rhino goes extinct tomorrow, maybe we can nally get these things.’
– Focus group with local community members,
Greater Kruger National Park, December 2017
‘Rhinos are really important for our country’s economy, and
also for our young people’s future. If all rhinos are extinct, then
our youth will have nothing to take care of and protect.’
– Lazarus Hoxobeb, Headman, ≠Khoadi-//Hôas Conservancy, Namibia
Source: Save the Rhino Trust, Namibia
Summary
A large number of anti-poaching, conservation and management measures have been implemented to protect
rhinos. None of these responses has achieved tangible results in lowering unnatural rhino deaths through illegal
hunting in southern Africa. The international donor community, conservation NGOs and governments have
disbursed millions of dollars to ght this illegal wildlife trade, and continue to do so. We argue in this report that
these measures are bound to fail, as they do not engage with the most important change agents in conservation:
local people who live in or near protected areas and game reserves. The report therefore aims to provide a better
understanding of why African rural communities participate in wildlife economies, both legal and illegal, and how
alternative, community-oriented strategies can help build a more resilient response to organized wildlife crime than
has hitherto been achieved.
Introduction: Why should we protect rhinos?
This report explores the challenges of illegal wildlife tracking – in particular as it aects rhinos – and the related
opportunities for wildlife protection and conservation in southern Africa today. The African rhino species are used
as an example because of the high-prole nature of the illegal rhino-horn trade and the existence of transnational
criminal networks engaged in it.
The report’s ndings and the design principles for community interventions to tackle the illegal wildlife economy
are generalizable beyond the rhino, however. Many other wildlife species and plants are also illegally tracked
across the globe. The pangolin, for example, is now considered the most tracked animal species in the world,
and cycads the most threatened plant species.
So, why should we be protecting wildlife and, more specically, the rhino? And how could alternative interventions
have an impact on illegal wildlife tracking? The illicit tracking of wild fauna and ora has moved beyond
1 400
1 200
1 000
800
600
400
200
0
2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017
KNP 10 36 50 146 252 425 606 827 826 662 504
SA 13 83 122 333 448 668 1 004 1 215 1 175 1 054 1 028
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Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime Ending Wildlife Tracking
being branded a parochial environmental issue. It is now widely acknowledged that transnational organized-
crime networks control and benet from this highly lucrative trade. These networks tend to operate in a number
of legal and illegal economies, depriving future generations of natural and cultural heritage, and denying them
the benets this entails.
The objectives of this report are to analyze conservation policies and practices in southern Africa, and examine
the benets of certain schemes and the failings of others. The main focus is South Africa, home to most of the
world’s surviving rhinos, but case studies and examples from elsewhere are used to complement and illustrate the
ndings and recommendations.
African rhinos have survived several poaching epidemics over the last century. The most recent upsurge began in
Zimbabwe in the early 2000s; subsequently, poaching ared up in neighbouring South Africa and Namibia. More
than 7 000 rhinos have been killed and dehorned in South Africa alone since 2007 (see Figure 1). Rhino poaching
also spiked in Namibia from 2014 to 2016 but levels were levelling o in 2017.1
Figure 1: Unnatural rhino deaths in South Africa and Kruger National Park (2007–2017)
Sources: Annette Hübschle, Fluid interfaces between ows of rhino horn, Global Crime, 18, 2017: 199; South African Depart-
ment of Environmental Aairs, Minister Edna Molewa highlights progress on integrated strategic management of rhinoceros,
25 January 2018, https://www.environment.gov.za/mediarelease/molewa_highlightsprogressonimplementationontegrated-
strategicmanagementofrhinoceros
Although the South African Minister of Environmental Aairs said that rhino poaching had ‘stabilized’ by 2015,
the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), a global conservation body, warned of a ‘deepening
rhino poaching crisis in Africa’. The IUCN reported that 1 377 rhinos had been killed across the continent in 2015.2
According to senior ocials from South Africa’s Kruger National Park (KNP),3 there were an estimated 2 500 attempted
poaching events, involving 7 500 poachers, in the KNP in 2015. This gure went up to an estimated 2 900 and 2 600
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Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime Ending Wildlife Tracking
poaching events in 2016 and 2017, respectively. Many poachers are repeat oenders. The pool of willing and able
poachers is estimated at around a thousand in the Greater Kruger area.
In 2016, there was a 19.85% fall in the number of rhino killings in the KNP. The trend continued in 2017 with a further
decrease of 24% in unnatural rhino deaths. However, the number of rhinos hunted illegally for their horns increased
in other parts of the country, most notably in the province of KwaZulu-Natal.4 Moreover, 67 elephants were poached
in the KNP in 2017, which suggests that rhino poachers may be diversifying their wildlife contraband oering. Some
ivory trackers may also be shifting their operations south after elephant populations have
been taking a serious knock across Africa.5
The embattled environmental and conservation authorities in southern African
countries where rhinos occur in the wild have put emergency measures in place
in an attempt to save the last rhinos. But the outlook is bleak owing to the
combined forces of growing demand for rhino horn in consumer countries and
the presence of highly ecient transnational tracking and illicit-trade networks.
These organized-crime networks facilitate the transportation and distribution of
this highly coveted good.
Powdered rhino horn has been used in traditional Asian medicine for more than four
millennia. Carved into hilts for traditional daggers, rhino horn was also in great demand in
Yemen during the 1970s and 1980s.6 Rhino stocks have also been depleted over the years as a result of sports hunting
and clearing of farmland. But driving the current poaching crisis is the strong demand for rhino horn in consumer
markets in the East. Rhino horn is increasingly sought after as an investment tool and as a criminal currency. It also
serves as a status symbol and as a religious or cultural artefact among the upper strata of Asian societies, fuelling the
illicit trade.
Rhino horn fetches between $25 000 and $85 000 per kilogram in consumer markets, depending on its provenance,
type, end use and the kinds of platforms where it is sold. Although local rhino poachers receive just a fraction of
the price paid by end consumers (about 15% to 20% of the end price, but often less),7 the returns still exceed the
earning potential of many poor Africans.
The rhino is a so-called keystone species, which means it has important environmental functions.8 But, besides
their role in supporting the environment, the African rhino species are also culturally revered among many African
communities. There is also an economic imperative to save rhinos, in that they attract visitors to national parks and
reserves. The international conservation community considers the rhino as a crucial component of the world’s
natural heritage. Hence the IUCN aords the world’s ve rhino species varying levels of protection based on their
degree of imperilment. Similar arguments about instrumental, biodiversity and cultural values could be made
about most wildlife and plant species.
Given these imperatives, why is rhino protection failing – especially as the threat of the criminal networks is well
known? One reason is that wildlife conservation has always beneted economic and political elites while local and
indigenous communities have remained mostly excluded from the benets. At the heart
of the rhino poaching crisis and the illicit trade, therefore, is a conict over access to
resources, benets and land. Although the goal of conservation is the protection
of the environment for future generations, conservation often comes at a huge
cost to local and indigenous communities. In many instances, the only benets
accruing to communities from wildlife are not from its conservation, but from
the money to be made by being part of the illicit wildlife trade. The depleted
rhino stock is therefore symbolic of the failings of broader wildlife conservation
strategies. For most communities living adjacent to Africa’s national parks and
game reserves, a dead rhino is simply more valuable than a living one.
Rhino horn
is increasingly
sought after as an
investment tool
and as a criminal
currency.
At the heart of the
rhino poaching crisis
and the illicit trade,
therefore, is a conict
over access to resources,
benets and land.
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Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime Ending Wildlife Tracking
Some organized criminal networks have inltrated local communities who live near protected areas. From
experiences elsewhere,9 we know that civic responses to organized-crime networks can soften the impact of
violence and violations associated with organized criminal governance. In the Sinaloa region of Mexico, for example,
grassroots actors have developed resilience and capacities that render them important allies in the quest to dismantle
criminal networks and disrupt tracking supply chains. It is important to identify vulnerabilities, risks and opportunities
faced by communities to enhance those conditions that allow such actors to withstand everyday and extraordinary
adversities, and develop non-violent responses and coping mechanisms.
The Global Initiative launched the #GIresilience project in 2017 with the intention to amplify the unheard voices of
those most aected by organized crime. The project focuses on community perspectives and innovative responses
to transnational criminal networks with the objective of disrupting the narrative of a ‘war on crime’ and of shifting
the focus to successful responses enabled by ordinary people.10
The community resilience approach is an example of a whole-of-society response to crime. The concept refers
to the capacity of a community to respond to adversity while retaining its functional capacities. Shared values
and cultural understandings may strengthen cohesion and trust within communities. The formation of formal and
informal networks among individuals and groups may become the drivers of change and resilience in times of
crisis.11 An understanding of the role and impact of wildlife poaching and tracking, and their associated organized
criminal networks at grassroots level, is thus crucial to enhancing community resilience in the face of growing
organized environmental crimes.
One of the objectives of this report is to understand why local people support illegal wildlife economies and get
involved in wildlife crime. Some poachers originate in local communities living near parks and reserves. However,
what should be more worrisome is the nding that many local communities shield poachers and wildlife
criminals from law-enforcement responses. The report has uncovered deep rifts and conicts between some
actors in the conservation eld – most notably between local communities and private and public conservation
management authorities.
This report therefore aims to provide a better understanding of why African rural communities participate in illegal
wildlife economies and how alternative, community-oriented strategies can encourage these communities to help
support anti-poaching interventions. It explains why and how communities should be included in conservation
programmes and why failure to do so makes conservation a utopian project with little prospect of success. A
lot more has to happen to allow local communities to reap the benets of active and engaged citizenship while
helping combat the illegal wildlife economy.
Community-driven crime-prevention strategies are not unique to transnational organized crime, but have found
broad application in the eld of general crime prevention. The report acknowledges that wildlife tracking
networks operate at the transnational level. Conventional approaches suggest that law-enforcement measures
should target both the supply and demand side of the market – and whatever happens along the supply chain
in between. New perspectives in the literature on plural policing, however, suggest that illicit networks and ows
could be disrupted through nodal forms of policing.12 Likewise, although transnational responses are of crucial
importance, the argument made here is that communities should be considered fulcrum institutions when it
comes to the prevention of wildlife crime and disruption of tracking networks. The supply chain and tracking
networks are rendered useless when communities pull out and no longer support illegal wildlife economies.
The report ends with design principles for community-based interventions that may render rural communities
resilient, help them contribute to combating transnational criminal networks and allow them to benet from and
live in harmony with ecosystems.
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Research methods
The report is based on insights gained from a study undertaken by the researcher during her doctorate in 2013
and 2014,13 and subsequent visits to the eld in 2015, 2016 and 2017. The research focused on local communities
and protected areas in Namibia, Mozambique and South Africa. The report also beneted from eld visits to Kenya,
Tanzania and Swaziland. The sample includes interviews, group discussions and focus groups with people living in
or near protected areas, convicted poachers and trackers, conservation and government ocials, law enforcers
and representatives from conservation- and development-oriented NGOs. Court les, policy documents and
minutes of parliamentary debates and portfolio-committee meetings complemented the ndings.
The author participated in and/or contributed to several high-level policy and law-enforcement initiatives,14 which
brought home the conundrum practitioners face in reconciling short-termism with the need for socio-economic
upliftment of communities, while also paying attention to conservation-oriented endeavours. The author has tried
to make sure that the voices of marginalized community members in southern Africa have been heard, and their
sentiments, concerns and wishes captured.
The research process was guided by strict institutional research ethics.15 The anonymity of the participants is
protected owing to the sensitivity of the research topic. All interview data was therefore anonymised, except in
cases where direct permission for being quoted in the report was obtained from the interviewee.
Communities: The missing link
Many protective measures have been implemented to save wildlife in Africa. These include militarized anti-poaching
responses, regulatory changes and tougher enforcement measures in supply, transit and consumer states. These
responses, however, have seen limited success in curbing rhino poaching and the illegal transnational trade in
other forms of wildlife.
As mentioned, the international donor community, NGOs and governments have disbursed huge sums of money in
the ght against the illegal wildlife trade. According to a report by the Global Environmental Facility, 24 international
donors committed more than $1.3 billion to ght the illicit wildlife trade in Africa and Asia between January 2010
and June 2016.16 And there have been numerous other sources of funding, such as
lotteries, cash donated by individuals and companies to conservation NGOs,
online campaigns and crowd-funding initiatives.
The bulk of this cash ends up funding law-enforcement and anti-poaching
operations. It is mostly used to equip and train rangers and security
personnel, and to pay for new equipment and technologies.17 In some
cases, conservation authorities have enrolled military ocials, private
investigators, private military contractors and security rms.
Some critics have questioned the ecacy of this approach and are
demanding accountability in light of the enormous cost of what has
become a military-industrial complex in support of conservation eorts.18
Others say that conservation authorities and their partners are ‘waging a war’
on poaching, with long-term consequences for conservation management and
community relations.19 Scholars argue that this so-called ‘green militarization’ has led
to an arms race between poachers and rangers,20 and that violence is being deployed in
the name of nature conservation.21
Paramilitary-type
anti-poaching approaches
are misguided for a broader
strategic reason: they fail to
take advantage of a signicant
change agent in conservation:
the local communities
themselves.
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Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime Ending Wildlife Tracking
For the aected rural communities, the securitization of anti-poaching measures has led to anger at and resistance
towards the conservation authorities and private-security operatives. After all, some of the men who have become
poachers return in body bags or end up in correctional centres.
But paramilitary-type anti-poaching approaches are misguided for a broader strategic reason: they fail to take
advantage of a signicant change agent in conservation: the local communities themselves. The question here
is, why have communities not been recognized as the most crucial actors in wildlife conservation? Why are
conservationists calling for a militarized response – more boots on the ground, helicopter gunships and new
technologies – when communities that dwell near wildlife reserves hold the key to conservation and, by association,
to combating the criminal wildlife economy?
The answer can partly be found in history, which shows that wildlife conservation eorts have tended not to be
pro-community, pro-poor or pro-women.
Dening communities
The concept of community has a chequered history in the context of colonial Africa and apartheid South
Africa, where white people were granted individual agency while black people were depicted as members
of collective communities. The label pigeonholed complex African societies into communal containers. For
the purposes of this report, it is acknowledged that the concept of community is a controversial construct
rooted in colonial race ideologies. The question of land was central to the colonial project: communities were
tied to specic locations and local customary authorities.22 Due to the violent history and lasting legacy of
forceful evictions and dispossession, many communities are made up of individuals from culturally diverse
backgrounds, diering social strata and political aliations, as well as dierent geographies.
In contemporary, democratic South Africa, the government, legislators and policymakers – as well as the
develop ment community – have embraced the concept of community and community participation.23 The
South African Constitution acknowledges communities as important constituencies in governance matters
because this is seen to legitimize laws and policies,24 including community participation in responses to crime
and conservation policies. We dene ‘local community’ as a group of people who are tied to a specic location
at a specic point in time.25
Lessons from history: From dispossession to participation?
During Africa’s colonial past, indigenous and local communities lost land and access to grazing and cultural sites, as
well as hunting rights, to make space for the conservation of wild animals, safari parks and private game reserves.26
In the early 20th century, reserves were designed to provide a sanctuary in which certain species of wildlife could
prosper, ‘free from all human interference’.27 The benets have been inequitable, privileging economic and political
elites. Although the state, hunters, farmers, tourist operators and investors have beneted from the conservation
economy, local communities have gained very little, other than in the form of menial employment and occasional
handouts. Conservation and wildlife management became tools for economic and social exclusion.
In this context, many communities were evicted from protected areas, which became an exclusive domain for
auent tourists. Some local communities were relocated to nearby villages and townships. Protected areas that
were established by forcefully evicting local groups remain intact today. Privately owned and controlled buer
zones have been created between communities and conservation areas to protect wildlife.28 Indigenous and local
African property and hunting rights, and ancestral burial grounds were not considered when these reserves and
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Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime Ending Wildlife Tracking
parks were established. A case in point is that more than half of the area of the KNP is subject to land claims.29
According to Kruger Park ocials, 15 valid land claims have been received, while one still needs to be validated.30
No land will be restored to local communities (compare with the case study that follows on the Makuleke land
claim) inside the Kruger Park. Instead, claimants are receiving nancial compensation.31
In South Africa, from the 1930s the dominant policy approach to national parks and reserves was to preserve the
wilderness without human habitation. Hence national parks came to represent another mechanism of apartheid
rule. Dealing with the nearly 400-year-old legacy of colonial land dispossession is an ongoing government project
in South Africa, where the land question is closely linked to persistent poverty and structural inequality. The
redistribution of land taken from indigenous and local communities in the colonial and apartheid eras has either
not been tackled or only partially so.
Forced removals: The case of the Makuleke
The last forced removal from the KNP involved the Makuleke people, who had been living in the northern Pafuri
section of the park. Their communal land was incorporated into the park in 196932 and became subject to a
successful land claim in post-apartheid South Africa. The 1998 settlement returned the land to the community
while maintaining its conservation status for 50 years. The title deed does not grant mining or prospecting rights,
or the use of the land for residential or agricultural purposes. However, the land can be used for conservation
and ‘associated commercial purposes’.33 Although this case of redistribution is heralded as a success story,
the conicting interests of South African National Parks (the parks authority) in limiting resource use and the
Makuleke’s economic aspirations have led to tensions and a conictual relationship between the two.34
Historically, so-called fortress conservation – a notion whereby wildlife conservation is deemed possible only when
wildlife and communities are kept apart – has built insurmountable barriers between the conservation authorities
and the local communities. And the practice of keeping communities away from protected areas continues today
in the name of conservation in some places.
Mavodze: A village in the Limpopo National Park, Mozambique
Photo: A Hübschle
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Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime Ending Wildlife Tracking
Living on the edge: Rural settlement, Limpopo province, South Africa
Photo: A Hübschle
The role played by local people in the protection and management of natural resources is recognized in the laws
and policies of many southern African countries. However, good intentions have often been jettisoned in the
pursuit of short-term outcomes that are meant to bring down poaching statistics. Unfortunately, the current rhino-
poaching crisis has put further distance between people and parks in South Africa. User rights that had been
devolved to communities after the end of apartheid, such as access to ancestral and cultural sites,35 and to water,
medicinal plants and grazing, have diminished.36 The justication provided by park authorities for the reversal of
some community rights and access is that rangers and other anti-poaching personnel are unable to dierentiate
between people who have legitimate business in protected areas and those in pursuit of animal contraband.37 The
old conservation ethos that local people and wildlife should be kept apart persists.
During the 1960s, the development of wildlife ranching contributed to the commodication and privatization of
wildlife in general, and the rhino in particular. In fact, the rhino plays an important role in the privatization drive of
wildlife in South Africa, something from which black South Africans were excluded during apartheid. Given the slow
pace of economic transformation, ownership patterns have changed little: today, black communities look after just
0.5% of black rhinos through a World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF)-sponsored custodianship programme.38
Following South Africa’s rst democratic elections in 1994, the National Assembly started working towards the
transformation of exclusionary institutional arrangements and policy frameworks of the apartheid administration.
Environmental rights, sustainable development and use of natural resources became enshrined in the new South
African Constitution. Although apartheid institutions have largely been dismantled since then, conservation
practices have not kept pace with the transformation agenda of the postcolonial state. The main objective of post-
apartheid environmental legislation was to develop a human-centred approach to conservation. However, so-called
‘command and control’ methods39 are still the primary mechanism for enforcing compliance with wildlife laws.40
Although South African laws make extensive provision for the need to include communities, implementation of
community conservation programming has been slow.41
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The command-and-control approach also provides little incentive for local communities to protect the environ-
ment. Often the only pathway out of poverty available to people in rural areas is through participation in illegal
wildlife economies.
CITES and rural communities: A missed opportunity
In its early days, the conservation ideology underpinning the Convention on International Trade in Endangered
Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES)42 excluded the possibility that wildlife trade could benet species, eco-
systems or people.43 It was assumed that trade regulation constituted the most eective way of achieving
conservationist goals.44 However, although illegal trade might pose a threat to the survival of species, trade
regulations may be inappropriate in dealing with threats such as human encroachment, climate change or
organized crime. The CITES species listings not only aect the wild fauna and ora that the convention seeks to
protect, but also impinge upon the communities that live close to them because rural dwellers often eke out a
living from harvesting or trading in wild animals or plants. Therefore, from one day to the next, a former harvester
may be labelled a criminal. As a consequence, there were calls that CITES should consider the plight of rural people
when passing measures that aect their livelihoods.45
In 1992, CITES recognized that most of the species it sought to protect were in the Global South. It also
acknowledged that the sustainable use of wild fauna and ora, either consumptive or non-consumptive, provided
a viable economic option for local and indigenous people.46 It was accepted that unless conservation programmes
took into account the needs of local communities and provided incentives for sustainable use of wild fauna and
ora, conversion to alternative forms of land use might occur.47
To this day, the notion of sustainable use is a highly contentious issue at the CITES Conferences of Parties (CoPs).
There is a signicant lobby within the environmental movement (predominantly from the Global North) that is
vehemently opposed to any form of trade in animal species, particularly when it is premised on the killing of these
animals.48 This lobby holds considerable sway at CITES, directly and indirectly informing decisions that lead to
restrictions on trade in wildlife. Some countries in the Global South object to the strong inuence of this animal-
rights lobby.
Despite this apparent conict, CITES acknowledged the developmental concerns of the custodians of most of the
remaining biodiversity in the Global South in its strategic plan of 2000, which conrmed ‘the recognition by the
parties that sustainable trade in wild fauna and ora can make a major contribution to securing the broader and
not incompatible objectives of sustainable development and biodiversity conservation’.49
This endorsement of sustainable development cleared the way for countries of the Global South to insist that
developmental concerns should be considered in future formulations of wildlife policies. At CoP 16, CITES
approved a new framework for future policy development. Most signicantly, this framework claims to consider
‘cultural, social and economic factors at play in producer and consumer countries’.50
Whether this chosen path will create more division among parties at CITES or help the international body regain
credibility and legitimacy is a matter for future analysis. What is known, however, is that data collected for this
project revealed negative feelings towards CITES, its listing decisions and the perceived inuence that Western
conservation NGOs and the animal-rights movements exert on the convention’s policy decisions, while African
environmental-justice movements and local communities had little or no representation at CoPs. Although such
community representatives are vocal during CITES events, their voices are often drowned out by the wheeling and
dealing that goes on behind the scenes over controversial listing decisions or bans.
Representatives from the Southern African Development Community region interviewed for a project on
organized-crime trends in southern Africa portrayed CITES as an institution that was developed and sponsored
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by countries of the Global North.51 It is therefore seen to reect Western conservation philosophies and animal-
rights ethics, while paying ‘little concern to the plight of African rural people and their developmental concerns’.
The question arose as to why Africans should preserve Western-style safari parks lled with wild animals for the
enjoyment of auent tourists while their own families were struggling to make ends meet. Moreover, it was
noted that European countries had failed dismally in conserving their own ‘wilderness’ areas and endangered
species. The northern lobby is seen as able to inuence CITES listing decisions that are detrimental to African rural
communities. Compensation is seldom paid for listings that aect rural livelihoods.
Although Dr John Scanlon, the CITES secretary general, branded the 2016 CoP 17 as a ‘game changer for the
world’s most vulnerable wild animals and plants’,52 there are key constituencies that do not share the sentiment.
Among these are states parties and local communities from the Global South, who feel that their voices are not
heard when crucial listing decisions are made. Yet they are the ones who have to live with the consequences of
CITES resolutions and decisions.
The elephant in the conference room was why parties and conservation NGOs far removed from the realities of
living with wild animals should have so much say in CITES listing decisions. For example, in reference to a proposal
to ‘uplist’ all elephant populations to Appendix 1 (thus banning international trade in ivory and trophy hunting),
a community representative associated with the CAMPFIRE programme in Zimbabwe (of which more later in
this report) said: ‘Give value back to those communities that bear the brunt of living with wildlife. Remove the
proposed annotation and allow vulnerable people to benet from utilizing the resources. It’s costing us a lot of
money and resources to allow elephant populations to grow.’53
A coalition of rural communities backed by southern and East African countries54 put forward a proposal to
establish a Special Committee on Rural Communities at CoP 17. Many southern African governments enrol
community representatives in their ocial delegations at CoPs. However, community interests do not always
align with those of the state representatives.55 Community representatives were pitching for their own dedicated
committee, which would consider and undertake due diligence of listing proposals. The original proposal stated:
Community-based initiatives must be given the support they need to deliver incomes
to local people through legal wildlife utilisation, incomes that are crucial in alleviating
poverty. This support shall include the right for indigenous peoples and local
communities to be consulted as equal partners in wildlife conservation.56
The proposal received limited support. CITES parties agreed that rural communities were important stakeholders
and undertook by way of a resolution to include them in listing processes in the future.57 However, the CITES
secretariat did not support the proposed establishment of the new committee, although it set up a working
group to discuss how to eectively involve rural communities in future CITES processes at the 69th meeting of the
Standing Committee in November 2017.58 The working group held its rst meeting in Nairobi in February 2018.59
The secretariat’s response suggests that a lengthy bureaucratic process lies ahead with an uncertain outcome.
CITES missed a great opportunity that could have indicated to rural communities that concerns over the
conservation of endangered animals and plants do not trump the livelihoods and concerns of those who live with
them on a daily basis. The signicance and agency of rural communities in conservation outcomes have not been
fully acknowledged and mainstreamed into CITES approaches and processes. Rural communities ought to be
aorded more support and inuence in CITES decisions. The voices of local communities should be heard not only
at plenary, but also at committee level. Beyond supporting calls for inclusive decision making, the international
community and individual states should sponsor no-strings-attached support to assist institutional development
and processes at community level.
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Why do local people support illegal wildlife
economies? Insights from the eldwork 60
The real challenge when it comes to responding to the illegal wildlife economy is not how to bring poachers
to book but how to garner inclusive community support for wildlife conservation. As long as local communities
remain on the margins of protected areas and are excluded from the economic benets
of conservation, one should not be surprised when they fail to support the
conservation drive, or even take to poaching.
From the eldwork, factors such as economic marginalization in the form
of displacement and dispossession, disempowerment, conict with the
authorities and the quest for economic freedom were cited as drivers for
those who choose to take part in the illicit wildlife economy.
The rhino has a bounty on its horn that far exceeds the average annual
income of those living in rural communities along the boundaries of the
KNP. However, as mentioned, participation in illegal wildlife economies
needs to be understood in the context of historical marginalization of
rural communities and their continued sense of exclusion. Poachers and
other community members who participated in this study cited the loss of
their land, and hunting and land-use rights as triggers for dissent and as factors
that drove them to poaching. An old woman who had been recently relocated from
the Limpopo National Park (LNP) said:
There’s no peace here, no hope. They can give you a house and the next day, they can
remove it from you, and give it to someone else. We don’t have a school here, no elds
to grow our own food, and the youths are struggling to get jobs in this village. … Some
end up stealing because of the lack of jobs, others do rhino poaching. Some come
back, some die and some get arrested.
Given South Africa’s conictual past in terms of protected areas, conservation management and the land issue
(discussed in the previous section), the South African National Parks authority instituted so-called community park
forums, which are intended to improve interactions between the parks authority, neighbouring communities and
other stakeholders living adjacent to national parks.61 These have had only a limited impact, however.
Although these forums departed from the apartheid era’s focus on forging relationships with traditional leaders,
women and youths remain inadequately represented.62 Furthermore, a 1% community levy was introduced in 2011
on all tourism reservations to help uplift communities living near parks. The levy was established to support the
provision of infrastructure and resources for education, youth development, healthcare and other areas deemed
appropriate by community members. However, with more than 2.3 million people living near the KNP alone by the
end of 2016,63 it is clear that the tourism levy and other initiatives, such as the South African National Parks corporate
social investment programme,64 have limited impact, as the funds have to be spread very thinly or do not reach
those most in need.
The KNP became part of the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park (GLTP) in 2001. The GLTP joins Kruger with Gonarezhou
National Park in Zimbabwe and the LNP in Mozambique. Along the western boundary of the KNP, and covering
an area close to 2 000 square kilometres, lies a string of private game reserves.65 Another group of private reserves,
As long as local
communities remain
on the margins of protected
areas and are excluded
from the economic benets of
conservation, one should not
be surprised when they fail to
support the conservation
drive, or even take to
poaching.
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Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime Ending Wildlife Tracking
forming a so-called ‘buer zone’, are located along the eastern boundary of the park and south of the LNP in
Mozambique. South African corporate entities, individuals and shareholding companies lease these concessions
from the Mozambican government.66 The changed conservation status of the LNP from multi-use to total protection
contributed to economic hardships and reduced levels of food security for some village communities living inside or
on the edge of the park. Without viable economic alternatives available,67 this area is home to an ever-growing pool
of alienated rural dwellers who are either willing to risk their lives to hunt wildlife, especially rhinos and elephants,
or who are not favourably inclined towards the park authority.
At the time of the initial eldwork for this study in 2013 and 2014, 70% of rhino poachers were believed to enter
the KNP from Mozambique. This had changed at the time of writing the report in 2017, by which time most
rhino poachers operated along the western boundary in South Africa. Park ocials assume that this geographic
displacement is a response to increased law-enforcement activities close to the Mozambican border.68 Many
poachers are believed to come from South African communities living near the park or within it, some posing as
tourists or park personnel. A rhino-poaching kingpin explained that the villages inside the park were not only used
for launching poaching excursions into the park, but that they had also become eective recruiting grounds for
poaching expeditions.
Because of diminished food security,69 conict between humans and wildlife (for example, elephants were reintro-
duced in some areas and big cats have attacked livestock) and social fragmentation in villages, many residents
were seeking relocation to improve their livelihood after the transfrontier conservation area was declared. However,
political and economic processes, as well as nancial austerity, are delaying the relocation of some of the villages.70
For example, Mozambican government
authorities have repurposed land initially
set aside for relocation and given it to
a private investor for a sugarcane and
ethanol plantation.71 The resettlement
of Mozambican communities forms part
of South Africa’s national strategy to
reduce rhino poaching and should have
been completed by the end of 2017.72
For example, villagers in Massingir Velho
(a border town in Mozambique’s LNP)
were moved 75 kilometres away as an
anti-rhino poaching measure in early
2016. Five communities are still awaiting
resettlement and many of those who have
been resettled want to return to the park.73
Massingir: Buildings in Massingir,
Mozambique, built from rhino horn prots
Photo: A Hübschle
km
020
Kruger
National
Park
SOUTH
AFRICA
MOZAMBIQUE
Limpopo
National
Park
Greater
Lebombo
Conservancy
N
© S Ballard (2018)
Kruger
National Park
Massingir
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Broadly, displacement and dispossession have emerged as drivers of illegal wildlife hunting, pushing rural dwellers
to become involved in the illegal wildlife trade, and likewise motivating communities to shield perpetrators from
law-enforcement agents. As a rhino horn tra cker and his personal assistant observed:
Because the people are still staying in the park, they are angry. It increases rhino
poaching. The people have agreed to be moved. There is just no money and land
to relocate them. … Sometimes when they [park rangers] nd a person walking in
the park, then they say they are visiting their relatives, even if they are there for illegal
hunting. … If they [the authorities] remove them, it will reduce the poaching but it will
not stop it.74
Map 1: The Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park and the Greater Lebombo Conservancy
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Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime Ending Wildlife Tracking
Akashinga: Empowering marginalized rural women
Photo: Adrian Steirn for Alliance Earth
Conversely, private concession holders located along the Mozambican border with the KNP are seeing their land
tenure rights protected, as their concessions have been declared as buer zones in the name of protecting rhinos.75
For example, the Greater Lebombo Conservancy is described as ‘the rst shield of defence against rhino poaching’,
providing ecotourism development opportunities for private investors and creating a deterrent to poaching
through tourism.76
Mozambican state ocials, together with private concession holders, have been seeking to incorporate the
patchwork of private concessions and state and communal lands into an integrated conservancy/buer zone.77
As a result of these new conservancies, local communities have to move, restricting their access to resources. An
intelligence operative said: ‘You might be moving potential poachers further away from the park, but where there
is a will, there is a way. You have basically just added another 40 km for them to walk, and they will, and you have
made some villagers very angry.’78
In this context, often the only pathway out of poverty available to people living near parks is poaching. There may
also be indirect benets accruing from the provision of services to poachers. And then there is the trickle-down
eect, whereby prots made from poaching may benet to some degree the community to which the poacher
or wildlife crime organizer belongs. It should therefore not come as a surprise that some poachers originate from
communities living near protected areas and private reserves. Some locals provide support services to poachers,
such as accommodation, food and drink, intelligence, traditional medicine, and tracking and transport. In return,
rhino poachers and trackers provide the communities with material assistance and money where the state and
conservation authorities have failed to assist.
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Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime Ending Wildlife Tracking
Interviews conducted among aected communities show that they feel that conservationists and the state value
the lives of wild animals more than those of rural black people. As a rhino-horn tracker said:
This [rhino problem] is because of conservation. They say that we need those things
[rhinos]. Some of the white people here treat them like their friends. They value the
rhino more than black human beings. And now they see it as a business – if you have
two rhinos, you are rich.
Picking up on this theme, Julius Malema, leader of South African political party the Economic Freedom Fighters, said:
… there is a big campaign and a huge investment in saving the rhino. People have
statues of them everywhere, they even organize marathons where they ‘run to save the
rhino’. This tells you, right here in South Africa, a country with a majority of blacks, that
black people are worth less than rhinos.79
The notion that parks and the interests of foreign tourists trump those of rural communities was a recurring theme
in interviews and focus groups in South Africa and Mozambique for this report. The importance attributed to the
rhino has taken on a symbolic meaning to some communities, whose concerns over land restitution, land-use
rights and livelihood strategies appear to be lower on the state’s agenda than the need to protect a wild animal.80
‘We are using rhino horn to free ourselves’
Some community members feel strongly about the lack of bottom-up negotiation when it comes to resolving
conicts around land rights, resettlement, who benets from resources and socio-economic development initiatives.
Conicts have arisen over inequitable income distribution of benets.81 Local political elites, including traditional
leaders, chiefs and village headmen, often act as intermediaries between communities and the authorities in rural
southern Africa, negotiating political, economic, social and land restitution deals.82 Community members remarked:
‘If you are on the wrong side of the chief, then you will see no money or benets.’83
Women are seldom among the beneciaries here. Their interests, which tend to include those of their children,
take a back seat when negotiations take place. Although gender mainstreaming has become a development aid
prerogative, it seldom translates into concrete changes for the most marginalized group of people: rural women.
It is evident, according to participants, that feelings of anger, disempowerment and marginalization are also factors
that lead to rhino poaching. As one South African poacher remarked:
You see, in a rural area, they [political and traditional leaders] used to call each and every-
one that stayed there, and they talked with us to decide about things that concerned us.
Now things are dierent. They don’t ask us any more. They do things on their own. It is
them that behave like they are crooks. That’s why we end up killing the rhinos.84
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Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime Ending Wildlife Tracking
When asked about what motivated them to become poachers, most of the interviewed poachers cited feelings of
shame at not being able to provide for their families (or at having to do so through illegal means), of emasculation,
stress, disempowerment and anger.
It is against this backdrop that rhino kingpins85 and poachers have emerged as self-styled freedom ghters, who use
rhino poaching for social and economic upward mobility. Or, in the words of a Mozambique-based kingpin, ‘We are
using rhino horn to free ourselves.’86
Some rhino poachers claim they are fullling functions akin to social welfare, community development and political
leadership. Like latter-day Robin Hoods, they see rhino horn as instrumental in achieving these altruistic goals in
an environment where the state is failing to do so. Indeed, representatives of the state and traditional leaders full
ceremonial duties that are often heavily subsidized by resident kingpins and poachers.
Although many rhino kingpins have a criminal past linked to a range of illegal markets and organized crime (some
used to work as police ocers or in conservation), participants portrayed their criminal careers in rhino poaching as
legitimate livelihoods. Two Mozambican kingpins, for example, have constructed their identity around the notion
of being ‘economic freedom ghters’,87 who struggle for the economic and environmental emancipation of their
communities. Others have labelled themselves as businessmen, developers, community workers or retired hunters.88
These strategies of legitimizing their activities also include appropriating job labels from the wildlife industry. Rhino
poachers regard themselves as ‘professional hunters’ or simply ‘hunters’. The position of a hunter comes with status
and prestige in village communities, where a young boy’s rst hunt is a rite of passage.89
There is also the perception among some park ocials that villagers benet in equal measures from rhino poaching,
with wealth being redistributed among the needy through a form of social banditry carried out by the poachers.
Yet not all are motivated by collective upliftment. One poacher in his mid-20s argued that, because he bore the
risk alone during his poaching sorties in the KNP, he was not prepared to share his prots with the community. ‘It
benets me, I don’t give to the community,’ he said.
The role, functions and identities of kingpins and poachers are clearly complex, then, and contingent on the local
context. Although many poachers originate from local communities, others join hunting crews from communities
elsewhere, and even foreign countries. Therefore, the level of social embeddedness of kingpins and poachers varies
among the communities. And not all poachers are paid equally well.
A generation gap can also be detected when it comes to motives for poaching. Whereas older poachers (i.e. those
who were 30 and over) were concerned about family and community well-being, younger poachers displayed
more individualistic traits, seeking self-realization and accumulation. A teenage poacher cited the adage of ‘get rich
young or die trying’ as the motif and inspiration of his generation of poachers.
Perceptions vary among communities as to whether their fortunes and livelihoods have improved from poaching.
Many local communities appear to benet; others less so, or only indirectly. Direct handouts often appear to be
limited to some of the more generous kingpins throwing a village party by slaughtering a few cows and providing
traditional beer after returning from a successful poaching expedition to the KNP. Others, however, have constructed
small roads, water wells, spaza shops90 and shebeens,91 and occasionally some cattle are donated to provide meat
to community members. Compared to the meagre livelihoods of village communities, kingpins and poachers
have purchasing power, allowing them to buy greater volumes of goods and services, which indirectly benets
community members.
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Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime Ending Wildlife Tracking
The inux of hard cash into some communities has also had negative consequences, including increased alcohol
consumption, drug use and prostitution. In short, some communities may benet from the trickle-down eect but
it is not always the case, as the story of a grandmother illustrates:
A grandmother’s sorrows
While walking through a Mozambican village close to the KNP, I came upon an elderly woman. She was looking
after a group of toddlers and children outside a ramshackle dwelling. She explained how the village and
its people had changed since ‘the young boys discovered rhino horn’. She said that most of the men were
unemployed or had left the village for the big city before rhino poaching ‘became a thing’. Women used to be
the breadwinners, looking after the families through farming and small business enterprises.
Rhino poaching had changed this. The ‘young boys’ were now in charge – but they were not sharing their
poaching proceeds with the community, she said. Five of the kids were the old woman’s grandchildren. Her
daughter had left the father of these children for one of the ‘young boys’. The grandmother was disgruntled
about the state of aairs. Although parenting the grandchildren full-time, she had not been receiving nancial
or material support from either of the parents. One of the grandchildren had to be hospitalized after being
severely burnt but the family could not get hold of the mother because ‘when the boys come back from
Skukuza,92 then there is money, booze and celebration’.
It is incorrect to assume, however, that entire communities are complicit in or benet from poaching. In fact, some
community members reported that they feared ‘the outsiders’, while others were threatened to collaborate or told
to turn a blind eye. Focus groups revealed that mothers and wives in particular were deeply concerned about
the poaching phenomenon, fearing for their children’s or husbands’ lives, and the potential loss of a breadwinner
should they get killed or arrested. Far from being supportive of poaching, the women who chose to participate in
the research said that it had aected the social fabric of village life, mostly to the detriment of women and children.
There was an awareness of the ceiling to the rhino horn fortunes: kingpins acknowledged the existential threat to
rhinos through poaching and that they would have to seek new sources of income, or return to their old ones once
the rhinos were gone. By 2017, the returns from rhino poaching had started to crumble on the Mozambican side
where community members stated that poachers had squandered the rhino prots. Had they invested the money
wisely, then there could have been a ‘high level of development’, they said.93
Focus groups with community representatives showed that the deaths, disappearances and arrests of fathers,
husbands, sons and brothers had led to outright antagonism among community members towards the park
management, especially Kruger ocials. The increasing militarization of responses to rhino poaching is pitting
communities against park authorities, rangers and rhinos. According to Major General Johan Jooste (retired head
of special projects at South African National Parks), the duties of a ranger nowadays are 90% law enforcement (i.e.
anti-poaching operations) and 10% conservation-orientated.94
It perhaps should not be surprising that some local people are motivated by the illegal wildlife economy. For
some, the high prots associated with rhino poaching appear to oer immediate relief. It is important to note that
displacement, land dispossession (whether historical or current) and food insecurity are fuelling the re by not only
providing pathways to poaching but also turning communities against conservation authorities, protected areas
and the wild animals within them. The eects of structural violence and deprivation are visible in many village
communities and peri-urban neighbourhoods, where people live not only on the edge of parks, but also on the
edge of society.
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The myth of criminalized communities prevents such communities from being included in solutions to the poaching
crisis. Understanding leverage points that would enrol more community members in legal rather than illegal economies
may well convince local people to become guardians of wildlife and protected areas. The current approach is closing
pathways to community involvement in the protection of wildlife.
Community-based initiatives in the legal wildlife
economy: Case studies from Africa and Asia
The notion of a wild Africa, of an endless empty land, underpinned so-called fortress conservation, which, as
mentioned, was the dominant conservation paradigm of the colonial period. It was a model based on an outdated
assumption that local communities and protected areas are best kept apart.
In Africa’s post-independence period, parks continued to be treated as political and economic assets for the select
few, while adjacent rural communities remained excluded from the benets.95 Later, the 1980s and 1990s saw the
ascendancy of the sustainable-use paradigm, in the form of community-based natural resource management
(CBNRM).96
At the heart of the CBNRM model is a shift in perspective. Whereas, formerly, wildlife had been perceived as vermin
or a liability aecting people’s crops and livestock, the CBNRM approach reframed wildlife as a potential economic
asset. Targeted at rural African dwellers, CBNRM became fashionable among international donors because of the
putative benets of combining ecological sensitivity with rural poverty alleviation. Conservation organizations and
NGOs developed programmes that promoted local community participation in conservation and an ethos that
communities should be the beneciaries of such programmes.
Community participation in conservation initiatives has taken a whole range of forms, from comprehensive
community-centred approaches, where management responsibilities and property rights are devolved to
communities, to mere tokenist interventions conducted solely to tick boxes in donor reports. Typical of many
well-intentioned development initiatives, donor funds were not only owing towards local communities but also
supported administrative infrastructures and consultancy fees of technical experts from abroad.
There are numerous CBNRM programmes in place worldwide, although they dier in important aspects. The
following case studies provide insight into how a selection of community-oriented models operate, as well as their
underlying assumptions and shortcomings. These cases aim to provide an assessment of what appears to have
worked and of lessons learnt where approaches have been less successful.
The rst two programmes are both in southern Africa – the Communal Areas Management Programme for
Indigenous Resources (CAMPFIRE)97 in Zimbabwe and community conservancies in Namibia. While the former
provided the blueprint for similar programmes across southern Africa, the latter has been lauded as one of the
most successful models of community-based conservation.
Case study 1: CAMPFIRE
The CAMPFIRE programme was conceived shortly after Zimbabwe attained independence. Black people had lost
land and property rights during the colonial regime. In the post-independence era, land reform emerged as the
country’s major political and economic issue.
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Within this context, the overarching goal of CAMPFIRE was to share the benets generated by the wildlife economy
with local communities, in the process ensuring that wildlife conservation remained a viable income-generating
option for communities. It was envisaged that benet-sharing would be achieved by devolving property rights
and management to rural district councils (RDCs) (and not the communities themselves). Foreign donor agencies
provided start-up capital for basic infrastructure, project development and administration (and continued to do so
until the country’s economic disintegration in the early 2000s). The RDCs were tasked with implementing the post-
colonial government’s policy of sustainable use of natural resources.
CAMPFIRE has had successes and challenges. The benets derive from sustainable wildlife use, which includes safari
hunting, game cropping, photographic safari drives and other ecotourism ventures. But, although communities
receive a share of these revenues, they have no equity in wildlife utilization.98 International and local tourism
companies, hunting operators and ancillary services are the main beneciaries. Benets are supposed to trickle
down to communities but, in reality, foreign and local elites gain the most from the programme.
CAMPFIRE generated more than US$20 million of transfers to the participating communities between 1989 and
2006, with revenue from safari hunting and ecotourism being the main income streams. The amount disbursed to
communities was 52% of the total income earned.99 Sports hunters and eco-tourists would buy game and trophy
hunts; the RDCs, in turn, would then pay out dividends to communities based on an agreed formula. However, there
have been underpayments and delays in processing payments.100
Communities in CAMPFIRE areas were not granted full authority to own wildlife or determine wildlife production,
and therefore have only limited control over the revenue that is generated. They also pay taxes to RDCs to cover
the cost of wildlife management.101 In the end, direct earnings have been minimal. Each of the approximately
100000 households that participated in income-generating CAMPFIRE projects received on average an equivalent
of US$5 in direct earnings in 2001.102 According to a recent CAMPFIRE community benets report,103 there are only
15 districts that have sucient wildlife resources to generate some nancial benet to communities.
Brian Child, a former wildlife ocial in the early days of the programme, said: ‘My personal insight was that if
wildlife provided only public benets, no matter how many schools and clinics were built, this would never
achieve conservation. It was how wildlife aected the money in their pockets that would ultimately determine
how individual farmers viewed wildlife.’104 According to CAMPFIRE records,105 unnatural elephant deaths through
poaching in CAMPFIRE areas are ‘relatively low and average only 25% of annual national statistics’. Community
members look out for poachers because every animal that is killed by poachers means less income for them.
Local anti-poaching operations led by CAMPFIRE community members have resulted in a decline in elephant
poaching in Mbire district from 40 cases in 2010 to ve in 2017 (gure provided in September 2017). However,
there are CAMPFIRE areas (such as Hwange) where income is too low to control poaching or manage human-
wildlife conict.
Since the early 2000s, political and economic changes in Zimbabwe have aected the good fortunes of the
programme. The government’s land-reform drive, farm invasions and the departure of donor agencies and NGOs
from Zimbabwe led to diminished earnings for CAMPFIRE communities.106 But the external environment was not
the only factor that constrained the performance of some CAMPFIRE projects. Local residents cited bad manage-
ment in the programme, as well as corruption, nepotism and intimidation. The perception was that some of the
projects no longer beneted the community because traditional leaders were seen to monopolize the benets.107
Yet, despite the country’s economic and political instability, CAMPFIRE has survived. In fact, the programme’s areas
make up 12.7% of Zimbabwe’s total land mass. According to the CAMPFIRE Association, hunting generated 90%
of CAMPFIRE income in 2017.108 At the time, 200 000 households were directly involved in the programme, while a
combined 2.4 million rural residents were CAMPFIRE beneciaries. Nevertheless, the Cecil the Lion saga109 captured
the imagination of the international community in 2015, leading to renewed calls for the closure of hunting markets,
and several countries banned the import of trophies of certain species. CAMPFIRE suered a further setback when
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the US suspended the import of elephant trophies in 2014. This led to a sharp decline in income for the CAMPFIRE
programme and its beneting communities.
From the outset, the CAMPFIRE approach received both praise and criticism. For one, some conservationists and
NGOs were unhappy about the implicit consumptive use, such as the trophy hunting of charismatic megafauna.110
Furthermore, the CAMPFIRE model assumes the dominant role of economic incentives in shaping human
behaviour and disregards indigenous knowledge and value systems. Although CAMPFIRE has provided income
for rural communities and reduced wildlife crime in some areas, it prioritizes the creation and viability of protected
areas over the well-being of local people, who receive some indirect and partial benets from wildlife.111 Expert
knowledge and political inuence provide the edge in negotiations. Unequal power relationships and elite capture
tend to characterize negotiations between local communities, NGOs, government representatives and donors. But,
despite these shortcomings, CAMPFIRE has been used as a blueprint for similar initiatives across southern Africa,
including the community conservancies in Namibia.
Case study 2: Community conservancies in Namibia
Namibia is known for its community conservancies, which employ, among others, former poachers and community
members as wildlife guardians. These community conservancies are self-governing democratic entities, run by local
people, with xed boundaries that are agreed on with adjacent conservancies, communities or landowners.112 The
Namibian case provides useful insights as to what works and what does not work in terms of the marketization of
conservation.
During Namibia’s colonial era administration under apartheid South Africa, people living in communal areas
had limited rights over wildlife and land use. Although the rst community-based initiatives pre-date Namibian
independence, after the country’s independence in 1990 new legislation laid the foundation for community-
orientated natural-resource use. In so doing, Namibia was the rst African country to incorporate environmental
protection and broad-based environmental benets for all citizens into its constitution.113 The results of a survey
in rural areas found that many communities wanted the same rights over natural resources hitherto enjoyed by
(white) commercial farmers, who could hunt game and establish tourism enterprises on their land. Ostrom’s design
principles on common property resource management institutions114 informed the institutional framework for
devolving wildlife proprietorship to communities living on state-owned land.115
The 1996 amendment to the Nature Conservation Ordinance of 1975 formally recognized the devolution of rights
to communities over natural resources, including income from wildlife and tourism.116 These rights are exercised
through Namibia’s communal conservancies. To form a conservancy, a community needs to appoint members,
dene its physical boundaries, elect a representative committee, agree on a plan for the equitable distribution
of benets and adopt a legally recognized constitution.117 Conservancies are obliged to put in place game
management plans, conduct annual meetings and prepare nancial reports. The conservancies are integrated into
the tourism and hunting industries, and local communities benet to varying degrees.
In 2017 approximately 190 000 Namibians were living in and beneting from 82 registered conservancies encompass-
ing an area of 161 900 km2.118 In 2016, conservancies employed 1 544 people on a full-time basis and another 6 000
part-time.119 Local communities earned more than US$6 million from conservancies in 2014. Unlike in Zimbabwe,
none of the income that derives from wildlife is diverted to local or national government or third parties, or diluted
through taxation.
International donors, such as USAID and World Wildlife Fund US, provided seed funding for the establishment
of conservancies and institutional development while seeking partnerships with local NGOs and civil-society
organizations (CSOs) to build local capacity. Although the nancial support of donors has been steadily decreasing
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since the 1990s, continued funding of Namibian CSOs and conservancies suggests that the programme is not
yet self-sustaining and may remain dependent on funding and support in kind for the near future. Because of
their nancial and administrative support, the question has been asked whether external funders have been
in uencing agenda setting at the local level. Meanwhile concerted e orts are being made to indigenize and render
conservancies and CSOs independent and self-governing.120
Conservancies derive income from two main sources: hunting and tourism. Trophy hunting generates income for
game guards and to nance anti-poaching measures, while game meat provides food. Where tourism potential
exists, private-sector operators have entered into joint ventures with communities. However, these do not always
bene t both parties in equal measure. Due to unequal power relationships, private-sector operators often manage
to negotiate a better deal. There also have been instances where tourism businesses have doctored their books and
presented smaller pro ts to minimize payments to conservancies.121
Map 2: Namibia’s community conservancies, as of 2014
Note: The green shading shows the distribution of the conservancies, covering some 160 000 km2 of land.
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Community game guards and rhino monitoring
According to the IUCN Species Survival Commission’s African Rhino Specialist Group, Namibia is home to approxi-
mately 1 950 black rhinos and 820 white rhinos122 – the second largest populations of African rhinos. As recently
as 2012, Namibia appeared immune to the surge in rhino poaching that was aecting its neighbour South Africa.
Said the head of the Protected Resources Unit, a division of the Namibian Police Force, which specializes in wildlife-
tracking cases: ‘We thought we were safe. We thought it would never happen here. And then it did.’123
Conservation experts believe that the success of community conservancies, was partly to thank for having
kept rhino poaching at bay. These good fortunes changed, however, in 2014, when 24 rhino and 78 elephant
carcasses were found in Namibia. Later, more than 200 rhino carcasses were discovered between then and
the time of writing the report in the second half of 2017.124 Community conservancies were not spared, and a
number of rhinos have been poached in them since 2015.125
An innovation at community level that is likely to have mitigated the eect of rhino poaching was the
establishment of the community game guard programme. Save the Rhino Trust of Namibia piloted the
community game guard system on black rhinos in the Kunene region.126 Assisted by local leaders and
community members, Integrated Rural Development and Nature Conservation (IRDNC), a Namibian NGO,
created a network of community game guards who monitor rhino stocks and established a pilot project to
bring tourism revenue to communities as an incentive for wildlife conservation.127 Community game guards
are locally hired, trained and deployed on patrols in each registered conservancy. Incentive-driven conservation
has created ‘allies on the ground’ and ‘eyes and ears’ in community conservancies.128
In 2011, Namibia’s Communal Rhino Custodianship Programme129 asked for help to raise the rhino-monitoring
capacity of community rangers. Since 2012, 26 conservancy rhino rangers have been appointed. They have
been given training and monitoring equipment, and receive performance-based bonus incentives. This has
led to an improvement in the quantity and quality of conservancy-led rhino patrols.130 A notable innovation
here was to combine rhino ranging with rhino-tracking tourism activities, whereby local trackers demonstrate
their animal-tracking skills and local knowledge to tourists while helping save rhinos in the process.131 Of the 18
conrmed cases of rhino poaching in the north-western regions of Namibia, none were in an area where rhino
tourism is practised.132
Namibia’s conservancy programme is not without its challenges, however. For one, it is alleged that accountability
and transparency among some conservancy committees are not always present. A form of elitism is also
preventing bottom-up consultations on important decisions in some conservancies – on the basis of who has an
inuential voice.133 In other instances, old elite interests – legitimate or otherwise – who were threatened by the
establishment of conservancies and the empowerment of local people have opposed and derailed eorts.134 In
some instances, input and advice from community elders and traditional leaders have not been taken onboard.135
There has been a high turnover in conservancy committees, with some members not originating from or living in
the conservancies they represent.136 Allegations of nepotism and corruption have also arisen. Furthermore, some
conservancies are on marginal land that has limited or no potential for tourism or other uses, and these oer little
prospect for income generation.137
There have also been reports that benets from the conservancy programme do not always reach the most needy
and marginalized,138 namely women, youths and the elderly. Kahler and Gore found that some locals were prepared
to break wildlife laws and conservancy rules as a way of voicing their disagreement with the existing rules. These
negative sentiments among communities centred on the inequitable benet derived from certain conservancies.139
A follow-up study looked at how human–wildlife conict might inuence how a community evaluates wildlife, and
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might lead to poaching. Kahler and Gore suggest that broader engagement with local communities is necessary to
mitigate the challenges posed by human–wildlife conict.140
Indeed, human–wildlife conict is a key factor that may erode the goodwill of local communities. IRDNC found
that the participation of women in particular was crucial in projects aimed at mitigating the impact of human–
wildlife conict. The later case study on the Black Mambas – a majority female anti-poaching unit in South Africa’s
Balule Nature Reserve – corroborates the notion that women can play an important role in anti-poaching initiatives.
Although some traditional community structures exclude women from decision-making, women are powerful and
inuential in some African rural contexts. Food provision and basic livelihood strategies, for example, are often
managed by rural women. Although there are few known female poachers,141 women are motivators for poaching
if they need food to feed their families. An innovation in this regard was the appointment of local women as
community resource monitors whose tasks include information sharing on CBNRM issues with fellow members
in their communities.142 There have been other examples of inspirational women taking on leadership roles in
conservancy committees.143
Although community conservancies have not been spared the swelling incidence in rhino poaching in the region,
community members and rhino guards have provided crucial intelligence that has led to arrests of suspects. A
suite of other measures, including law enforcement, however, also need to be in place. Local people are concerned
about the possible fallout from poaching in community conservancies,144 fearing that it may make people question
the ecacy of the community programme. It is also noteworthy that a number of traditional leaders developed an
action plan to stop rhino poaching in 2015, revitalizing a community information network.
The Namibian experience provides interesting insights into the successes and failures of incentivizing communities
as part of the response to wildlife crime. The long-term sustainability of wildlife conservation in communal
conservancies hinges on economic, institutional and social factors. Among others, community goodwill may
inuence the future viability of the country’s conservancy programme.
What stands out about the Namibian example, however, is that it is widely regarded as one of the few successful
attempts at bridging the conservation–community divide and addressing the nature versus culture conict.
Although there have been problems with implementation, the underlying philosophy of combining conservation
with developmental goals ticks several boxes for the donor community, international governments and NGOs.
However, conservation prerogatives continue to trump the needs of rural residents. Therefore, the outlook for the
long-term viability of wildlife conservation through community conservancies might be uncertain.
Case study 3: Rhino protection in Nepal – Chitwan National Park
Other than in Nepal and India, the Asian rhino species are not faring better than their African relatives. The Indian, or
greater one-horned rhino (Rhinoceros unicornis), is the most common Asian species, with an estimated population
of 3 557 in 2016. 145
Hunting, poaching and human encroachment had reduced the rhino population to about a hundred animals by
the late 1960s. Later, Nepal’s civil war from 1996 to 2006 led to a stark decline in rhino numbers.146 Like the horn of
its African relatives, rhino horn originating in Nepal is destined for consumer markets in Vietnam and China.
According to the WWF, Nepal recorded a 21% increase in rhino numbers between 2011 and May 2015.147 In a
report to the CITES Secretariat for CoP17, the IUCN Species Survival Commission’s African and Asian Rhino Specialist
Groups said that the assistance of the Nepalese army in rhino protection had led to only two rhinos being poached
over that ve-year period.148 However, earlier, heavy poaching between 2000 and 2008 had led to rhino numbers
falling by almost a third.
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What is curious about the report to CITES referred to above is that no mention is made of a much touted community
programme, which other researchers regard as a key ingredient of Nepal’s successful rhino protection strategy.
Although there are vast geographic, political and economic dierences between African and Asian rhino range
countries, researchers have suggested that there are global lessons to be learnt from this programme, which has
been deemed a case of exemplary rhino conservation.149
Located north of the Indian border and incorporating some 932 km2 at the foot of the Himalayas,150 Chitwan
National Park is home to 94% of Nepal’s rhinos. The park and its forerunners, the Mahendra Deer Park and the
Rhino Sanctuary, were established on land where the Tharu people had lived for many centuries, in the forests of
the Chitwan district. In line with the fortress conservation model, Nepalese conservation policies excluded local
communities from living on land designated as national parks and restricted the use of natural resources found
within the boundaries of the park.151 There were 26 village clusters at the time the site was declared a national park
in 1973; all were forcefully evicted with the exception of one.152
Most Tharus were removed without compensation from their traditional lands to beyond the boundaries of the
park. These communities were no longer permitted to access the former freely available natural resources in the
park. For example, their cattle were no longer allowed to graze in the forest, leading to an 80% decline of livestock
in some villages.
Map 3: Chitwan National Park and buer zones
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There were limited alternative livelihood strategies available to the dispossessed communities after the park was
established. Few Tharus are employed by the park or its related tourism industry. Many continued to venture into
the park to access fodder, rewood and grazing, justifying, in their minds, the now illegal use of natural resources
within the park as a form of compensation for the losses they had incurred.153
The early history of the management of protected areas in Nepal is therefore not dissimilar to the southern African
experience, where black communities were also systematically excluded from conservation and its benets. And
also, echoing the situation in southern Africa, a study commissioned by Transparency International Nepal in 2009
found a legacy of antagonism between people living near the park and the park authorities. In reference to the
broader environment that had triggered poaching and illegal trade in wildlife, the report found:
The issues of poaching and illegal trade are not merely related to conservation systems,
but also involve governance, politics and societies. … The politicization of crime and
protection of criminals as well as lawlessness compounded with the aforementioned
factors, contribute to the continuation of poaching. Protected areas are not only
conservation areas, but also play an important role in socio-economic dimensions.154
Against this backdrop of community–conservation tension, in the aftermath of the civil war Nepalese conservation
authorities decided to reach out to local communities to get them actively involved in protecting rhinos and
conservation areas. Since the early days of the park, the socio-economic and political context and conservation
management regimes have shifted towards a more liberal model – one that ‘recognizes more clearly the
contributions of people living and working within protected areas’.155
Nepal initially embarked on community-based conservation programmes back in the 1980s. The approach gained
momentum with the formal recognition of community forests156 and buer zones.157 The so-called ‘fences and nes’
approach to conservation management was supplemented with incentive measures, such as legally sanctioned
removal of thatching grass, the creation of buer zones and revenue-sharing schemes.158
Nepal’s Buer Zone Management Regulation of 1996 granted rights to local communities to manage and use
natural resources within those zones. Local people were able to choose which development activities to become
involved in through a buer-zone management committee, which consisted of elected representatives of the
community.159 Development activities in buer zones were mostly focused on infrastructure development, such
as the construction of buildings, roads, telephone-line installation, irrigation, water infrastructure and ablution
facilities.160 In 2009 an instrument that provided for the payment of compensation for livestock losses to commun-
ities was also established.
Conservation agencies have also worked with local communities on innovative measures to reduce the incidence
of human–wildlife conict, including the construction of trenches, electric fencing and watchtowers, and the
supply of torches and binoculars.161 In addition, the park authorities share about a third of the park’s revenue
with communities that live adjacent to protected areas. The community management committees decide which
conservation and development initiatives to support.162
These various measures for achieving a rapprochement between the local communities and the authorities seem
to have achieved some success. A study comparing local residents’ perceptions of benets and losses associated
with protected areas in India and Nepal found they were more favourably inclined to protected areas in Nepal.
The Chitwan National Park was one of the study sites. The researchers attributed this greater enthusiasm in Nepal
because the country is better known for wildlife tourism and is more successful at involving local communities
through benet sharing.163
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Nepal has made strides in rhino conservation. A group of researchers have suggested that a combination of
institutional and legislative changes allowing for eective community involvement have been key to Nepal’s
success in rhino protection.164 At the same time, however, Nepal has also adopted tougher penalties for wildlife
crimes. Wildlife authorities are aorded special judicial powers, including the right to issue nes and detain those
suspected of wildlife crime.165 But others are doubtful whether law-enforcement agencies and security personnel
have contributed much to lowering poaching levels in Nepal.166
Either way, the country’s renewed focus on involving local communities in conservation management, enforcement
and revenue sharing is laudable and appears to have made some measurable dierence.167 Yet, while there are
certainly global lessons to be learnt from the Nepalese case, it should not be construed as a perfect model for
conservation, especially since grand and petty forms of corruption are pervasive, and the country’s human-rights
record is less than desirable. What is, however, remarkable about the Nepalese rhino protection regime is that the
conservation authority is open to learning and incorporating new ideas. Relationships between local people and
park authorities appear to have markedly improved over the past decade.
It may make little sense to compare the Nepalese rhino protection regime with South Africa’s in light of the marked
geographical, political and governance dierences, but there are lessons to be learnt from both. It would make
sense for African and Asian rhino range states to exchange notes and collaborate on issues of shared interest.
Case study 4: Legalizing rhino horn, and community-based rhino
conservation initiatives: Balepye and Selwane
The domestic trade of rhino horn was unregulated in South Africa until 2009 and presented a regulatory loophole
that criminal actors were readily exploiting. In 2009, the Minister of Water and Environmental Aairs then imposed
a moratorium on the trade of rhinoceros horns and any derivatives or products of the horns within South Africa.168
Later, citing a lack of public consultation, the North Gauteng Division of the High Court169 lifted the domestic trade
moratorium in 2015.
This was in response to two private rhino breeders instituting a lawsuit against the Department of Environmental
Aairs. Private owners/breeders, who form a powerful interest group, had been lobbying for the lifting of the trade
ban. Beyond income generation through the sale of live rhinos, ecotourism and trophy hunting, the trade in rhino
horn may provide additional income to private rhino owners and breeders who struggle to pay the rising security
costs associated with poaching risks. Given that there is no known domestic market for rhino horn in South Africa,
however, the purpose of the lawsuit was unclear at the time of initiation.170 In April 2017, South Africa’s Constitutional
Court lifted the moratorium. The domestic trade in rhino horn is therefore legal on paper.
After the lifting of the ban, John Hume – one of the litigants and the world’s biggest rhino breeder with a herd of more
than 1 500 rhinos – announced a public auction on the internet of half a ton of his stockpile of rhino horn.171 It is un-
clear who would be buying Hume’s stock, as the international trade remains banned.172 Yet the auction announcement
was translated into Vietnamese and Mandarin, suggesting that an international clientele was targeted.
But the legalization of domestic or international trade in rhino horn has been of little consequence to local
communities. Beyond WWF’s Black Rhino Range Expansion Project and the land restitution of a few private rhino
reserves, local communities do not own or breed rhinos. Without broad-based transformation of land and rhino
ownership in South Africa, the lifting of trade bans – domestic or international – favours a small group of auent
rhino owners who would be the main beneciaries of trade liberalization.
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A notable exception is the Balepye and Selwane Community Rhino Conservation and Sustainable Game Ranching
Project. These communities in South Africa’s Limpopo province participated in the Rhino Issue Manager process173
and have called for the legalization of trade in rhino horn. Representatives of the two communities argued during
public hearings that trade legalization would lead to broad-based community benets derived from rhino ranching.
The two communities reclaimed ownership and user rights over land that they had lost during colonial times near
the KNP. In partnership with the private sector and government, the communities plan to develop the communal
land now known as the Greater Balepye Nature Reserve into viable income streams from rhino ranching for the
community. The secretary of the Balepye community, Dipati Benjamin Maenetja, explains:
Communities that are invested in the survival of the species will be less likely to oer
support to poachers in exchange for money. In fact, if similar projects are allowed
to ourish in the country, we will be able to push back against rhino poaching and
actually take the ght to the poacher. The wealth generated by the sale of the legal
horn will go back to the communities for capacity building and revenues in the form of
taxes will be paid to government.174
Community members have called for rhino horn legalization on various national and international platforms,
including at the public hearings of the Committee of Inquiry into the possibility of proposing legal international
trade in rhino horn to the CITES CoP 17 in Johannesburg.
By July 2017, there were seven communities living adjacent to the KNP that expressed interest in rhino farms and
breeding operations.175 The idea of participating in legal rather than illegal rhino-horn transactions also appealed to
a prominent rhino-horn tracker in the Mozambican border town of Massingir, who said: ‘As a person who used to
do [poaching], I will love to be part of solution to this problem. I am one of those who wish to farm my own rhinos.
If you want to stop this, speak to me.’ 176
Case study 5: The Black Mambas: Women empowerment
or more of the same?
By bestowing its Champions of the Earth award to the Black Mamba Anti-Poaching Unit, the UN Environment
Programme catapulted this unconventional anti-poaching initiative into the international limelight.177 With young
rural women making up the vast majority of team members, the Black Mamba Anti-Poaching Unit is the rst of its kind.
The brainchild of Craig Spencer, chief warden of Balule Nature Reserve, the initiative was born out of the need to
engage impoverished communities in and around the reserve. Although the unit’s members wear camouage
uniforms, they do not carry weapons. Their weapons of choice are notepads and pencils, which they use to docu-
ment suspicious vehicles, people or activities.178 The primary function of the Black Mambas is therefore visible
policing, as well as outreach and awareness-raising in their communities. The Black Mambas’ vision is to encourage
communities to understand that their benets will be greater through rhino conservation than through poaching.179
The Black Mambas form part of a broader anti-poaching strategy deployed by the 40 000-hectare nature reserve in
the Limpopo province of South Africa. As a member of the Associated Private Nature Reserves, Balule is part of the
Greater Kruger National Park, with more than 3 million hectares of unfenced savannah and other habitats allowing
wild animals, including rhinos, to cross unhindered between private reserves and the KNP. Nineteen black rhinos
were relocated to Balule Reserve as part of the Black Rhino Expansion Programme.
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Black Mambas: Members of the female Black Mamba anti-poaching unit, Balule, South Africa
Photo: Jerey Barbee, Alliance Earth
Although Balule Nature Reserve has not achieved a zero rhino poaching rate, the Black Mambas have been successful.
For example, they have identied and demolished several poachers’ camps and kitchens for preparing bush meat,
and reduced snaring and poisoning activities substantially. Members of the unit also teach primary-school children
about the environment and conservation through an environmental education programme. The Mambas’ pay is
subsidized by the South African government’s Extended Public Works Programme; the reserve carries all additional
costs and relies heavily on donations.180
This anti-poaching unit has received its fair share of criticism. For one, there have been concerns over ‘unarmed
women facing dangerous animals and poachers’.181 Then there is the fact that the unit is said to be ‘undermining
the role of women in rural communities’.182 The functions of the Black Mambas are not confrontational, as the armed
response element of the reserve’s anti-poaching operations is contracted to a private security company. The Black
Mambas do, however, receive training in paramilitary anti-poaching methods, self-defence and arrest procedures.
Inspired by the Black Mambas, the International Anti-Poaching Foundation is testing a new community-driven
conservation model called ‘Akashinga’ (Shona for the ‘brave ones’) in Zimbabwe. Although the model aims to
build an alternative approach to fortress conservation and militarized anti-poaching responses, the women-only
team receive the same law-enforcement training as male rangers. The model aims to replace income from trophy
hunting to communities by empowering marginalized rural women through employment and direct benets
from conservation areas. The thinking is that trophy hunting is becoming less economically viable due to public
perception, activism, constraints on hunting specic iconic species, import restrictions and reduced wildlife
populations. This may mean fewer economic benets from hunting accruing to communities. Unemployed single
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mothers, abandoned wives, sex workers, survivors of sexual and physical abuse, wives of imprisoned poachers,
widows and orphans were selected into the initial team of 26 women. Akashinga’s objective is ‘working with rather
than against the local population’.183
What is remarkable about these models is the identication of women as a powerful and inuential force within
local communities. Although customary rules and traditional patriarchal cultural values in some communities may
not advance women’s rights, rural women in southern Africa are inherently active citizens with clout and inuence.
And, as shown earlier, in some cases women may encourage conservation transgressions; alternatively, they may
call poachers to order. Either way, acknowledging the power of women and harnessing it for the purposes of
combating wildlife crime and supporting conservation endeavours is shrewd thinking.
Although the Black Mambas model may have led to direct and indirect community benets for some community
members, only a broad-based, socially and nancially inclusive model will make wildlife conservation a viable
project in the long term.184 Despite its successes, the model does not cater for bottom-up, broad-based economic
empowerment that renders a live rhino more valuable than a dead one to local communities. It is too early to tell
whether the Akashinga model provides a viable alternative.
Akashinga: A female-led conservation model in Zimbabwe
Photo: Adrian Steirn for Alliance Earth
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Factors that facilitate or prevent community
participation in illegal wildlife economies
The table below summarizes factors that inuence community participation in both legal and illegal wildlife econo-
mies. It is important to note that these are not generalizable – some factors are likely to have a greater bearing in
specic contexts and communities. The legacy of apartheid and colonial policies, for example, is likely to have a greater
impact on conservation outcomes in South Africa and Namibia than in countries that gained independence earlier.
Table 1: Factors that inuence community participation in legal and illegal wildlife economies
Factors that encourage participation in
illegal wildlife economies
Factors that encourage participation in
legal wildlife economies
1. Regulatory framework and governance
Conservation laws and regulations reinforce apartheid
and colonial boundaries, mentalities and governance
systems.
Land claims are settled, land and natural-resource
user rights are restored or negotiated, and access to
cultural and natural heritage sites, especially ancestral
sites, is restored.
Top-down conservation processes: fortress
conservation, control-command, and fences and nes
methodologies.
Participatory and community-led conservation
processes and protected area management lead to
fair and equitable natural-resource management and
the benets are shared.
Assumption of the universal application of Western
‘best practice’ models.
Local communities have ownership over
programming that aects their social worlds.185
Conservation strategies and plans are developed
with limited or no inclusion of local and indigenous
knowledge systems and values.
Indigenous and local knowledge systems are used,
acknowledged and paid for (not appropriated).
Lack of transformation in conservation authorities and
associated entities (e.g. tourism and hunting).
‘Learning by doing’ approach to encourage community
ownership, management or co-management, and
social and economic upward mobility.
Community empowerment and benets are devolved
to elites.
Community structures are accountable, equitable and
participatory, and the benets are direct.
Local elites who had beneted from colonial or
apartheid dispensations see their old patronage
networks threatened by new community projects.
The voices of the most marginalized community
members – women and youths – are amplied and
listened to.
Distrust of the state, park authorities and external
actors.
High levels of trust in governance structures, park
authorities and external actors.
Political interference and patronage networks. Decentralized decision making that matches local
contexts.
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2. Socio-economic factors
Intra- and inter-community conicts. Inclusive broad-based economic transformation and
community empowerment, including women and
youths.186
High levels of socio-economic dierentiation at
community level.
Low levels of socio-economic dierentiation and high
levels of entrepreneurship (no elite capture).
Poor resource to population ratios lead to
competition and conict over access to land,
resources and benets.
Living standards and levels of inclusive economic
transformation are at similar levels in the
neighbourhood/at district level.
Perception that conservation areas and wildlife serve
the interests of the rich.
Flow of benets from conservation are directed and
channelled to communities.
Human–wildlife conict is not addressed. Coexistence is achieved: Protected areas, wildlife
and conservation authorities benet communities.
Compensation is paid for losses and remedial
responses are implemented.
How to prevent wildlife poaching: Eight design
principles for community-orientated pro-poor
conservation outcomes
Conservation actors, policymakers, donors and communities should move beyond the premise of the fortress
conservation paradigm, which assumes conictual relationships between rural communities and wildlife. Millions
of local people live near or in conservation areas. Africans have lost their land, access to natural resources and
cultural sites. With the exception of a small number of initiatives, local communities do not have proprietorship over
protected areas or wildlife, and are seldom enrolled in conservation management. Often the only benets accruing
to communities from the wildlife economy are prots they can make from poaching.
Harmonious relationships between local communities and parks are a basic point of departure. Conservation
authorities and protected areas are notoriously underfunded across Africa. Since the latest escalation of rhino
poaching, most conservation funding has been diverted to anti-poaching initiatives and the project administration
costs of international NGOs and conservation authorities. And the international community has called for more
helicopter gunships and boots on the ground in response to wildlife crime.
However, such conventional anti-poaching operations are not the only solution for tackling escalating wildlife
crime. The increasing militarization of anti-poaching measures has led to unintended consequences that impede
community-orientated conservation initiatives and broad-based economic transformation. Respondents
interviewed for this report said that government, conservation authorities and NGOs valued the lives of wild animals
more highly than those of black rural people.
There is hence a need to critically engage with these kinds of anti-poaching measures and explore dierent kinds
of interventions. Community members were appalled that rhinos are better cared for than they are. The South
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African National Defence Force is involved in the ght to save the rhino; wildlife veterinarians look after the rhino’s
health; rhino breeders and conservation authorities provide supplementary food and/or water. By contrast, very
few communities visited during the course of this research even had a permanent police presence,
basic healthcare facilities, schools or shops. In the end, the good fortunes of a wildlife
species are intimately tied to those of the communities living adjacent to them.
Hotspot policing and law enforcement are necessary in protected areas and
the communities nearby. However, instead of investing solely in military-type
approaches, donor funding that is ring-fenced for law enforcement should be
used to ‘follow the money’ and dismantle tracking networks. More boots
on the ground will not disrupt the supply chain or demand for illicit wildlife
products. This can only be achieved through in-depth nancial and criminal
investigations and intelligence gathering designed to follow criminal actors and
wildlife contraband along the entire supply chain. Community policing projects
– such as the community guards system or an adaption of the Zwelethemba
model of peacemaking187 – are likely to achieve better results than private security
companies ghting a war against poachers in the bush.
The model was developed in the township of Zwelethemba near Worcester in the Western Cape. Like many
other communities in apartheid South Africa, the people of Zwelethemba rendered their township ungovernable
during the nal years of apartheid. After South Africa’s transition to democracy, the community no longer wanted
ungovernability and sought out governance structures that could assist in matters such as policing, rubbish
removal and the provision of basic infrastructure and services. The community came up with remedial strategies
that involved them as key decision-makers and implementers. The Zwelethemba model created a locally led and
participatory set of arrangements for community security and policing, and accords poor communities a greater
voice in their own governance.
The current rhino control paradigm and associated conservation policies are aimed at controlling poachers and
advancing security and other anti-poaching measures to disrupt wildlife tracking networks. Securitization and
militarization, however, close down pathways for community empowerment. Violence not only begets violence,
as suggested by Lunstrum when she talks about an arms race between poachers and wildlife guardians,188 but it
also precludes opportunities for inclusive protected area management, benet sharing and parks that locals can
be proud of and would want to be associated with. As long as conservation continues to benet elite interests,
protected areas and the wildlife contained within them will be subject to contestation and conict.
The underlying assumptions of the control paradigm are incorrect. The map of power does not lie behind the barrel
of a gun but in the goodwill of local people living with and near wildlife. One of the key ndings of this report is the
signicant role of women in mediating positive conservation outcomes. Women command considerable power and
inuence in the communities in question. In light of the patriarchal structure of many rural African communities, this
suggestion may appear counter-intuitive. However, there are countless examples that demonstrate that women
can exert a strong inuence on conservation outcomes (as evidenced by the earlier case study on the success of
the Black Mamba initiative). It was suggested that if conservation agencies and others want to save rhinos, they
should mobilize the power of women and include them in community conservation negotiations, transforming the
current whole-of-government responses to whole-of-society responses.
A dierent way of addressing the problem is needed if we are to make a live rhino more valuable to rural commun-
ities than a dead one. For example, many communities may prefer alternative land use options (such as livestock
farming or agri-businesses) instead of conservation-orientated endeavours.
The good fortunes of
a wildlife species are
intimately tied to those of
the communities living
adjacent to them.
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Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime Ending Wildlife Tracking
By closing down pathways that provide economic incentives to communities (such as banning trophy hunting
or trading in live animals or animal parts), authorities and private entities limit the ability to generate income and
support benet sharing. The ensuing economic fallout could be mitigated if the international community, NGOs
and others were prepared to assist with shortfalls. Maintaining the moral high ground will not resolve the crisis
facing the rhino. If trophy hunting or sustainable trade is unpalatable to animal lovers and conservationists, then
they need to provide nancial support where it matters most. They need to support rural communities, so that they,
in turn, support wildlife and build resilience against transnational criminal networks.
There are limits to what conservation authorities can do to uplift communities that live near national parks. But it is
important to explore other forms of rural employment, resource sharing and income generation beyond hunting,
anti-poaching and tourism. Local needs and services should be provided through community empowerment
projects. Instead of bringing in experts to deliver services, teachers and trainers should be hired to teach community
members the skills needed to build, develop and maintain their own projects, including infrastructure development.
Indigenous knowledge systems and values should be harnessed for such community projects.
What we can learn from initiatives such as the case studies discussed in this report – and the Zwelethemba model
– is that a future-orientated process is crucial. We should be asking, what can we do now to prevent poaching and
wildlife crime in the future? How can we bring communities into the conservation game before it is too late? We
need to create happy, sustainable rural communities that benet from and live in harmony with ecosystems.
With this in mind, policymakers, donors, NGOs and civil society should consider the following eight design
principles189 when assessing measures and nancial pledges to ght poaching and wildlife tracking.
1. Communities are fulcrum institutions
Local communities are the most crucial change agents in conservation and wildlife protection on the supply side.
Decision-makers ignore local people, and their needs and aspirations, at their own peril. Communities are both the
problem and the solution to the wildlife conservation conundrum. When it comes to reining in wildlife poaching,
the real challenge is not how to bring poachers to book but how to garner broad-based, inclusive community
support for wildlife conservation. As long as local communities remain on the margins of protected areas and their
benet schemes, we should not be surprised when they do not support the conservation enterprise and resort to
supporting illegal wildlife economies. Shift local communities from backstage to centre stage.
2. Render live rhinos more valuable than dead ones to local communities
There are many barriers to entry in the legal wildlife economies that disadvantage or prevent local communities
from assuming an active role in conservation management. They have limited or no access to land, social and
nancial capital or trade networks. Often, the most expedient way for rural communities to benet from wildlife
and conservation is through participation in illegal wildlife economies. And there are structural incentives to do
so: after all, natural-resource benets were transferred from these communities to colonial and postcolonial elites.
Poaching solves problems in the present. However, once the incentive structures are turned in favour of community
participation in legal wildlife economies, community members will support conservation. Making a live animal
more valuable than a dead one to communities entails the restitution of property and land, and rights to cultural
and natural resources, as well as conferring upon them active citizenship, agency and benets.
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Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime Ending Wildlife Tracking
3. Change the way we think about poaching and anti-poaching strategies
Encourage best-thinking rather than best-practice approaches. Although law-enforcement responses are important,
whole-of-society responses to poaching and wildlife crime should not be aimed at controlling the problem but
should seek to address the underlying structural causes and factors that lead to poaching and tracking. It is crucial
that rural women and young people are included in formulating and implementing strategies to target wildlife
crime and encourage conservation. Consultations should be conducted in a participatory, inclusive manner and
draw on indigenous knowledge and value systems.
4. Establish inclusive, not exclusive, institutions
The way in which conservation institutions have often been ‘captured’ by elite interests is visible at the international
and local level, while the voices of other potential players in the conservation economy – such as those of rural
dwellers – are drowned out. Conservation institutions should aim to become inclusive institutions. New conservation
models, approaches and ideas should be embraced with a view to providing a platform for indigenous knowledge
systems and cultural values. Devolve authority to local communities, so that they can make their own decisions,
and manage and benet from wildlife conservation. The voices of local communities should not only be amplied
but also heard ‘glocally’, so that their interests will inform the kinds of international institutions that deal with the
management of protected areas and endangered wildlife.
5. Regulatory interventions should entail positive outcomes for local
communities
Although regulatory interventions should be aimed at protecting wildlife and achieving positive conservation
outcomes, they should be pro-community. Instead of building physical and proverbial fences between local people
and national parks, we need to dismantle barriers and encourage harmonious relationships. To achieve this, the
interests and aspirations of those previously deprived of their land and access to natural resources need to be
honoured, mainstreamed and prioritized.
6. Change the ow of money from interventions that support anti-poaching
to interventions that support communities
Instead of investing in a militarized response to poaching, nancial disbursements should be rechannelled to uplift
the livelihoods of local people. Communities hold the power to inuence positive conservation outcomes, which
could include community policing, and deploying guards and rangers. Make people who live in or near conservation
areas a central element of the response to poaching. Once conservation is seen to benet local communities,
protected areas will lose the stigma of being socially constructed wild ‘Edens of Africa’.
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Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime Ending Wildlife Tracking
7. Conservation institutions should be accountable to local people, and
vice versa
The practice of holding community meetings as an accountability mechanism should be extended to local
governance structures and institutions in the conservation arena. Instead of restricting attendance to local elites,
everyone – and especially women and youths – should be encouraged to attend. Such meetings can be used to
gain access to information, establish lines of communication and to hold conservation authorities accountable. The
converse applies too: accountability mechanisms should be multi-directional, with local communities also being
held accountable for their role in conservation outcomes.
8. Harness the spirit of ubuntu190
The African concept of ubuntu191 refers to collective values that represent personhood, humanity and morality.
Solidarity is central to the survival of communities with a scarcity of resources. Within such communities, an individual’s
existence is relative to that of the group.192 In developing community resilience to organized environmental crimes,
acknowledgment of the importance of the spirit of ubuntu is tantamount. Many responses focus on individuals
(such as the recruitment of informers or rangers); however, community goodwill hinges not on the advancement
of a few but of the many.
About the author
Dr Annette Hübschle is a senior researcher and postdoctoral fellow with the Global Risk Governance Programme at
the University of Cape Town (UCT ) and is aliated with UCT’s Centre of Criminology. She is also a senior fellow of
the Global Initiative, specializing in African transnational organized crime networks.
Annette graduated with a PhD in economic sociology and political economy from the Max Planck Institute for the
Study of Societies. She was a senior researcher at the South African-based Institute for Security Studies. She has
worked as a researcher, consultant and practitioner on organized crime, environmental security and broader African
security issues.
Her current research focuses on the governance of safety and security, with a focus on illegal wildlife economies
and environmental futures, as well as the interface between licit and illicit economies and criminal networks.
Professor Cliord Shearing holds positions at the universities of Cape Town, Grith, Montreal and New South Wales.
His research focuses on security governance, with a focus on environmental security and the safety of communities.
Recent books include
Security in the Anthropocene: Reections on Safety and Care
, and
Criminology and the
Anthropocene
.
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Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime Ending Wildlife Tracking
Notes
1. Namibian Broadcasting Corporation, Rhino and elephant poaching on the decrease in 2017, 30 August 2017, http://www.nbc.na/news/
rhino-and-elephant-poaching-decrease-2017.10197.
2. IUCN, IUCN reports deepening rhino poaching crisis, news release, 9 March 2016, http://www.iucn.org/?22519/IUCN-reports-deepening-
rhino-poaching-crisis-in-Africa.
3. Personal communication with senior South African National Parks ocials, June 2017 and April 2018.
4. Most white rhino populations in Africa originate from the Hluhluwe-Imfolozi Park in KwaZulu-Natal. Many white rhinos were donated
or sold from the park to protected areas elsewhere in South Africa and on the continent to private owners and zoos, and breeding
facilities outside Africa. The park experienced a massive increase in rhino poaching from 2014 to 2017. See RK Purdon and Edna
Molewa, Question No. 1050 for written reply: National Assembly, National Assembly of South Africa, https://pmg.org.za/question_
replies/?lter%5Bcommittee%5D=108: Parliamentary Monitoring Group, 2017.
5. Michael J Chase et al, Continent-wide survey reveals massive decline in African savannah elephants. PeerJ 4:e2354, 2016, https://doi.
org/10.7717/peerj.2354.
6. Daniel Martin Varisco, Beyond rhino horn – wildlife conservation for north Yemen.
Oryx
, 23, 4, 1989, 215–219.
7. Interviews with convicted poachers and environmental-crime investigators revealed huge discrepancies in what rhino trackers were
prepared to pay for horn, ranging from provision of basic foodstus to substantial remuneration based on weight.
8. For example, the white rhino provides ‘grazing lawns’ for smaller herbivores (its wide mouth and lips have lawnmower-like qualities) and
all rhino species help spread the seeds and seedlings of many plants.
9. Siria Gastelum Felix, Resilience in Sinaloa: Community responses to organized crime, Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized
Crime, 2017, http://globalinitiative.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Resilience-in-Sinaloa-community-responses-to-OC.pdf.
10. Compare with Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, #GIResilience Project, 2017, http://globalinitiative.net/giresilience-
project-geneva-launch/.
11. Siria Gastelum Felix, Resilience in Sinaloa: Community responses to organized crime, Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized
Crime, 2017, 5, http://globalinitiative.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Resilience-in-Sinaloa-community-responses-to-OC.pdf.
12. See, for example, Ronald van Steden, Jennifer Wood, Cliord Shearing and Hans Boutellier, The many faces of nodal policing: Team play
and improvisation in Dutch community safety,
Security Journal
, 29, 3, 2016, 327–339.
13. The e-book,
A Game of Horns: Transnational Flows of Rhino Horn
, is available at http://pubman.mpdl.mpg.de/pubman/item/
escidoc:2218357:10/component/escidoc:2262615/2016_IMPRSDiss_Huebschle.pdf.
14. These included invitations to the National Biodiversity Investigators’ Forum, the Eastern and Southern African Anti-Money Laundering
Group’s typologies working group on wildlife crimes, the National Integrated Strategy to Combat Wildlife Tracking, the 12th
IUCN African Rhino Specialist Group meeting, the Department of Environmental Aairs Rhino Lab and the Portfolio Committee on
Environmental Aairs Colloquium on Anti-Rhino Poaching.
15. The researcher was a doctoral researcher at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies during her doctorate. Later she joined the
Global Risk Governance Programme at the University of Cape Town’s law faculty. She had to comply with ethics clearance procedures at
both institutions.
16. The Global Environmental Facility, Analysis of international funding to tackle illegal wildlife trade. Washington, DC: The World Bank
Publisher, 2016, p 9.
17. Annette Hübschle, On the record: Interview with Major General Johan Jooste (retired), South African National Parks, Head of Special
Projects,
South African Crime Quarterly
, 60, June 2017, 61–68.
18. Chris Barichievy et al, Do armed eld-rangers deter rhino poachers? An empirical analysis,
Biological Conservation
, 209, 5 (2017), 554–560,
p 555.
19. Rosaleen Duy, Waging a war to save biodiversity: The rise of militarized conservation,
International Aairs
, 90, 4 (2014), 819–834.
20. Elizabeth Lunstrum, Green militarization: Anti-poaching eorts and the spatial contours of Kruger National Park,
Annals of the Association
of American Geographers
, 2014, 1–17.
21. Bram Büscher and Maano Ramutsindela, Green violence: Rhino poaching and the war to save southern Africa’s peace parks,
African
Aairs
, 2016.
22. Mahmood Mamdani,
Citizen and Subject: Contemporary Africa and the Legacy of Late Colonialism
. Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1996, pp 51–52.
23. John J Williams, Community participation,
Policy Studies
, 27, 3, 197–217, p 197.
24. Ibid.
25. Compare with Thembela Kepe, The problem of dening ‘community’: Challenges for the land reform programme in rural South Africa,
Development Southern Africa
, 16, 3, 415–433. Kepe gives an insightful assessment about the diculties of dening ‘community’ in the
South African context.
26. The accommodation rates for a single night at some of these luxury resorts often exceed a rural dweller’s annual income.
27. Jane Carruthers, ‘Police boys’ and poachers: Africans, wildlife protection and national parks, the Transvaal 1902 to 1950,
Koedoe
, 36, 2
(1993), 11–22, p 13.
28. Annette Hübschle, The social economy of rhino poaching: Of economic freedom ghters, professional hunters and marginalized local
people,
Current Sociology
, 65, 3 (2017), 427–447.
29. Kruger National Park, Land claims in Kruger, http://www.krugerpark.co.za/krugerpark-times-2-4-land-claims-in-kruger-19187.html.
30. Personal communication with author, June 2016.
31. Tshepo Diale, R84 million handed over in Kruger Park land restitution claim, http://www.ruraldevelopment.gov.za/news-room/news-
ash/le/4464.
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Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime Ending Wildlife Tracking
32. Jane Carruthers,
The Kruger National Park: A Social and Political History
. Pietermaritzburg: University of Natal Press, 1995, p 99.
33. Thembela Kepe, Rachel Wynberg and William Ellis, Land reform and biodiversity conservation in South Africa: Complementary or in
conict?,
International Journal of Biodiversity Science & Management
, 1, 1 (2005), 3–16, p 11.
34. Ibid.
35. A number of traditional leaders and community members are granted access to ancestral sites and graveyards in Kruger Park on an
annual basis.
36. Interviews with park ocials and local community members, Mpumalanga, Limpopo, Western Cape, 2016, 2017.
37. Interviews with Kruger ocials, December 2017.
38. Sam Ferreira, Management and conservation of rhino populations in the face of ongoing poaching on state-owned land. Colloquium on
successes, challenges and pitfalls of anti-rhino poaching strategies, National Assembly of South Africa: Parliamentary Monitoring Group,
2016, https://pmg.org.za/committee-meeting/23252/.
39. The ‘command-and-control’ mechanism prescribes the legal requirement and then ensures compliance through a number of
enforcement mechanisms.
40. Michael Kidd, Alternatives to the criminal sanction in the enforcement of environmental law,
South African Journal of Environmental Law
and Policy
, 9, 1 (2002), 21–50.
41. See, for example, Louise Swemmer and Helen Mmethi, Biodiversity for society: A reection on the diversity of direct local impacts
(benets and costs) of the Kruger National Park. Kruger National Park, South African National Parks, 2017.
42. See https://www.cites.org/.
43. RB Martin, Cites and the CBD, in Jon Hutton and Barnabas Dickson (eds),
Endangered Species, Threatened Convention: The Past, Present
and Future of Cites
. London: Earthscan, 2000, p129.
44. Barney Dickson, What is the goal of regulating wildlife trade? Is regulation a good way to achieve this goal?, in Sara Oldeld (ed.),
Trade in
Wildlife: Regulation for Conservation
. London: Earthscan, p 23.
45. Ibid., 26.
46. CITES, Resolution 8.3: Recognition of the Benets of Trade in Wildlife, CITES, 1992.
47. Willem Wijnsteker, The evolution of CITES: A reference to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and
Fauna, Geneva: CITES Secretariat, 2003, 59.
48. Barney Dickson, What is the goal of regulating wildlife trade? Is regulation a good way to achieve this goal?, in Sara Oldeld (ed.),
Trade in
Wildlife: Regulation for Conservation
. London: Earthscan, p 24.
49. CITES Secretariat, quoted in Barney Dickson, What is the goal of regulating wildlife trade? Is regulation a good way to achieve this goal?, in
Sara Oldeld (ed.),
Trade in Wildlife: Regulation for Conser vation
. London: Earthscan, p 25.
50. CITES, Resolution 16.3: Cites Strategic Vision 2008–2020.
51. Institute for Security Studies, Annual review of organized crime in southern Africa, unpublished research report, 2009–2010
52. Jean-Jacques Cornish, CITES CoP 17 was a game changer says Secretary General John Scanlon, 5 October 2016, http://www.jjcornish.
com/2016/10/cites-cop17-game-changer-says-secretary-general-john-scanlon/.
53. CITES CoP 17, October 2016, Johannesburg.
54. Namibia, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe submitted the proposal.
55. Interviews with community representatives, CITES CoP 17.
56. CITES, Establishment of the Rural Communities Committee of the Conference of the Parties, 24 September–5 October 2016.
57. CITES, Draft decision on engaging rural communities in CITES processes, 24 September–5 October 2016.
58. CITES, Rural communities: Intersessional working group, https://cites.org/sites/default/les/notif/E-Notif-2017-057.pdf.
59. CITES, Membership of the rural communities working group, https://cites.org/sites/default/les/notif/E-Notif-2018-021.pdf.
60. This section is based on insights from eldwork undertaken in communities living near the KNP and Limpopo National Park (LNP),
correctional centres (prisons) and from interviews with conservation authorities and anti-poaching sta.
61. RK Purdon and Edna Molewa, Question 294 for written reply: National Assembly, edited by National Assembly of South Africa, https://
pmg.org.za/question_replies/?lter%5Bcommittee%5D=108: Parliamentary Monitoring Group.
62. Endangered Wildlife Trust,
Assessment of the socio-economic status of rural communities neighbouring protected areas: The impacts
of rhino poaching; and opportunities for development of wildlife-based economies
, nal report compiled for the Department of
Environmental Aairs, 2016, 3–4.
63. Interview with Major General (retired) Johan Jooste, June 2017.
64. Kruger 2 Canyon, SANParks launches community benet project, 2 November 2012.
65. Groups of freehold landowners, and corporate and individual concession-holders own these reserves with traversing rights. Animals are
able to follow natural migratory routes to a limited extent, as fences between the private reserves and KNP have been taken down.
66. All land in Mozambique belongs to the state and therefore cannot be owned or sold. However, the ‘right of use’ of the land title can be
acquired for 50 years and is renewable for another 50. The infrastructure and buildings hence can be owned and resold. Most foreign
investors seek local partnerships or register a local company in Mozambique. The game reserves located along the KNP–Mozambican
border are predominantly owned by South African corporates or shareholdings in partnership with Mozambican citizens. These politically
connected generals and politicians assert their inuence in Maputo should conict arise between the concession holders and local
communities (interviews, 2013).
67. The private concession holders, NGOs and international donors are providing money and expertise for socio-economic upliftment
projects.
68. Interview with Major General (retired) Johan Jooste, May 2017.
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Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime Ending Wildlife Tracking
69. The El Niño weather phenomenon exacerbated food security, having led to widespread droughts across southern Africa in 2015 and
2016.
70. Elizabeth Lunstrum, Green grabs, land grabs and the spatiality of displacement: Eviction from Mozambique’s Limpopo National Park, Area,
48, 2 (2015), 142–152; interviews with a Peace Parks Foundation representative and a rhino kingpin, 2013.
71. Elizabeth Lunstrum, Green grabs, land grabs and the spatiality of displacement: Eviction from Mozambique’s Limpopo National Park, Area,
48, 2 (2015), 142–152.
72. Edna Molewa, Minister Edna Molewa highlights progress in the ght against rhino poaching, news release, 21 January 2016, https://
lowvelder.co.za/wp-content/uploads/sites/44/2016/01/Molewa-speech.pdf.
73. See also Estacio Valoi and Oxpeckers Investigative Environmental Journalism, Kruger’s contested borderlands,
Mail & Guardian
, 6 April
2018, https://mg.co.za/article/2018-04-06-00-krugers-contested-borderlands.
74. Group discussion, Massingir, July 2013.
75. See Francis Massé and Elizabeth Lunstrum, Accumulation by securitization: Commercial poaching, neoliberal conservation, and the
creation of new wildlife frontiers,
Geoforum
, 69, 2016, 227–237. These researchers have developed the concept of ‘accumulation by
securitisation’ to capture the nexus between conservation and securitization, capital accumulation and dispossession. They discuss the
increasing privatization and securitization of responses to rhino poaching, which also includes land grabs.
76. See SANParks, Revised zoning system – Kruger National Park, http://www.sanparks.org/parks/kruger/news.
php?id=55218?PHPSESSID=p3dhcmvdsgj1fohog0q0dke7.
77. Francis Massé and Elizabeth Lunstrum, Accumulation by securitization: Commercial poaching, neoliberal conservation, and the creation
of new wildlife frontiers,
Geoforum
, 69, 2016, 227–237, 6.
78. Interview with intelligence operative, Mozambican borderlands, August 2013.
79. Julius Malema, Why do white people despise blacks?
Sunday Times
, 10 January 2016, https://www.timeslive.co.za/sunday-times/opinion-
and-analysis/2016-01-10-why-do-white-people-despise-blacks/.
80. Focus groups and interviews, 2013 and 2015.
81. See Jessica S Kahler and Meredith L Gore, Local perceptions of risk associated with poaching of wildlife implicated in human-wildlife
conicts in Namibia,
Biological Conservation
, 2015.
82. Lulamile Ntonzima and Mohamed Sayeed Bayat, The role of traditional leaders in South Africa – A relic of the past, or a contemporary
reality?,
Arabian Journal of Business and Management Review
(Oman Chapter), 1, 6 (2012), 88–108.
83. Focus group with community members, 2013.
84. Interview in correctional centre, 2013.
85. The role and functions of a rhino kingpin are akin to those of a local crime boss. A kingpin recruits hunters and their support team, organizes
hunting ries and arranges the choreography of illegal hunts. He is also responsible for the local transportation and sale of rhino horn.
86. Interview in Massingir, July 2013.
87. Mr Navara, an infamous rhino kingpin operating out of Massingir and Mavodze, inside the Limpopo National Park, is known to sport a red
beret on occasion – a fashion accessory associated with members of the EFF in South Africa.
88. Interviews in Massingir, Tshwane and Makhado.
89. Focus group, 2013.
90. A small neighbourhood grocery.
91. A village or community pub in southern Africa.
92. Skukuza is the main rest camp and administrative headquarters of the KNP. When a poacher announces that he is ‘going to Skukuza’, it
indicates that he is preparing for a poaching expedition into the KNP.
93. Estacio Valoi, Mozambique’s poaching castles are crumbling, Oxpeckers Investigative Environmental Journalism, 14 March 2017, https://
oxpeckers.org/2017/03/mozambiques-poaching-castles-crumbling/.
94. Annette Hübschle, On the record: Interview with Major General Johan Jooste, South African National Parks, Head of Special Projects,
South African Crime Quarterly
, 60 (June 2017), 64.
95. Marshall Murphree, Foreword, in
Transfrontier Conservation Areas
, edited by Jens A Andersson et al. London: Routledge, 2013, p xv.
96. Ibid., xvi.
97. ‘Communal’ in the acronym CAMPFIRE, has since been changed to ‘Community' in order to focus on communities instead of the
geographic spread of the programme – see http://www.camprezimbabwe.org/index.php/news-spotlight/24-community-benets-
summary.
98. James C Murombedzi, Devolution and stewardship in Zimbabwe’s CAMPFIRE programme,
Journal of International Development
, 11, 2
(1999), 287–293, p 289.
99. CAMPFIRE, Community benets summary, http://www.camprezimbabwe.org/index.php/news-spotlight/24-community-benets-
summary.
100. Peter GH Frost and Ivan Bond, The CAMPFIRE programme in Zimbabwe: Payments for wildlife services,
Ecological Economics
, 65, 4 (2008),
776–787, p 776.
101. James C Murombedzi, Devolution and stewardship in Zimbabwe's CAMPFIRE programme,
Journal of International Development
, 11, 2
(1999), 287–293, p 288.
102. Peter J Balint and Judith Mashinya, The decline of a model community-based conservation project: Governance, capacity, and devolution
in Mahenye, Zimbabwe,
Geoforum
, 37, 5 (2006), 805–815, p 807.
103. CAMPFIRE, Community benets summary, http://www.camprezimbabwe.org/index.php/news-spotlight/24-community-benets-
summary.
104. Brian Child, Building the Campre paradigm, PERC, 1 June 2004, http://www.perc.org/2004/06/01/building-the-campre-paradigm/.
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105. CAMPFIRE, Community benets summary, http://www.camprezimbabwe.org/index.php/news-spotlight/24-community-benets-
summary.
106. Frank Matose and Scotney Watts, Towards community-based forest management in southern Africa: Do decentralization experiments
work for local livelihoods?,
Environmental Conservation
, 37, 3 (2010), 310–319, p 319.
107. Peter J Balint and Judith Mashinya, The decline of a model community-based conservation project: Governance, capacity, and devolution
in Mahenye, Zimbabwe,
Geoforum
, 37, 5 (2006), 805–815, p 810.
108. Charles Jonga, Press statement, 21 November 2017, http://camprezimbabwe.org/index.php/news-spotlight/26-press-statement-21-
november-2017&title=PRESS+STATEMENT+21+November+2017.
109. The killing of a satellite-tagged male lion by an American dentist in the Hwange area in July 2015 provoked an unprecedented
media reaction. Nicknamed ‘Cecil’, the 13-year-old lion had been a study animal in a project run by Oxford University. Although the
circumstances surrounding the trophy hunt were somewhat murky, Zimbabwean authorities dropped criminal charges after nding the
documentation authorizing the hunt to be in order.
110. David Hulme and Marshall Murphree, Communities, wildlife and the ‘new conservation’ in Africa,
Journal of International Development
,
11 (1999), 277–285, p 281.
111. William M Adams et al, Biodiversity conservation and the eradication of poverty,
Science
, 306, 5699 (2004), 1146–1149.
112. Namibian Association of Community Based Natural Resource Management (NACSO), Registered Communal Conservancies, Windhoek:
NACSO, 2017.
113. Article 95 (l) of the Namibian Constitution provides for the adoption of policies aimed at ‘maintenance of ecosystems, essential ecological
processes and biological diversity of Namibia and utilization of living natural resources on a sustainable basis for the benet of all
Namibians’, http://www.kas.de/upload/auslandshomepages/namibia/constitution/const_en_chapt11.pdf.
114. Elinor Ostrom,
Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action
. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990.
115. BTB Jones, Community management of natural resources in Namibia, in International Institute for Environmental Development (IIED), IIED
Drylands Programme, London: IIED, 1999, 4.
116. Namibian Association of Community Based Natural Resource Management, Conservation and Conservancies Overview, Windhoek:
NACSO, 2017.
117. BTB Jones, Community management of natural resources in Namibia, in
IIED Drylands Programme
, London: IIED, 1999, 4.
118. Namibian Association of Community Based Natural Resource Management, Registered Communal Conservancies, Windhoek: NACSO,
2017.
119. Interview with ocial from the Namibian Ministry of Environment and Tourism, December 2015.
120. Interviews with NACSO and IRDNC ocials, Windhoek, October 2016.
121. Nico Beckert,
Nachhaltiger Tourismus in Subsahara-Afrika – Anspruch und Wirklichkeit eines neuen Konzepts zur Armutsminderung –
Das Beispiel Namibia
. Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 2013, p 132.
122. Richard Emslie et al, African and Asian rhinoceroses – status, conservation and trade: A report from the IUCN Species Survival Commission
(IUCN SSC) African and Asian Rhino Specialist Groups and Trac to the Cites Secretariat pursuant to Resolution Conf. 9.14 (Rev. Cop15),
Geneva: CITES Secretariat, 2016, 1.
123. Interview with law enforcement ocial, Windhoek, December 2015.
124. Ibid.
125. Jerey Robert Muntifering, A quantitative model to ne-tune tourism as a black rhinoceros (
diceros bicornis
) conservation tool in north-
west Namibia. Stellenbosch University, November 2016, 154–155.
126. Kenneth HK Uiseb, Attitudes and perceptions of the local community towards the re-introduced black rhino in the ≠Khoadi//Hôas
Conservancy in northwest of Namibia, master’s dissertation, University of the Free State, 2007, 25.
127. BTB Jones, Community management of natural resources in Namibia, in
IIED Drylands Programme
, London: IIED, 1999, 3.
128. Interview with World Wildlife Fund representatives, Windhoek, October 2016.
129. Namibia’s Ministry of Environment and Tourism established the Rhino Custodianship Programme in 2005 by relocating black rhinos
to their historical rangelands in community conservancies. The innovative programme achieved biological management while also
providing local communities with income from rhino-related tourism activities. See also Kenneth HK Uiseb, Attitudes and perceptions
of the local community towards the re-introduced black rhino in the ≠Khoadi//Hôas Conservancy in northwest of Namibia, Master’s
dissertation, University of Free State, 2007, 49.
130. Jerey Robert Muntifering, A quantitative model to ne-tune tourism as a black rhinoceros (
diceros bicornis
) conservation tool in north-
west Namibia. Stellenbosch University, November 2016, 28.
131. Muntifering’s doctoral research provides a balanced assessment as to how increased rhino monitoring and local value can help protect
rhinos. Compare with Jerey Robert Muntifering, A quantitative model to ne-tune tourism as a black rhinoceros (
diceros bicornis
)
conservation tool in north-west Namibia. Stellenbosch University, November 2016.
132. IIED, The rhino custodianship programme, https://communitiesforwildlife.iied.org/rhino-custodianship-programme.
133. Nico Beckert,
Nachhaltiger Tourismus in Subsahara-Afrika – Anspruch und Wirklichkeit eines neuen Konzepts zur Armutsminderung –
Das Beispiel Namibia
. Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 2013, pp 89–90.
134. IRDNC, Lessons from the eld: IRDNC’s experience in Namibia, Windhoek: IRDNC, 2011, 30.
135. Interview with conser vancy community member, CITES CoP 17, Johannesburg.
136. Interview with NACSO ocial, Windhoek, October 2016.
137. Ibid.
138. Nico Beckert,
Nachhaltiger Tourismus in Subsahara-Afrika – Anspruch und Wirklichkeit eines neuen Konzepts zur Armutsminderung –
Das Beispiel Namibia
. Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 2013.
41
Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime Ending Wildlife Tracking
139. Jessica S Kahler and Meredith L Gore, Beyond the cooking pot and pocket book: Factors inuencing noncompliance with wildlife
poaching rules,
International Journal of Comparative and Applied Criminal Justice
, 36, 2 (2012/05/01 2012), 103–120, p 115.
140. Jessica S Kahler and Meredith L Gore, Local perceptions of risk associated with poaching of wildlife implicated in human-wildlife conicts
in Namibia,
Biological Conservation
, 2015.
141. The author has come across several anecdotes of female poachers; there has been one recent court case that involved two young
women who were caught poaching in KwaZulu-Natal.
142. IRDNC, Lessons from the eld: IRDNC’s experience in Namibia, Windhoek: IRDNC, 2011, 30.
143. Compare with Margaret Jacobsohn, Namibia’s Kunene region – A new vision unfolds in Paul Weinberg,
Once We Were Hunters
. Cape
Town: David Philip, 2000, pp 127–130.
144. See, for example, Chris Bakkes, End of the game,
The Namibian
, 19 March 2015.
145. Richard Emslie et al, African and Asian rhinoceroses – status, conservation and trade: A report from the IUCN Species Survival Commission
(IUCN SSC) African and Asian Rhino Specialist Groups and Trac to the Cites Secretariat pursuant to Resolution Conf. 9.14 (Rev. Cop15),
Geneva: CITES Secretariat, 2016, 14.
146. Christian Nellemann et al, The environmental crime crisis – Threats to sustainable development from illegal exploitation and trade in
wildlife and forest resources. A UNEP rapid response assessment. Nairobi: United Nations Environment Programme and GRID-Arendal,
2014, 32.
147. WWF, Nepal achieves 21 percent increase in rhino numbers and another year of zero poaching of rhinos, 5 May 2015, https://www.
worldwildlife.org/press-releases/nepal-achieves-21-percent-increase-in-rhino-numbers-and-another-year-of-zero-poaching-of-rhinos.
148. Richard Emslie et al, African and Asian rhinoceroses – status, conservation and trade: A report from the IUCN Species Survival Commission
(IUCN SSC) African and Asian Rhino Specialist Groups and Trac to the Cites Secretariat pursuant to Resolution Conf. 9.14 (Rev. Cop15),
Geneva: CITES Secretariat, 2016, 14.
149. See, for example, Achyut Aryal et al, Global lessons from successful rhinoceros conservation in Nepal,
Conservation Biology
, 2017.
150. Richard Ellis,
Tiger Bone and Rhino Horn: The Destruction of Wildlife for Traditional Chinese Medicine
. Washington, DC: Island Press, 2013, p 5.
151. Joanne McLean, Conservation and the impact of relocation on the Tharus of Chitwan, Nepal.
HIMALAYA, the Journal of the Association
for Nepal and Himalayan Studies
, 19 (1999), 40.
152. Narayan P Dhakal, Kristen C Nelson and JL David Smith, Resident well-being in conservation resettlement: The case of Padampur in the
Royal Chitwan National Park, Nepal,
Society & Natural Resources
, 24, 6 (2011/04/22 2011), 597–615, 600.
153. Sanjay K Nepal, Linking parks and people: Nepal’s experience in resolving conicts in parks and protected areas,
International Journal of
Sustainable Development & World Ecology
9, 1 (2002), 75–90, p 80.
154. Ukesh Raj Bhuju, Ravi Sharma Aryal and Prakash Aryal, Report on the facts and issues on poaching of mega species and illegal trade in
their parts in Nepal. Kathmandu: Transparency International Nepal, 2009, 30–31.
155. Babu R Bhattarai et al, Shifting paradigms for Nepal’s protected areas: History, challenges and relationships,
Journal of Mountain Science
,
14, 5 (2017), 964–979, p 964.
156. Community forestry is a participatory forest management system in Nepal that was started in the late 1970s. It provides rural
communities with control, management and protection of forest resources.
157. Nabin Baral and Joel T Heinen, The Maoist people’s war and conservation in Nepal,
Politics and the Life Sciences
, 24, 1 & 2 (2005/03/01
2005), 2–11, p 5.
158. Thapa Shova and Klaus Hubacek, Drivers of illegal resource extraction: An analysis of Bardia National Park, Nepal,
Journal of Environmental
Management
, 92, 1 (2011/01/01/ 2011), 156–164, p 156.
159. Babu R Bhattarai et al, Shifting paradigms for Nepal’s protected areas: History, challenges and relationships,
Journal of Mountain Science
,
14, 5 (2017), 964–979, p 968.
160. Teri D Allendor and Bhim Gurung, Balancing conservation and development in Nepal’s protected area buer zones,
Parks Journal
22, 2
(2016), 69–82, p 76.
161. Babu R Bhattarai et al, Shifting paradigms for Nepal’s protected areas: History, challenges and relationships,
Journal of Mountain Science,
14, 5 (2017), 975.
162. Achyut Aryal et al, Global lessons from successful rhinoceros conservation in Nepal,
Conservation Biology
, 2017, 3–4.
163. Krithi K Karanth and Sanjay K Nepal, Local residents’ perception of benets and losses from protected areas in India and Nepal,
Environmental Management
, 49, 2 (2012), 372–386, p 383.
164. Achyut Aryal et al, Global lessons from successful rhinoceros conservation in Nepal,
Conservation Biology
, 2017.
165. Aryal and colleagues argue that the recent establishment of a new multi-agency intelligence body, the National Wildlife Crime Control
Coordination Committee, has already led to a greater coordination between security, policing and intelligence bodies. Another
explanation for the drop in poaching numbers in Nepal is the availability of great volumes of much larger African rhino horns in
consumer markets. Although Nepal is geographically closer to the consumer markets, wildlife trackers are delivering large quantities of
African rhino horn eciently and at a good price.
166. Yogesh Dongol and Joel T Heinen, Pitfalls of CITES implementation in Nepal: A policy gap analysis,
Environmental Management
, 50, 2
(2012/08/01 2012), 181–190, p 186.
167. Interviews with conser vation and law enforcement ocials, CITES CoP 17, September/October 2016. Johannesburg.
168. Department of Environmental Aairs and Tourism, Government notice on national moratorium on trade of individual rhinoceros horns,
No. R 148 of 2009, https://www.environment.gov.za/sites/default/les/gazetted_notices/nemba_memorarium_g31899gon148.pdf.
169. North Gauteng High Court,
Kruger and Another v Minister of Water and Environmental Aairs and Others
(57221/12) [2015] Zagpphc
1018; [2016] 1 All Sa 565 (Gp). Pretoria: SAFLII, 2015.
170. Richard Emslie et al, African and Asian rhinoceroses – status, conservation and trade: A report from the IUCN Species Survival Commission
(IUCN SSC) African and Asian Rhino Specialist Groups and Trac to the Cites Secretariat pursuant to Resolution Conf. 9.14 (Rev. Cop15),
Geneva: CITES Secretariat, 2016, 11.
42
Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime Ending Wildlife Tracking
171. See https://rhinohornauction.com.
172. The South African Minister of Water and Environmental Aairs, Edna Molewa, emphasized during her July 2017 feedback session
on the integrated strategic management of rhinos that the international commercial trade in rhino horn remained prohibited. As a
signatory to the CITES treaty, South Africa would remain compliant with its international obligations. See Edna Molewa, Minister Molewa
highlights progress on integrated strategic management of rhinoceros, Department of Environmental Aairs, 24 July 2017, https://www.
environment.gov.za/mediarelease/molewa_progressonintegrated_strategicmanagement_ofrhinoceros.
173. The South African government appointed a Rhino Issue Manager in 2012, who was assigned the task of conducting a series of
stakeholder engagements to address the protection and sustainable conservation of the South African rhino populations.
174. Dipati Benjamin Maenetja, Limpopo communities to lobby CITES to legalise the rhino horn trade, in Legalising horn trade - RhinoAlive.
com: Private Rhino Owners’ Association, 2016.
175. Personal communication with Kruger ocial, July 2017.
176. Interview with rhino horn tracker, Massingir, August 2013.
177. UN Environment Programme, Mostly female anti-poaching unit from South Africa wins top UN environmental prize, 8 September 2015,
http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=51825#.WW2xYlKB2CQ.
178. Interviews in Balule Nature Reserve, 2013.
179. See http://www.blackmambas.org.
180. Ibid.
181. Interview with government ocial, Pretoria, August 2016.
182. Interview with senior conser vation NGO representative, Kruger National Park, February 2016.
183. International Anti-Poaching Foundation, Akashinga (The Brave Ones) Female Anti-Poaching Unit, https://www.iapf.org/akashinga/.
184. Greta Francesca Iori, An analysis of the political ecology of enforced conservation and wildlife crime: A case of the Balule Nature Reserve,
South Africa, MA thesis in tourism, environment and development, King’s College, London, August 2015, 23.
185. Adapted from John Briggs and Joanne Sharp, Indigenous knowledges and development: A postcolonial caution,
Third World Quarterl
y,
25, 4 (2004/05/01 2004), 661–676.
186. Adapted from Rachel Wynberg and Maria Hauck, People, power, and the coast: A conceptual framework for understanding and
implementing benet sharing,
Ecology & Society
, 19, 1 (2014), 465–480.
187. See Cliord Shearing and Jan Froestad, Nodal governance and Zwelethemba model, in Hannah Quirk, Toby Seddon and Graham Smith
(eds),
Regulation and Criminal Justice: Innovations in Policy and Research
. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010.
188. Elizabeth Lunstrum, Green militarization: Anti-poaching eorts and the spatial contours of Kruger National Park,
Annals of the Association
of American Geographers
(2014), 1–17.
189. With thanks to Cliord Shearing and Julie Berg, whose article on security governance inspired these principles. See Julie Berg and Cliord
Shearing, The practice of crime prevention: Design principles for more eective security governance,
South African Crime Quarterly
, 36
(June 2011), 23–30.
190. Community members emphasized the importance of acknowledging the spirit of Ubuntu when asked about how community–park
relations could be improved.
191. Yvonne Mokgoro, Ubuntu and the law in South Africa, Paper delivered at the rst Colloquium, Constitution and the Law, Potchefstroom,
1997, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/26633677_UBuntu_and_the_law_in_South_Africa.
192. The fundamental belief is that a person can only be a person through others.
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