Protected area law enforcement 747


living in the vicinity of a protected area (Poudyal et al., 2018). Heavy-handed approaches to enforcement can mar- ginalize local residents and create conflicts between local communities and authorities (Wilfred et al., 2019). For example, militarized approaches to enforcement can lead to the violation of human rights (Massé et al., 2017). This has been brought to the fore by allegations of human rights abuses by law enforcement personnel in protected areas in various countries, including Cameroon, the Demo- cratic Republic of the Congo, Nepal and India (WWF Independent Review, 2020). Involving local residents in enforcement offers a means


of strengthening or complementing traditional protected area law enforcement strategies and ensuring that protected area management is more equitable and just. Using local knowledge and perspectives can, for example, help develop a more complete information base (Berkes, 2004), identify conditions that lead to rule-breaking behaviour and extend monitoring beyond the purview of rangers (Albers & Grinspoon, 1997; Moreto & Charlton, 2021). For example, in Kerinci Seblat National Park in Sumatra, tip-offs from local informants were found to increase the effectiveness of routine patrols, with the probability of snare detection increasing by over 40% between 2009 and 2010 (Linkie et al., 2015). Similarly, a reduction in elephant poaching in and around protected areas in southern Tanzania was attri- buted to the participation of local residents in providing in- formation and carrying out joint patrols with state rangers (Lotter & Clark, 2014). Local involvement can also create social pressure to com-


ply with conservation rules (Albers & Grinspoon, 1997; Moreto& Charlton, 2021), minimize local resistance to con- servation initiatives (Berkes, 2007) and enhance the legitim- acy of regulations (Beaumont, 1997; Jentoft et al., 1998). In the Barents Sea, for example, fisher representatives have a voice in the regulatory process, and regulations are generally considered to be legitimate, which contributes to compli- ance amongst individual fishers (Hønneland, 2000). The term ‘community participation’ is often used to de-


scribe the involvement of local residents in conservation but, under this broad banner, local residents can participate in many different ways and experience different outcomes. Although some local residents may benefit from enforce- ment and their participation in enforcement activities, others may lose out in relation to both their rights and live- lihoods. Local residents can incur different types of costs from participating in enforcement (Swai & Lotter, 2015). For example, informants may risk physical reprisals and os- tracism from their communities (Travers et al., 2017). These costs can undermine protected area law enforcement (Akella & Cannon, 2004). Conservation practice has also faced criticism for making simplistic assumptions about communities (Waylen et al., 2013). Rather than being a homogeneous social structure with a set of shared norms,


a community comprises multiple actors with varied inter- ests (Agrawal & Gibson, 1999). Social structuring through factors such as education level and class could influence local community involvement in protected area lawenforce- ment. Participation can be dominated by certain groups within communities (Staddon et al., 2015). For example, in a global survey of the working conditions of protected area rangers, the vast majority of respondents identified as male (Belecky et al., 2019). There are myriad different approaches to involving local


residents in enforcement in protected areas, which differ ac- cording to the type and scale of activity beingmonitored, the aims, the level of support provided by external agencies and the degree of power and responsibility delegated to local resi- dents. However, our understanding of the extent, characteris- tics and effectiveness of these different approaches, and of the different roles that local residents play and the benefits and risks involved, remains patchy. Existing research into this topic comprises a rich but disconnected set of case studies (e.g. Martin & Martin, 2010; Canney & Ganamé, 2015; Cottar, 2015;Roe, 2015), and opportunities for broader, comparative research have been limited by the lack of a clear common framework for analysis. Here we develop such a framework to help structure our understanding of the ways in which people living in the vicinity of protected areas can contribute to enforcement. We illustrate how the framework can be used to categor-


ize case studies, using examples from both terrestrial and marine systems in Cambodia and the UK. We show how the framework could be used for the analysis, comparison and evaluation of protected area law enforcement systems to support a more holistic and analytical understanding of the different ways in which local residents can contribute to protected area law enforcement.


Methods


We draw on the IUCN definition of a protected area and apply the definition of enforcement offered by Keane et al. (2008), cited above.Weconsider local residents to be people living within or on the periphery of a protected area, and we conceptualize contributions as individual or collective ac- tions that can be carried out across a spectrum of control (Pretty, 1995; Danielsen et al., 2009; Ruano-Chamorro et al., 2021). During November 2020–December 2021,we conducted a


narrative review of the literature for information on how, why, where and when local residents contribute to protected area law enforcement. We searched Web of Science Core Collection (Clarivate, USA) for scientific literature and Google Scholar (Google, 2021) for scientific and grey litera- ture. Across these platforms, we searched for literature pub- lished in the English language using simple search strings, such as ‘local communities’ AND ‘protected area*’;


Oryx, 2024, 58(6), 746–758 © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Fauna & Flora International doi:10.1017/S0030605323001758


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