Women and wildlife crime 837


TABLE 1 The typology of Phelps et al. (2016) for key actor roles in wildlife crimes, with examples frompeer-reviewed (P), non-peer reviewed (N) and theoretical (T) sources. The designation ‘theoretical’ was assigned to peer-reviewed or non-peer reviewed literature that did not specify gender but where the involvement of women was theoretically plausible.


Roles


Harvesters Subsistence


Specialist commercial


Opportunist Local guide


Rule abuser Bycatch


Recreational Reactionary


Intermediaries Logistician


Examples P: Turtle eggs, Nicaragua (Madrigal-Ballestero & Jurado, 2017)


P: Freshwater fishers, Tanzania (Medard, 2012); N: Woman arrested for tiger poaching & trade of meat/parts, India (Shukla, 2011)


T: Sea turtle & egg poaching, Ghana (Tanner, 2013)


T: Out-of-town poachers rely on local accommodation, food & logistical assistance in Kruger National Park, South Africa (Hübschle, 2017)


P: Checking snares set by husbands & smuggling out bushmeat, Uganda (Anagnostou et al., 2020) T: Traditional traps & netting small fish in the intertidal zone by women, East Africa (Harper et al., 2013)


T: Poaching among recreational fishers in no-fishing reserves, Australia’s Great Barrier Reef Marine Park (Bergseth et al., 2017)


T: Farmers set snares & traditional traps in agricultural fields in Namibian conservancies (Kahler et al., 2013) P: Bushmeat, Cameroon (Edderai & Dame, 2006)


Specialized smuggler N: Father & daughter ivory smuggling, India (Mitra, 2019) Government colluder T: Corruption by border agents, police or rangers, Uganda (Moreto et al., 2015) Third party Processor Launderer Vendor


N: 10 women couriers of tiger skins & skeletons, India (UPI, 2007) P: Bushmeat, East Africa (Lowassa et al., 2012)


P: Thai sex workers as bogus hunters, South Africa (Hübschle, 2014) P: Philippines full-time fishmongers (Turgo, 2015)


Consumers Medicinal


Ornamental Cultural Gift


Investment Recreational Animal food


Construction materials


Fuel Food


N: Vietnamese shopkeeper selling bear bile & pangolin scales (Tan, 2018) P: Jewellery from animal products, Viet Nam (McElwee, 2012)


N: Woman arrested for possession of 523 star tortoises, India (Salunke & Chatterjee, 2018) N: Women purchase & receive shatoosh shawls made from Tibetan antelope fur (Rayner, 2013) T: Stockpiling totoaba swim bladders by wealthy Chinese (Hance, 2016) T: Hobbyists who buy illegally sourced songbirds, Brazil (de Oliveira et al., 2020) T: Use of protected area fodder resources to feed livestock, Rwanda (Munanura et al., 2018) T: Illegal collection of rattan, Ghana (Obour et al., 2015)


P: Fuelwood markets near Malawi National Park (Abbot & Mace, 1999) P: Bushmeat, East Africa (Lowassa et al., 2012); N: Bushmeat consumption, Angola (BBC News, 2016)


primarily viewed as a masculine endeavour (Edderai & Dame, 2006; Lowassa et al., 2012; McElwee, 2012; Sollund, 2020), and cultural taboos can prohibit women from partici- pating in these activities. Empirical investigations have indicated that men are


more likely to be the perpetrator of non-environmental (e.g. Kruttschnitt, 2013) and wildlife-associated crimes (Sollund, 2020). However, there is evidence that women are also involved in wildlife crime (e.g. Hübschle, 2014; Agu & Gore, 2020). Furthermore, there is evidence in crim- inology that the gender gap in crime statistics is influenced, although not completely explained, by the differential tar- geting of men by law enforcement (e.g. Kruttschnitt, 2013) and this may extend to conservation. For example, suspi- cions have been voiced by rangers in Murchison Falls Protected Area, Uganda, that women often had knowledge of and participated in wildlife crimes precisely because they were less likely than men to be suspected and therefore not subject to enforcement (Anagnostou et al., 2020).


An exploration of the peer-reviewed and non-peer-


reviewed literature indicates there is more evidence for women serving as intermediaries, such as processors or vendors, or consumers, than as harvesters (Table 1). We as- signed theoretical roles to give examples of peer-reviewed or non-peer-reviewed literature that does not specify the gender of the offender, but where the plausible involvement of women is posited. For example, Harper et al. (2013) de- scribed the paucity of research and consideration of wo- men in the fisheries sector, but did not discuss women within the context of illegal fisheries. Theoretical roles are used to represent five of the eight harvester types, one of seven intermediary categories, and four of the 10 consumer categories (Table 1), indicating areas of potential future re- search on women’s involvement in wildlife crime. However, there are also gaps in knowledge regarding the involvement of men. For example, there is little literature on the preva- lence and behaviour of opportunist, local guides and by- catch harvesters regardless of gender.


Oryx, 2021, 55(6), 835–843 © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Fauna & Flora International doi:10.1017/S0030605321000193


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80  |  Page 81  |  Page 82  |  Page 83  |  Page 84  |  Page 85  |  Page 86  |  Page 87  |  Page 88  |  Page 89  |  Page 90  |  Page 91  |  Page 92  |  Page 93  |  Page 94  |  Page 95  |  Page 96  |  Page 97  |  Page 98  |  Page 99  |  Page 100  |  Page 101  |  Page 102  |  Page 103  |  Page 104  |  Page 105  |  Page 106  |  Page 107  |  Page 108  |  Page 109  |  Page 110  |  Page 111  |  Page 112  |  Page 113  |  Page 114  |  Page 115  |  Page 116  |  Page 117  |  Page 118  |  Page 119  |  Page 120  |  Page 121  |  Page 122  |  Page 123  |  Page 124  |  Page 125  |  Page 126  |  Page 127  |  Page 128  |  Page 129  |  Page 130  |  Page 131  |  Page 132  |  Page 133  |  Page 134  |  Page 135  |  Page 136  |  Page 137  |  Page 138  |  Page 139  |  Page 140  |  Page 141  |  Page 142  |  Page 143  |  Page 144  |  Page 145  |  Page 146  |  Page 147  |  Page 148  |  Page 149  |  Page 150  |  Page 151  |  Page 152  |  Page 153  |  Page 154  |  Page 155  |  Page 156  |  Page 157  |  Page 158  |  Page 159  |  Page 160  |  Page 161  |  Page 162  |  Page 163  |  Page 164