Poaching, Wildlife Trafficking and Human Security

Human security and underdevelopment are increasingly common themes in public debates about the security threat posed by poaching and wildlife trafficking. Most frequently highlighted are the ways in which these activities can exacerbate poverty by stripping local communities of the wildlife that tourists will pay to see. Such narratives, however, are oversimplified, underpinned by a series of assumptions about the circumstances and livelihoods of populations in source areas, and about the role of wildlife tourism in rural development. They do not adequately address the reasons poaching occurs in the first place, or the extent to which current responses to poaching themselves serve to ameliorate or threaten human security. This paper examines the most common characterisations of the threat posed by poaching and wildlife trafficking to human security, questioning the extent to which they reflect available evidence of the range of threats that play out on the ground.