Shoot shovel and sanction yourself: Self-policing as a response to wolf poaching among Swedish hunters

Hunters who will not report illegal wolf killing: Self-policing or resistance with political overtones?

Illegal killing of wildlife is challenging conservation efforts worldwide. Ecological research has shown that illegal killing is severely affecting the transboundary Swedish-Norwegian wolf population. A previous study indicated that unwillingness to report illegal killing of wolves among Swedish hunters contains an element of protest against perceived unjust treatment of hunting and hunters but that it could also simply be a reflection of ineffective law enforcement in the backcountry, driving hunters to effect forms of self-policing. Based on a survey of Norwegian hunters, the present research goes one step further. One in five hunters decline to report illegal wolf killings, and unwillingness to report is predicted by lack of trust in environmental institutions and a general anti-elite sentiment. Hunting-related issues and other factors also affect outcomes, but to a lesser degree. We conclude that unwillingness to report is often part of an oppositional stance related not only to wildlife management and conservation, but to contemporary social change in rural areas and perceived societal power relations. It is unlikely that reluctance to report is driven by frustration over inefficient official enforcement. While a political dimension is not always articulated, overlooking it may stoke conflicts and fortify a perception of unjust power relations.

Using crime script analysis to understand wildlife poaching in Vietnam

Poaching can contribute to the failure of biodiversity conservation efforts and inflict diverse harms on human livelihoods. We applied crime script analysis to the case of snare poaching-an illegal hunting activity-in three Vietnamese protected areas. Our goal was to enhance the understanding about the opportunity structure underlying snare poaching to advance the suite of community-based crime prevention activities. We analyzed crime scripts for three types of poachers across nine stages of the poaching process using expert-based elicitation with 13 workshop participants in Vinh, Vietnam, 2018. Five stages were similar, clustered toward the early stages, and two were different, clustered around middle crime stages. Analysis produced systematic crime-specific insight about the procedural aspects and requirements for poaching from preparation to hunt to selling one's catch. Stages identify multiple entry points to apply prevention techniques and match techniques with different types of snare poaching or poachers. Although this research focused on protected areas, the interdisciplinary approach applied herein may be adapted to other conservation contexts.

Modelling stakeholder satisfaction for conflict resolution in wildlife management: a case of wolf population in Sweden

The Swedish wolf population has rebounded from near extinction in the 1960s to around 365 individuals in 2020, after the implementation of the Hunting Act (jaktlagen) in 1966. This recent increase in the wolf population has evoked a serious divide between “pro-wolf” and “anti-wolf” Swedish citizens. Despite the continuous efforts by the Swedish government to reconcile this antagonism, the conflicts are persistent with a sign of impasse. In this paper, we present a modelling tool, which can bring transparent and “structured dialogue to the opposing positions.” This approach includes a stylized framework for quantitative modelling of stakeholders’ satisfaction levels regarding their preferred size of the wildlife population in question, based on the concept of satisfaction functions. We argue that this framework may contribute to conflict resolution by bringing a common understanding among stakeholders, facilitate a societal discourse, and potentially help to assess likely support for conservation policies. We present a showcase application of this modeling tool in the context of the conflict over the Swedish wolf conservation policies. The model is informed using a thorough literature review as well as interviews, which identified relevant stakeholder groups and respective drivers of their attitudes towards wolves.