Wildlife trafficking and criminogenic asymmetries in a globalised world

Abstract

This chapter puts forth that criminogenic asymmetries in the realms of ecology, economy, law, politics and power have created conditions ripe for global defaunation and enabled large flows of the illegal wildlife trade to flourish. To demonstrate how such criminogenic asymmetries contribute in complex ways to the absence of controls and provide opportunities for illegal wildlife trafficking, the author offers three case studies: the illegal trade of rhino horn and tiger bone for use in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM); the smuggling of Barbary macaques, found in the Atlas Mountains of Algeria and Morocco, for sale as pets in Europe; and the poaching of sturgeon to satisfy the demand for caviar. The three case studies illustrate that in the context of global anomie and criminogenic asymmetries, structural discrepancies between the source and destination countries provide opportunities for crimes against nature—where legal and illegal entrepreneurs from countries of the Global North exploit poverty and inequality to entice people to participate in criminal activities, from poor farmers in Southeast Asia who hunt opportunistically for endangered species for TCM, to Berber communities in Morocco who poach monkeys for the pet industry, to poor fishermen in Dagestan who catch sturgeon for caviar. The chapter reveals how the geopolitical and socioeconomic background of three biodiverse regions provides fertile breeding grounds for criminal networks driven by criminogenic asymmetries—and how, despite the differences between the three geographies of his case studies, the destruction of nature has, essentially, become a feature of an increasingly globalised world.