Paper short abstract:

I use a feminist political ecology approach to centre local systems of gender norms and their intersection with socio-economic dynamics to reflect on the drivers of participation in poaching economies, the expansion of militarised conservation practice, and their impacts on women and households.

Paper long abstract:

How poaching economies and militarised responses to shut them down intersect with local gender norms and dynamics remains under-examined. Feminist political ecology, along with insights from feminist criminology, helps to address these gaps in what myself and colleagues refer to as a feminist political ecology of wildlife crime. This framework centres local systems of gender norms and their intersection with socio-economic dynamics to offer a fuller understanding of the drivers of participation in poaching economies and their increasingly deadly impacts, a reflection of the expansion of militarised conservation practice. I draw on collaborative fieldwork in the Mozambican borderlands adjacent to South Africa’s Kruger National Park on the illicit rhino horn economy to show how several stark gendered dynamics emerge. First, long-standing norms of masculinity, in particular caring for family, in one of the poorest regions of Southern Africa motivate men to enter the trade despite the risks. Second, women whose husbands have been killed while hunting rhino embody the indirect human consequences of a violent poaching economy. The loss of their husbands, a broader context of poverty, and gendered norms articulate in ways that leave these women and their children to experience more acute and long term vulnerability. Understanding these dynamics are important for crafting sustainable solutions to the poaching problem. I discuss what lessons a feminist political ecology of wildlife crime offers for understanding and addressing poaching conflicts, wildlife crime and illicit resource geographies more broadly.