Poaching

It targets the taking of action on dealing with poaching and trafficking of protected species of flora and fauna to ensure their availability for present and future generations.

[9] In 1998, environmental scientists from the University of Massachusetts Amherst proposed the concept of poaching as an environmental crime and defined as any illegal activity that contravenes the laws and regulations established to protect renewable natural resources, including the illegal harvest of wildlife with the intention of possessing, transporting, consuming or selling it and using its body parts.

In medieval Europe rulers of feudal territories from the king downward tried to enforce exclusive rights of the nobility to hunt and fish on the lands that they ruled.

They denied shared usage of forests, such as resin collection and wood pasture and the peasants right to hunt and fish.

[4] Some poachers and their violent deaths, like Matthias Klostermayr (1736–1771), Georg Jennerwein (1848–1877) and Pius Walder (1952–1982) gained notoriety and have had a strong cultural impact, which has persisted until today.

In the Chesapeake Bay in the 1930s one of the biggest threats to waterfowl was local poachers using flat boats with swivel cannons that killed entire flocks with one shot.

[24][25] The following violations and offenses are considered acts of poaching in the US: Stephen Corry, the director of the human rights group Survival International, has argued that the term "poaching" has at times been used to criminalize the traditional subsistence techniques of indigenous peoples and to bar them from hunting on their ancestral lands when they are declared as wildlife-only zones.

[30] Interviews conducted with 41 poachers in the Atchafalaya River basin in Louisiana revealed that 37 of them hunt to provide food for themselves and their families; 11 stated that poaching is part of their personal or cultural history; nine earn money from the sale of poached game to support their families; and eight feel exhilarated and thrilled by outsmarting game wardens.

[31] In rural areas in Africa, the key motives for poaching are the lack of employment opportunities and a limited potential for agriculture and livestock production.

Poor people rely on natural resources for their survival and generate cash income through the sale of bushmeat, which attracts high prices in urban centres.

[32][33] Armed conflict in Africa has been linked to intensified poaching and wildlife declines within protected areas,[34] likely reflecting the disruption of traditional livelihoods, which causes people to seek alternative food sources.

Results of an interview survey conducted in several villages in Tanzania indicate that one of the major reasons of poaching is for consumption and sale of bushmeat.

For example, in Thailand, there are anecdotal accounts of the desire for a better life for children, which drive rural poachers to take the risk of poaching even though they dislike exploiting the wildlife.

[36] Another major cause of poaching is the cultural high demand of wildlife products, such as ivory, which are seen as symbols of status and wealth in China.

Conducting a survey on 1,058 residents of Beijing, China, with 381 being university students and the other 677 being regular citizens, they tried to gauge public opinion about tigers and conservation efforts for them.

However, one reason emerged as to why tigers are still highly demanded in illegal trading: culturally, they are still status symbols of wealth for the upper class, and they are still thought to have mysterious medicinal and healthcare effects.

The use of parts of endangered species (such as seahorses, rhinoceros horns, binturong, pangolin scales and tiger bones and claws) has created controversy and resulted in a black market of poachers.

Rhino populations face extinction because of demand in Asia (for traditional medicine and as a luxury item) and in the Middle East (where horns are used for decoration).

The International Anti-Poaching Foundation has a structured military-like approach to conservation, employing tactics and technology generally reserved for the battlefield.

Founder Damien Mander is an advocate of the use of military equipment and tactics, including Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, for military-style anti-poaching operations.

[66][67][68] Such military-style approaches have been criticised for failing to resolve the underlying reasons for poaching, but to neither tackle "the role of global trading networks" nor the continued demand for animal products.

[71] In 2013, the Tanzanian Minister of Natural Resources and Tourism urged that poachers be shot on sight in an effort to stop the mass killing of elephants.

[74][75] In May 2018, the Kenyan government announced that poachers will face the death penalty, as fines and life imprisonment have "not been deterrence enough to curb poaching, hence the proposed stiffer sentence".

[80][81] There are two main solutions according to Frederick Chen that would attack the supply side of this poaching problem to reduce its effects: enforcing and enacting more policies and laws for conservation and by encouraging local communities to protect the wildlife around them by giving them more land rights.

Therefore, the snob effect would offset some of the gains made by anti-poaching laws, regulations, or practices: if a portion of the supply is cut off, the rarity and price of the object would increase, and only a select few would have the desire and purchasing power for it.

[82] Indeed, there is some evidence that interventions to reduce consumer demand may be more effective for combatting poaching than continually increased policing to catch poachers.

Targeting advertising using more violent imagery to show the disparity between tigers in nature and as a commodity made a great impact on the general population to combat poaching and indifference towards this problem.

The use of spokespeople such as Jackie Chan and other famous Asian actors and models who advocated against poaching also helped the conservation movement for tigers too.

Conservationists hope the new emerging multi-lateral approach, which would include the public, conservation groups, and the police, will be successful for the future of these animals.