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Enforcement responses to wildlife crime: What works? Aidan Keane University of Edinburgh aidan.keane@ed.ac.uk Beyond Enforcement, 26 th -28 th February 2015 Glenburn Lodge, Muldersdrift, South Africa

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Outline Broad-scale, comparative evidence When should enforcement work in theory? Issues with existing evidence base

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Enforcement is important Species change in PAs 42 studies, 35 papers Geldmann et al. (2013)

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Enforcement is important Enforcement and forest commons 15 years, 9 countries, 152 cases. Chhatre & Agrawal (2008)

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Benefits Direct costs Opportunity costs Enforcement costs --- A model for the conservation toolkit (Rational) target assumed to maximise:

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Benefits Direct costs Opportunity costs Enforcement costs --- A model for the conservation toolkit (Rational) target assumed to maximise: Alternative livelihoods Enforcement Demand reduction Attitude change

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Benefits Direct costs Opportunity costs Cost of sanction X Probability of sanction --- When should enforcement work? Benefits of crime are low cf rhino and elephant poaching, now and in 1980s

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Benefits Direct costs Opportunity costs Cost of sanction X Probability of sanction --- When should enforcement work? Social sanctions and opportunity costs are high e.g. Namibian conservancies?

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Benefits Direct costs Opportunity costs Cost of sanction X Probability of sanction --- When should enforcement work? Sufficient capacity / resources

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Benefits Direct costs Opportunity costs Cost of sanction X Probability of sanction --- When should enforcement work? but: Opportunities for corruption May undermine legitimacy Cannot exceed ability to pay! When sanctions are high cf shoot to kill policies in 1980s Zimbabwe?

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Benefits Direct costs Opportunity costs Cost of sanction X Probability of sanction --- When should enforcement work? When sanctioning process is quick and efficient Time discounting? cf court system in India

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But Still lack detailed empirical evidence base Difficult to answer: How should I distribute patrol effort to achieve X, Y and Z? How large should my patrol teams be? How much should I invest in enforcement vs. outreach?

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Why are these questions hard to answer? Illegal activities difficult to study Existing evidence comes from: Observations (e.g. market data/remote sensing) Surveys (incl. RRT, UCT) Enforcement data e.g. MIST, SMART, Event Book

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Snare density Patrol effort Snares detected Snares reported GEOGRAPHICAL & EFFORT BIAS DETECTION BIAS REPORTING BIAS Interpreting enforcement data

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Keane et al. (2011) J. Appl. Ecol. 48: 11641173 Interpreting enforcement data

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Keane et al. (2011) J. Appl. Ecol. 48: 11641173 Interpreting enforcement data

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Keane et al. (2011) J. Appl. Ecol. 48: 11641173 Interpreting enforcement data

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Keane et al. (2011) J. Appl. Ecol. 48: 11641173 Interpreting enforcement data Deterrence = effectiveness

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Conclusions Comparative evidence that enforcement is important component of conservation interventions Can make informed assumptions about conditions for effectiveness but detailed empirical evidence base still lacking Role for adaptive management?