Conservation or Complicity? : The Nexus of Crime, Human Rights and Biodiversity Decline

Sammanfattning

In this thesis, I examine the illegal wildlife trade and wildlife crime – both phenomena that drive biodiversity loss on a global scale – by interrogating the failings of the current Global Biodiversity Governance Regime (GBGR). The prevailing top-down conservation models create structural complicity between organisations, states and transnational crime, thus further marginalising Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities (IPLCs) and push more species to extinction. This thesis asks: what are the arguments for why human rights- based approaches could be better at addressing wildlife crime and illegal wildlife trade in contrast to the context of the current GBGR? Through a mixed-methods approach, this thesis develops two conceptual models – the Environmental Crime Nexus (ECN) and the Consent Hypothesis – substantiating claims that current models generate unproductive, feedback loops exacerbating biodiversity loss and insecurity (particularly for minorities). This proposed analytical framework integrates quantitative geospatial analysis from the EJAtlas and the World Database on Protected Areas with qualitative case studies through a postcolonial lens and a focus on normative structures. Concluding, the paper aims to show that breaking away toward more human rights-based approaches can disrupt this self-destructive cycle and put us on a path toward a more effective, just and sustainable governance regime.