Journal article
Wars over wildlife: green militarisation and just war theory
- Abstract:
- Militarisation of conservation (sometimes known as 'green militarisation') is an issue of growing international interest. Rhino horn is immensely valuable (in 2013 its value exceeded that of gold or cocaine), and its illegal trade has attracted widespread attention. Conservationists have declared a 'war' on poaching, with extensive military resources deployed to combat it. This sometimes includes operations which are referred to, particularly in the media, as 'shoot-to-kill'. These can be tantamount to extra-judicial killings. We scrutinise this issue using 'Just War' principles, to explore whether the 'war' on poaching meets the criteria expected of armed conflict. Our perspective suggests that it fails both ethical and pragmatic examination. This piece encourages conservation scientists, and the public, to consider which actions are justified in protecting wildlife, and how we should rethink conservation policy to achieve ethical, successful outcomes for both people and wildlife.
- Publication status:
- Published
- Peer review status:
- Peer reviewed
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(Preview, Version of record, 458.1KB, Terms of use)
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- Publisher copy:
- 10.4103/cs.cs_19_34
Authors
- Publisher:
- Medknow Publications
- Journal:
- Conservation and Society More from this journal
- Volume:
- 18
- Issue:
- 3
- Pages:
- 293-297
- Publication date:
- 2020-06-26
- Acceptance date:
- 2020-04-10
- DOI:
- EISSN:
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0975-3133
- ISSN:
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0972-4923
- Language:
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English
- Keywords:
- Pubs id:
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1103947
- Local pid:
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pubs:1103947
- Deposit date:
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2020-05-11
Terms of use
- Copyright holder:
- Dickman et al.
- Copyright date:
- 2020
- Rights statement:
- © Dickman et al. 2020. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use and distribution of the article, provided the original work is cited. Published by Wolters Kluwer - Medknow, Mumbai | Managed and supported by the Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE), Bangalore. For reprints contact: [email protected]
- Licence:
- CC Attribution (CC BY)
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