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Illegal hunting of wildlife by community members abutting African protected areas contributes to unsustainable use of wildlife, resulting in significant declines in wildlife populations. Contemporary intervention measures have largely been ineffective, leading to pervasive and persistent illegal hunting. Such illegal hunting of wildlife is partly exacerbated by poor understanding of what motivates people to hunt illegally. Applying a scoping review approach, this study aims at developing concepts for drivers of illegal hunting and how they influence illegal hunting behaviour by local hunters living in or adjacent to African protected areas. A total of 30 publications were included for review analysis from 1014 publications retrieved using data base searches on Google Scholar and ScienceDirect. The study identified 12 proximate and five underlying drivers, which were categorised into 10 thematic drivers of illegal hunting by local hunters. The need for survival and sustaining livelihoods was conceptualised as the key thematic driver of illegal hunting by local hunters. The study represents a novel work of conceptualising drivers of illegal hunting by local hunters with implications on the persistence of illegal hunting in Africa.