Rethinking Corruption in Conservation Crime: Insights from Madagascar

Abstract

Corruption affects biodiversity conservation. Mechanisms that more effectively reform corruption and mitigate negative effects of corruption on conservation are needed, especially in biodiversity hotspots such as Madagascar. Local definitions of corrupt behavior, attitudes about reforms, and motivations for noncompliance may generate deeper understanding about corruption, which in turn may advance the conservation community's thinking and invite new solutions. We conducted in-depth interviews with Malagasy residents living adjacent to the Makira/Masoala Conservation Area, querying perceptions about regional corruption, rules in use (i.e., social norms or rules in action), rule breaking, and mechanisms for reform. Most participants framed noncompliance with conservation rules as a deficit/absence (e.g., lack of knowledge of rules), defined local corruption more as an omission of duty than a commission of crime, and discussed poverty, unfairness, and diverse rules in use related to corruption. Traditional framing of corruption singularly as a lack or absence of honesty and morality or as a normative phenomenon does not seem wholly accurate at reflecting, or for thinking about, the local context. Data herein allude such inaccuracy may be most noteworthy at the level of corruption reform. Rethinking corruption in conservation crime as a blend of dimensions may liberalize the suite of reform mechanisms available to conservationists.

A guideline to improve qualitative social science publishing in ecology and conservation journals

“…Case studies explore in depth a program, event, process, or activity, of one or more people, and are typically bound by selected variables, i.e., study of an event (e.g., perceptions of conservation corruption and noncompliance in regional Madagascar, Gore et al 2013). Although these five methodologies are not definitive (see, for example, Ragin and Becker 1992), the articles surveyed did map into these broad categories.…”

Corruption and Violations of Conservation Rules: A Survey Experiment with Resource Users

“…A handful of studies illustrate empirically how the impact from corruption on conservation management may take shape within different localities in regions as disparate as Africa, Asia,6 and Latin America; collusion with agents in forestry departments enable certain resource users to benefit from logging activities while others are excluded from such practices (Robbins 2000;Miller 2011); bribes to customs officers to circumvent trade bans on endangered species and thus enable smuggling of animals and plants across national borders (Smith et al 2003;Wyatt 2013); illegal payments to government fisheries inspectors enable fishermen from distant coastal localities to encroach on resource regimes they are not allowed to access and to overharvest such local marine resources (Young 2001); the hiring of "ghost employees" to protect terrestrial reserves and pocket this money instead of employing actual rangers (Cavanaugh 2012); the lax enforcement of conservation rules by such government inspectors (Smith and Walpole 2007); the providing of loggers with "legal" contracts (Gore et al 2013); and the actual involvement of corrupt public inspectors in poaching activities (Sundström 2015). Such actions obviously have severe consequences for natural resource management on the aggregate.…”

Forest Transition in Madagascar’s Highlands: Initial Evidence and Implications

“…As just one example among many, the overseas wing of the French Office National des Forêts sponsors the work of the Malagasy NGO Tany Meva to plant trees across a few hundred hectares in a municipality some 30 km outside the capital [90]. At the same time, the state's inability to provide rural security has created disincentives to traditional livestock practices and surplus grain production, thus encouraging a shift in land use favoring trees, while its regulation of the charcoal trade has had mixed results [91] (see also [92] on the issue of corruption in law enforcement in Madagascar generally, and [93] on the specific question of conservation enforcement).…”