Seizures of inconvenience? Policy, discretion and accidental discoveries in policing the illegal wildlife trade at the Norwegian border

Making Messy Data Work for Conservation

“…This latter group includes data from herbaria and museums, ranger patrols, illegal wildlife trade seizures at international borders, and crowd-sensing data from social media posts. [21][22][23] Messy data have potential advantages over data from structured surveys, including low cost, easy accessibility, high volume, and real-world relevance. In many cases, such data are the only source of information about the phenomenon of interest.…”

Mind the Gap! Decoupling Between Policy and Practice in the Policing of Illegal Wildlife Trade

“…Because policing agents are unable to enforce each and every violation of the law due to limited resources, and because laws require interpretation in concrete situations, officers are expected to make discretionary decisions about whether and when enforcement is in order (Reiner, 2010). As such, officer discretion is another factor that may have influence on the implementation of wildlife crime regulation in practice, depending on factors such as the perceived seriousness of the offence, the threat to health and safety, the detriments to the resource, the demeanour of the offender, prior criminal record (Carter, 2006;Eliason, 2003) and the officer's personal commitment to the issue (Runhovde, 2015). In light of these perspectives, the article considers the extent of decoupling, at policy-practice-or means-end level, as a compromising factor for the enforcement against IWT.…”

“…Some customs administrations, while giving the appearance of conformity and compliance, actually implemented no substantive change in their daily practices and tackled wildlife smuggling purely in a symbolic manner (Han & Nelen, 2017). By building on previous analyses of counter-IWT enforcement in two separate jurisdictions; Norway and Uganda (see Runhovde, 2015Runhovde, , 2016Runhovde, , 2017aRunhovde, , 2017b, in this article I explore whether enforcement officers in the two countries are facing comparable challenges and to what extent the lack of success in curbing illegal trade may stem from gaps between policy and practice, applying institutional theory as an explanatory framework.…”

Merely a transit country? Examining the role of Uganda in the transnational illegal ivory trade

“…5 Security checks and verifications are done manually. In-depth checks are at the discretion of inspectors, which may be little responsive to signs of wildlife smuggling (Runhovde 2015). A revisit to a DRC checkpoint illustrates the challenges.…”

“…The weight of the cargo compared with declared content can be an indicator of illegality as well as 'the general feeling that the officer gets', implying that intuition and gut feeling guide the selection of control objects. Studies have found that similar criteria guide the discretion of customs inspectors in Norway (Runhovde 2015) and Canada (Pratt 2010).…”