The social construction of the value of wildlife: A green cultural criminological perspective

Abstract

The trade in wildlife is not a new phenomenon. The earliest civilizations were linked to the trade in live animals and parts thereof, from the Egyptian pharaohs to aristocrats in the modern era. This article focuses on the history of the wildlife trade in order to understand the social construction of the value of wildlife. In dynamic social and cultural contexts, the meaning of wildlife changes. Historically, exotic animals and the products thereof were associated with social elites, but today, wildlife attracts people from all walks of life and a wide variety of live animals and products thereof are traded for functional, symbolic and social purposes. Increasing ecocentric and biocentric values in contemporary western society, however, may influence constructed demand patterns for wildlife in the near future. By integrating cultural criminological concepts with the social construction of green crimes, this article aims to understand constructed wildlife consumerism through the ages.

Consideration of culture is vital if we are to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals

“…In another example, cultures that consider the consumption of exotic animals for clothing, ornaments, and traditional medicine to be symbols of wealth and social status drive illegal wildlife trade and threaten biodiversity (15.4 and 15.7). 65 Moreover, cultural values that favor a carbon-intensive lifestyle embedded in mobility habits, consumer choice, and residential preferences might lead to a behavioral lock-in in carbon emissions. 66 More notably, people's awareness of ecosystem values and their views of human-nature relations affect how they perceive the risks and consequences of environmental challenges.…”

Animals as Something More Than Mere Property: Interweaving Green Criminology and Law

“…Such recognition can benefit the judiciary not only in reading and adjudicating the legal case before them, but in reconsidering legal definitions, discourses and harms in the context of shifting socio-political landscapes. As we demonstrate below, our present relationships with animals are a social construction, not a historical or natural constant (Sorenson 2010;Gacek 2017;Van Uhm 2018). Re-examining and re-evaluating the harms caused to animals is significant for exposing anthropocentric logics at play in the criminal justice system.…”

Trends in illegal wildlife trade: Analyzing personal baggage seizure data in the Pacific Northwest

“…When holistically addressing illicit wildlife seizures in passenger baggage, we consider both consumer demand for wildlife and wildlife parts as well as the environment enabling wildlife crime. This approach follows previous efforts to combine cultural and green criminologies in an attempt to interpret the underlying demand embedded in illegal trade of wildlife [59] while still accounting for opportunities enabling wildlife crime. Wildlife species are illegally traded for various reasons, and it is largely understood that demand is driven by social and cultural reasons.…”