We are excited to release our final project report, summarising our main findings.
In it, we explain how we developed the idea of the political ecologies of green-collar crime by integrating research from green criminology and political ecology. The report outlines our findings in relation to the original themes of the project: scientific uncertainty, legal loopholes, charisma, and consumption. Two theoretical developments arose during the project itself: first, we developed a harms-based approach for understanding the wider landscape of threats to European wildlife; and second, we explored the role of animal cultures in illegal wildlife trade.
We conducted in-depth interviews with 87 people, reviewed official documents, and engaged in participant observation at various events, including festivals, fairs and hunting exhibitions. We did fieldwork in the UK, Cyprus, Italy, Romania, Slovakia, Hungary, Bermuda and Belgium. The first several months of the project were affected by the COVID pandemic, which restricted travel and in-person activities and challenged us to develop online methods for part of the project.
We engaged with key stakeholders throughout the project’s life, including providing feedback on two EU legislative initiatives, attendance at the Convention of the Parties of CITES and CBD and meetings with TRAFFIC, Birdlife International, WWF-Slovakia and many others. We also produced a series of short films and policy briefs, which were distributed widely earlier this year. The report includes links to all our resources, including academic publications. You can read and download the report below.
The team continues working together, so keep a look out for upcoming papers, talks and more.
A small number of hard copies of the report are available – if you would like one please email r.v.duffy (AT) sheffield.ac.uk