Illegal wildlife trade is accelerating rates of biodiversity loss and undermining conservation. Crime scripting systematically details the crime commission process, informs prevention activities, and is usually based on experts’ perspectives. We conducted community-based crime scripting of pangolin scale trade in Cameroon, July–December 2024 in 22 communities in Cameroon ( n = 152 participants). Using NVivo 15.1.1 for analysis...

Qualitative approaches are increasingly applied in conservation social science, yet methodological reflection remains limited. Member checking, a process of returning findings to participants for feedback, is widely recognized outside conservation as a means to enhance rigor and reciprocity, but it is rarely reported in conservation research. This paper assesses and reflects on the implementation of member checking within a pa...

Human–wildlife conflict is a pressing worldwide issue with consequences that are experienced differently across groups of people. Societal expectations and gender norms ensure that the consequences of these conflicts have nuanced, gender-dependent implications. We conducted a systematic literature review on human–wildlife conflict to synthesize gendered costs. We examined six cost types: economic, physical, psychological, soci...

Conservation crime is a globally distributed societal problem. Conservation crime science, an emerging interdisciplinary field, has the potential to help address this problem. However, its utility depends on serious reflection on the transposition of crime science approaches to conservation contexts, which may differ in meaningful ways from traditional crime contexts. We considered the breadth of crime science approaches being...

Poaching can contribute to the failure of biodiversity conservation efforts and inflict diverse harms on human livelihoods. We applied crime script analysis to the case of snare poaching—an illegal hunting activity—in three Vietnamese protected areas. Our goal was to enhance the understanding about the opportunity structure underlying snare poaching to advance the suite of community-based crime prevention activities. We analyz...

Global demand for elephant ivory is contributing to illegal poaching and significant decline of African elephant (Loxondonta africana) populations. To help mitigate decline, countries with legal domestic ivory markets were recommended by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora to close domestic markets for commercial trade. However, implementing stricter regulations on wildlife trade...

Despite increasing support for conservation globally, controversy over specific conservation policies persists among diverse stakeholders. Investigating the links between morals in relation to conservation can help increase understanding about why humans support or oppose policy, especially related to human–wildlife conflict or human conflict over wildlife. Yet the moral dimension of human–wildlife conflict has mostly gone unc...

Poaching can disrupt wildlife‐management efforts in community‐based natural resource management systems. Monitoring, estimating, and acquiring data on poaching is difficult. We used local‐stakeholder knowledge and poaching records to rank and map the risk of poaching incidents in 2 areas where natural resources are managed by community members in Caprivi, Namibia. We mapped local stakeholder perceptions of the risk of poaching...

Investigation of the social framing of human–shark interactions may provide useful strategies for integrating social, biological, and ecological knowledge into national and international policy discussions about shark conservation. One way to investigate social opinion and forces related to sharks and their conservation is through the media's coverage of sharks. We conducted a content analysis of 300 shark‐related articles pub...