Criminal justice, wildlife conservation and animal rights in the Anthropocene [CRIMEANTROP].

CRIMEANTHROP has explored regulation, the rationale behind and management of wild animals, the normative and legal sociological signals that enforcement sends and their implications for species conservation and the protection of wild animals' intrinsic value and welfare. This has been explored from interdisciplinary theoretical and empirical perspectives that have contributed to developing green criminology. Stefes has covered Germany, Fajardo del Castillo has covered Spain, Wyatt has covered the UK, and Sollund and Lie have covered Norway. Goyes has examined the philosophical basis for the two nature conventions that are central to the project, CITES and the Bern Convention and has interviewed stake holders in Norway. CITES regulates trade in endangered species of fauna and flora and the Bern Convention, the Council of Europe's convention, protects European species of wild animals and plants and their habitats. Norway has been the main case with Great Britain, Germany and Spain as supporting case studies. The project has used triangulation of qualitative methods, including interviews with key informants in control bodies, in politics and voluntary organisations, in addition to text analysis of conventions, legislation and judgments. All the countries in the study are parties to the conventions, but the effectiveness of enforcement varies. In Norway, Sollund's study shows that the implementation and enforcement of CITES are deficient and given little priority. There is little training in CITES, and the prioritization of the cases depends on the interest and knowledge of the police and prosecuting attorneys. Knowledge of the field is also lacking in the courts. The enforcement is paradoxical: It has been the practice to euthanize animals of endangered species that are seized. The legalization of 19 reptile species in 2017 has led to a parallel legal and illegal market. This is more difficult to monitor than a general ban, and has made enforcement of CITES more difficult. Lie's study shows that there are three types of illegal predator killings that have been identified in judgments, which can be defined as organized hunting, as well as killings that are claimed to be in an emergency, and "accidental killings". There are similarities between these crimes and legal predator killings in terms of actors, targets and methods. Both legal and illegal killing of predators causes great harm to the animals and threatens the survival of the species. In Germany, CITES is implemented and enforced differently from state to state. The country's federal structure prevents the fulfillment of the obligations arising from the conventions, according to Stefes' study. The decentralization of enforcement gives proximity to the crimes, but gives enforcement bodies a lack of experience and expertise in matters dealing with trade in, and crime against, endangered species, and therefore lax enforcement. Germany is a major recipient country for trade in endangered animal species, but with little insight into the extent of illegal trade. In Spain, Fajardo's study shows that the growing trade in endangered animal species has led to an action plan, TIFIES, which follows up the EU's action plan against illegal wildlife trade. This has improved the regulations, prevention, public information, and transnational cooperation with sending and transit countries. Spain's strategy includes structured cooperation between different agencies and countries to rescue the live animals involved in the trade, to return or relocate them. In Spain, the wolf has been protected throughout the country, but there are ongoing legal proceedings to challenge the protection. In Great Britain, Wyatt's study shows that the complexity of the implementation of the conventions results in limited knowledge of the Bern Convention, but a lot of knowledge of CITES. As in Norway, UK is more concerned with protecting wild animals (and nature) in other countries than in protecting its own. There have been extensive mass killings of badgers in planned actions that violate the Bern Convention, in the same way that Norway hunts wolves, wolverines and lynx annually to keep the species below the Storting's population target, at a critically endangered level. According to Goyes' study, the conventions do not fulfill the expectations and their mandate, because they are based on economic and anthropocentric interests. The messages conveyed by the implementation and enforcement of the conventions are ambiguous; they fail to teach people to protect endangered species, and they fail to protect animals both individually and at the species level. At the same time as the Bern Convention has led to the re-establishment of wolves in Europe, the EU's proposal to reduce the wolf's protection may entail further threats to the species. The project confirms that the conventions have great symbolic value, but are less effective when it comes to offer wild animals genuine protection.

CRIMEANTHROP har hatt stor betydning for forskerteamet. Alle har utviklet sin kompetanse hva angår internasjonale miljøkonvensjoners gjennomføring og effekt gjennom datainnhenting og kompetanseutvikling på feltet. Prosjektet har gitt en post.doc., David R. Goyes, anledning til faglig utvikling som vil ha stor karrieremessig betydning, samt at det vil gi Martine S.B. Lie en doktorgrad, og mulighet for videre akademisk karriere. Professor Stefes har opparbeidet stor interesse for feltet, og er i dialog med Sollund engasjert i en oppfølging av CRIMEANTHROP for å utvikle nye prosjekter. Professor Wyatt har bygget på erfaringen fra prosjektet og er nå ledende forsker på miljøfeltet i UNODC. Professor Fajardo del Castillo har i tillegg til resultatene som er publisert fra prosjektet videreutviklet sin spisskompetanse på CITES og Bern-konvensjonen. Forskningen har gitt ny kunnskap om hva som hemmer og fremmer implementeringen og håndhevelsen av CITES og Bernkonvensjonen i fire land. Forskningen viser at internasjonale konvensjoner er iverksatt på måter som gir landene stort rom for selv å bestemme hvordan de skal håndheves. Dette kan føre til at konvensjonene i realiteten gir ville dyr mindre beskyttelse enn det konvensjonenes mandat tilsier, og kan ha en tilslørende symboleffekt som motvirker deres hensikt. Konvensjonene kan slik gi et generelt inntrykk av at ville dyr har en beskyttelse de i realiteten ikke har, og bidra til å gi land som er tilsluttet konvensjonene et bedre rykte enn de fortjener hva angår slik beskyttelse. Forskningen har videre bidratt til å identifisere hvilke faktorer som vanskeliggjør håndhevelsen av konvensjonene i de forskjellige landene, som manglende erfaring og kunnskap og manglende prioritering og strukturert samarbeid mellom de forskjellige aktører involvert i implementering og håndhevelse. Gjennom publiseringen av forskningens resultater, både akademisk og populærvitenskapelig, samt gjennom publikumsrettede konferanser og mediedeltakelse, har vi bidratt til at resultater av forskningen har nådd både det allmenne publikum og de aktørene som selv er involvert i håndhevelsen av konvensjonene, som politi, toll, grenseveterinærer og miljømyndigheter. Gjennom forskningsmetodene som er valgt, bl.a. dybdeintervjuer, har vi også bidratt med å skape engasjement hos dem vi har intervjuet, i de forskjellige organisasjonene som er involvert, som i sin tur kan forbedre håndhevelsen av konvensjonene. Hvorvidt de håndhevende myndigheter og politikerne i de forskjellige landene som er involvert i studien vil la resultatene lede seg til å gi sterkere prioritet til beskyttelse av truede dyrearter, er for tidlig å si noe om, men prosjektet har gitt et godt kunnskapsgrunnlag for en slik endring. I forbindelse med prosjektet har prosjektleder vært involvert i en klage til sekretariatet for Bern-konvensjonen som kan få betydning for beskyttelsen av ulv gjennom konvensjonen, og forskningen har dermed også hatt et aksjonsforskningspreg.

CRIMEANTROP will explore the regulation, rationale behind and enforcement of wildlife conservation, the normative and socio-legal messages of this enforcement, and their implications for wildlife conservation and individual animal welfare. This will be explored from interdisciplinary grounded theoretical and methodological angles, stemming from and further contribute towards, developing an innovative and emergent strand of international criminology; green criminology. These approaches will jointly enable us to present a comprehensive analysis of contemporary wildlife management, human-animal relations and animal rights. To this end, policies and regulations of CITES and the Bern Convention and their impact concerning wildlife trade and human management of endangered predator species will be examined in four countries with different, local, and socio-legal conditions: Norway, as primary site of investigation, with UK, Germany and Spain as supporting case studies. Qualitative methodologies; interviews with politicians and bureaucrats, law enforcement agencies and NGOs (e.g. WWF, IFAW) will be employed in each case country. CITES and the Bern Convention, national preparatory works, legislation and case law will be subject to discourse analysis. We will empirically and theoretically explore the implementation of CITES and the Bern Convention in the four locations, building on and expanding green criminology scholarship through interdisciplinary approaches from law, political science, criminology, and philosophy. If the implications of CRIMEANTROP's hypotheses prove true; that the messages conveyed by the conventions are ambiguous; failing to educate about and protect endangered species; and that individual and species protection is insufficiently integrated into member states' conservation approaches resulting in continued exploitation and abuse, then endangered wildlife and species survival are further threatened; the anthropogenic species extinction strengthened.