Poaching and the Illegal Wildlife Trade in Africa: Insights and Opportunities From an Interdisciplinary Criminological Research Approach

Abstract

This article considers the current state of research on poaching and the illegal wildlife trade in Africa, and specifically examines findings relevant to the sub-phenomena of bushmeat poaching in Central Africa and wildlife crime in Uganda. There is a particular focus on theoretically linking and integrating criminological research with and into other disciplines, an idea that green criminology and conservation criminology researchers have been championing for some time. Based on its findings, the paper expressly supports a greater focus on interdisciplinarity in this research field. Moreover, the paper suggests research in this area be conducted across even more disciplinary boundaries in order to comprehensively understand the effects of poaching, the illegal wildlife trade and subsequent countermeasures.