The BIOSEC Final Report is out
26 August 2021
We are really pleased to release our Final Report, which provides brief summaries of our research findings, our outputs so far and information on how our work is continuing to develop. We are really pleased that the ERC approved it as a successful project:
“Your project was very successful and interesting, so it is great news that further funding could be obtained to continue the very important research. We are very pleased to hear that ERC has helped in developing careers of young researchers.I would like to congratulate you and your team for the results achieved with your project. In particular, the dissemination results is excellent with an impressive number of events organised and a clear attention to reach stakeholders and a wider audience.”
We are extremely grateful to our Advisory Board and to our BIOSEC fellows, their input and advice over 4 years was invaluable: Prof EJ Milner-Gulland, Prof Maano Ramutsindela, Sabri Zain, Dr Dilys Roe, Prof Bram Büscher, Dr Elizabeth Lunstrum, Prof Tor Benjaminsen, Prof Dan Brockington, Dr Elaine (Lan Yin) Hsiao, Dr Adeniyi Asiyanbi, Dr Brock Bersaglio, Dr Judith Verweijen and Dr Esther Marijnen.
Executive summary
The BIOSEC Project examined the integration of biodiversity conservation and security. It built on and further developed the field of political ecology by critically interrogating the ways in which illegal wildlife trade (IWT) has become increasingly framed as a security threat – as a wildlife crime perpetrated by organised crime and armed groups. Our research interrogated and challenged these assumptions by developing novel intellectual approaches centred on political ecology of security, geopolitical ecologies and post human ecologies. Crucially research by the BIOSEC Project cast light on the harms arising from framing IWT as a wildlife crime and as security issue for both people and wildlife; highlighted the importance of overlooked trades in European wildlife, placed the use of surveillance technology in its social context, and drew out the on-going legacies of colonialism and racism in some current conservation practices.
Please email Rosaleen Duffy r.v.duffy@sheffield.ac.uk if you would like a higher resolution PDF. Graphics on the report by the (as ever) brilliant team at Ink and Water in Sheffield.
Final report (PDF, 368KB)
