This is a legacy site from a policy research project on wildlife conservation, but I wanted to draw attention to four theses that I supervised on related topics: Brittany Horton – An Analysis of the Impacts of China’s Belt and Road Initiative on African Pangolin Conservation Leo Carter – Reducing… read more
Legacy Global Wildlife Conservation Site
This is a website with blog posts carried out by graduate students at the University of Texas, LBJ School of Public Affairs, for a year long course on Global Wildlife Conservation from 2014-2015. The sponsor was the Congressional Research Service (CRS). We wrote six papers for CRS on a range… read more
The Trans-Pacific Partnership and Wildlife Trafficking
As President Obama has been pitching the Trans-Pacific Partnership to voters and elected officials, he has meet fierce resistance from some of his fellow Democrats. The trade deal, still in the process of being negotiated, involves at present 12 Asian countries and is meant to facilitate freer trade among them.… read more
We need a single international accreditation system for ecotourism operators
In the world of sustainability, the concept of accreditation or certification for “green,” “just,” or otherwise “sustainable” products is often applied in markets for which it is believed that some consumers would pay a premium for the “more responsible” product. Examples are easy to find. Here are a few. Ecotourism… read more
To Be or Not to Be: The ‘De-Extinction’ Debate
I’ll confess that, before this class, I wasn’t uniquely concerned about the illegal wildlife trade or the plight of endangered animals. As I researched the issue, however, the sheer gravity of the issue finally occurred to me. Particularly distressing for me was the prospect of species extinction—that my children may… read more
Shoot-to-Kill Policy: Injustice in the Name of Conservation
“Is it ever OK to defend a policy that can mean the loss of human life in order to protect wildlife?” Save the Rhino International poses this question in an informational piece on shoot-to-kill (S2K) policies, defined as a ranger’s right to fire back at poachers even if doing so… read more
The US Fish and Wildlife Service’s Global Focus
Recently, isolationist international policies have gained traction in the US Congress as more Tea Party candidates have been elected. Rand Paul, while stating again and again that he is not an isolationist has voted against international funding. But why does wildlife funding stay part of the US Budget? The simple answer… read more
The Noah’s Ark Problem
The biblical tale of Noah’s Ark is a familiar one: God saves Noah, his family, and many pairs of animals from a flood that drowns the rest of the Earth. Now let us use this story as a metaphor for species conservation efforts in the United States. Noah (the United… read more
Capacity Problems: Can the United States Handle Wildlife Trafficking on its Own Soil?
In 2011, U.S. federal agents seized 425 pieces of illegal ivory from a store in Philadelphia. The store owner, Victor Gordon, had been buying and selling illegal ivory in the United States for over 10 years. According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, this kind of story is not… read more
Through the eyes of a gorilla
Last week, the New York Times editorial department published this short film, ‘Gorillas in the Crossfire’ about efforts to save orphaned mountain gorillas in Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. This film, by Olando von Einsiedel, accompanies a feature-length film called Virunga, also by von Einsiedel, which has… read more