Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) are effective resource management and conservation measures, but their effectiveness is often hindered by non-compliant activities such as poaching. Better predicting poaching risk and spatial patterns is crucial for efficient law enforcement and to ensure MPAs are delivering the outcomes they were established for. Here, we predicted poaching risk from recreational fishers within fully protected MPAs of Australia's Great Barrier Reef Marine Park (GBRMP). Combining patrol effort data, observed distribution of reported incidents, and geographically-referenced predictor variables, we modeled the occurrence probability of poaching incidents using boosted regression trees and mapped poaching risk at fine-scale. Our findings (i) reinforce the key role of fishing attractiveness, accessibility and capacity in shaping the spatial patterns of illegal recreational fishing; (ii) identify key interactions among XXX and tipping points beyond which poaching is more likely to occur; and (iii) highlight gaps in patrol effort that could be filled for improved resource allocation. The methods developed through this study provide a novel approach to quantify the relative influence of multiple interacting factors in shaping poaching occurrence, and hold promises for replication across a broad range of marine or terrestrial settings.
The emergence of conservation criminology over the past decade provides a unique insight into patterns of wildlife crime. Wildlife crime has a dramatic impact on many vulnerable species and represents a significant challenge to the management of protected areas around the world. This paper contributes to the field of conservation criminology by examining the travel patterns of fishing poachers in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park in Australia. The results demonstrate that distance is a key feature of offender target selection, reflecting the established environmental criminology concept of distance decay. The analysis also reveals a significant relationship between individual no-take zones and regional population areas. The applicability of a nodal-oriented approach to wildlife crime prevention is discussed.
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