In acknowledgement that the largely (para)militarized approach to anti-poaching has its limitations, alternative approaches to conservation law enforcement are being sought. One alternative focuses on including people from local communities in anti-poaching, what we call inclusive anti-poaching. Using a case study of a community scout programme from southern Mozambique, located adjacent South Africa’s Kruger National Park, we examine the potential of a community scout initiative to move towards a more inclusive and sustainable approach to anti-poaching and conservation. While highlighting its challenges and potential drawbacks, we argue that including local people into conservation law enforcement efforts can help address poaching and problematic aspects of current anti-poaching measures. However, to be a genuine and sustainable alternative, community ranger programmes must be part of a broader shift towards developing local wildlife economies that benefits local communities as opposed to supporting pre-existing anti-poaching interventions.

The argument in this paper is not commonly made in the conservation literature. We argue that 'poaching' and 'illegal hunting' are inadequate concepts for understanding why local forms of hunting persist despite their being banned and criminalised. A 'poacher' 'poaches' because a set of institutionalised rules recognises and identifies him or her as such. Instead, we propose to use the concept 'local hunting' and 'local hunters'. We also argue that conservation policies and specifically the creation of environmental subjects, conservancy's distributional politics and a contrasting ontological foundation of community-based conservation play keys role in explaining the continuity of 'local hunting'. More space is needed to situate local hunters and their hunting practices and motivations in the broader conservation discourse and policies.

Media misinformation is an increasing concern in conservation; for example, climate change denial is particularly pervasive (Wong-Parodi & Feygina 2020). Here, we highlight simplistic and inaccurate coverage of trophy hunting (TH) in mainstream newspapers (print and online). This is particularly timely because the United Kingdom and the United States are considering laws to restrict or ban trophy imports and exports (DEFRA 2019; U.S. Congress 2019). The dominant media narrative is beguilingly simple: well-loved animals are on the brink of extinction, people pay to kill them, this is horrible, and stopping it will save species. This narrative provides a perfect media concoction: peril (implied extinction risk), emotion (repugnance at killing for fun), a villain, a victim, and an action (donate and petition). The clear message in most cov

This thesis is about community based natural resource management. This form of resource management is well known globally and locally through its acronym: CBNRM. It stands for the devolution from the state to local communities of rights to manage and reap the benefits from natural resources. One of CBNRM's objectives is to empower rural communities through providing material and non-material incentives for assuming management responsibility over natural and wildlife resources. CBNRM initiatives have been triggered globally by substantial losses in biodiversity and marginalisation of rural communities. Enduring poverty in communities residing in areas bordering protected areas and non-involvement in management, decision-making and access to benefits by these communities are often seen as causing biodiversity losses to occur (Agrawal and Gibson, 2001a; Agrawal, 2001a; Agrawal, 2002; Sachs et al., 2009). For many-e.g., academics, NGOpractitioners, rural people, as well as national and regional policymakers-CBNRM has evolved to become an important model for conservation and rural development (