Illegal Use of Natural Resources: Conflicts, Governance Settings and Policy Response

Abstract

Natural resources are threatened by an increasing expansion of illegal activities all over the globe. Illegal use of natural resources leads in most cases to violations of regulations, property rights, and social justice and might negatively affect sustainable development in the long run. At the same time, unauthorized or illegal activities are common and sometimes even socially accepted. Some of these illegal activities gained high public and political attention, e.g. hunting rhinos. In contrast, others are hardly acknowledged, e.g. illegal extraction of water or unauthorized sand exploitation, and have not received policy responses so far. This panel aims to provide an analysis of conflicts, governance settings and policy responses related to diverse forms of illegal use of natural resources, including for example illegal logging, illegal fishing, poaching, illegal mining or illegal use of water from a governance perspective. Based on the assumption that weak governance supports illegal activities the governance context of and policy responses to illegal natural resource activities are of particular interest for this panel. The panel considers illegal use of natural resources as neglected topic of environmental politics and welcomes both empirical and theoretical contributions. Presentations may take an international relations, public policy or environmental governance perspective covering diverse theoretical and conceptual schools of thoughts. Interest, institution or idea driven presentation will provide various analysis of conflicts about, policy responses to and governance settings of illegal natural resource activities. Case studies, case comparisons as well as empirical analysis on different scales will help to draw conclusions across sectors about causes and management of conflicts, the effect of governance settings as well as policy responses to illegal activities. Complementing the empirical perspective theoretical contributions, e.g. discussing the concept of illegality in comparison to crime, conflicts about ownership, land tenure and common goods, or reflecting on the role of international relations are invited to contribute. The panel is intended as a starting point for further discussions on illegal use of natural resources from an international relations, public policy as well as governance perspective heading for a common publication.

Title	Details
Social Capital, Leadership and the Resource Users’ Motivations to Engage in Community-Based Management to Address Illegal Fishing: A Case Study from the Spermonde Archipelago, Indonesia	View Paper Details
Governance Responses to Illegal Natural Resource Activities: Developing an Analytical Framework	View Paper Details
Governing Markets or Governing Crime? Explaining Variance in the Regulation of Global Illegal Markets and Trafficking Chains	View Paper Details
Illegal Use of Water: How to Investigate an Invisible Phenomenon	View Paper Details