UDTR Global Rights of Nature Radar

Potential for informal guardianship in community-based wildlife crime prevention: Insights from Vietnam

Identification

Public canonical key

radar:r-30fd8d62400ffb24cb4e1a442728f9a1

Authors

Julie Viollaz · Jessica Bell Rizzolo · Barney Long · Cao Tien Trung · Josh Kempinski · Benjamin M. Rawson · Danielle Reynald · Hoang Xuan Quang · Nguyen Ngoc Hien · Cao Tien Dung · Hoang Thuong Huyen · Nguyen Thi Thuy Dung · Meredith L. Gore

Reported year

—

Reported language

Undetermined

Source type

publication

First detected

2026-11-13T08:39:25.686553+00:00

Last metadata observation

2026-11-13T08:39:25.686553+00:00

Last HTTP verification

Not checked

Documentary abstract — original language

<jats:p>The notion that indigenous people and local communities can effectively prevent conservation crime rests upon the assumption that they are informal guardians of natural resources. Although informal guardianship is a concept typically applied to “traditional” crimes, urban contexts, and the global North, it has great potential to be combined with formal guardianship (such as ranger patrols) to better protect wildlife, incentivize community participation in conservation, and address the limitations of formal enforcement in the global South. Proactive crime prevention is especially important for illegal snare hunting, a practice that has led to pernicious defaunation and which has proved difficult to control due to its broad scope. This paper uses interview data with community members in protected areas in Viet Nam where illegal snare hunting is commonplace to 1) analyze the conditions for informal guardianship in the study locations; 2) explore how community members can become more effective informal guardians; and 3) examine how formal and informal guardianship mechanisms can be linked to maximize deterrence and limit displacement of illegal snaring. Results indicate that conditions for informal guardianship exist but that respondent willingness to intervene depends upon the location, offender activity, and type of offender (outsider versus community member). While respondents generated numerous strategies for wildlife crime prevention, they also listed crime displacement mechanism offenders used to avoid detection. We discuss how informal guardianship can be integrated with formal guardianship into an overall model of situational crime prevention to protect wildlife and incentivize community-led deterrence of illegal snaring.</jats:p>

Identifiers

DOI

10.3897/natureconservation.48.81635

HANDLE

10072/414786

Documentary context

Documentary family

unknown

Source-reported types

publication

Publishers

Pensoft Publishers

Entity mentions are not evidence of legal recognition. Jurisdiction studied is separate from author affiliation country.

Sources

OpenAIRE · Record 1

• Document · https://doi.org/10.3897/natureconservation.48.81635

Documentary status

Relevance pending

Library

This identity is not yet included in the Legal Library.