Waging war to save the peace parks: A study of militarization of wildlife management

Recent decades have witnessed an increasing militarization of wildlife and biodiversity conservation. This trend has been most profound in African countries, where state agencies have responded to heavily armed poachers by providing rangers with more sophisticated and lethal weapons as well as more rigorous military training. The consequences of applying militarized forms of conservation measures have, however, rarely been evaluated in empirical research. The overall objective of this project is therefor to investigate how military style wildlife management affect the effectiveness and legitimacy of conservation efforts in southern Africa.