What is the evidence that counter-wildlife crime interventions are effective for conserving African, Asian and Latin American wildlife directly threatened by exploitation? a systematic map

Abstract

Counter-wildlife crime (CWC) interventions—those that directly protect target wildlife from illegal harvest/persecution, detect and sanction rule-breakers, and interdict and control illegal wildlife commodities—are widely applied to address biodiversity loss. This systematic map provides an overview of the literature on the effectiveness of CWC interventions for conserving African, Asian and Latin American wildlife directly threatened by exploitation, including human–wildlifeconflicts that trigger poaching.2. Following our systematic map protocol (Rytwinski, Öckerman, et al., 2021), we compiled peer-reviewed and grey literature and screened articles using pre-defined inclusion criteria. Included studies were coded for key variables of interest, from which we produced a searchable database, interactive map and structured heatmaps.3. A total of 530 studies from 477 articles were included in the systematic map. Most studies were from Africa and Asia (81% of studies) and focused on African and Asian elephants (16%), felids (14%) and turtles and tortoises (11%). Most evaluations of CWC interventions targeted wildlife products (rather than species) and the transfer of those products along the wildlife crime continuum (40% of cases). Population/species outcomes were most commonly measured via indica-tors of threat reduction (65% of cases) and intermediate outcomes (25%).