Taxonomy of Wilderness Problems

Wilderness problems are a set of issues that take place in remote areas where land and open water has specific protection levels and use rights. This taxonomy helps categorize wilderness problems into a set of more specific behaviors grouped by threat type.The taxonomy can be used during the scanning phase of SARA to make clear distinctions between similar or overlapping problems.

Click here for the web version of the taxonomy.

The Poaching Diaries (Vol. 1)

The Poaching Diaries: Crime Scripting for Wilderness Problems is an edited collection of contributions on wildlife crime prevention and wilderness problems. It is an outlet for practitioners, policy makers, and academics to tell stories that facilitate problem-solving. The aim is to present ideas that help governments and civil society diversify their approach to wildlife protection to achieve lasting impacts. The focus of Volume 1 is crime scripting, a useful process for unpacking problems and designing clever solutions. 

For an additional example of crime scripting for wilderness problems, see "Using Crime Scripting Analysis to Understand Wildlife Poaching in Vietnam" (Viollaz et al. 2021). In this study, crime scripting was used to tease out the different roles played by professional and subsistence hunters and the different opportunities they leveraged to illegally snare wildlife in Vietnam. The results of the crime script helped design a local suite of community-based crime prevention activities to reduce snaring.

Problem-Oriented Wildlife Protection

This guide explains how the ideas and principles of problem-oriented policing can be adapted to wildlife protection problems and explains how your organization could start a problem-oriented project of its own.

Bahasa Indonesia translation (Perlindungan Satwa Liar Berorientasi Pemecahan Masalah)

Bahasa Malaysia translation (Perlindungan Hidupan Liar Berorientasikan Masalah)

French translation (Protection de la Faune par Résolution de Problèmes)

Spanish translation (Protección de la vida silvestre orientada a la resolución de problemas)

Wilderness Problem Specific Guides

These guides are designed to help law enforcement agencies structure their thinking and analysis about specific wilderness problems by synthesizing the academic literature available on the topic and providing a framework for problem solving at the local level.

Wildlife Poaching on Federal Lands in the United States (Guide No. 1)

Illegal and Unsustainable Hunting of Wildlife for Bushmeat in Sub-Saharan Africa (Guide No. 2)

Forthcoming Resources

Problem-Solving in 60 Steps

Wildlife Crime Analysis for Problem Solvers in 60 Small Steps

This guide will introduce analysts how to think about local crime problems, synthesize information, and produce useful output to direct operations.

Wilderness Problem Simulation

Interactive Poaching Problem Analysis Module

This ‘game’ exposes wildlife protection organizations to the problem-solving approach using a hypothetical example of poaching in a protected area. Players receive an overview of the problem and then choose data sources to explore it in greater depth. After analyzing the problem, they design tailored solutions that go beyond traditional enforcement.