Wildlife and Social Conflicts Linked: Loss of Resources May Cause Unrest

Social conflicts don't just impact people, they also impact wildlife. Scientists have managed to draw links between wildlife loss and social conflicts, which may give conservationists a new problem to tackle in the future.

The harvest of wild animals directly supports about 15 percent of the world's population. It also provides protein for more than a billion of the world's poor. Therefore, it should be unsurprising that conflict and human tragedy may be impacted by declines in wildlife.

"Unsustainable human exploitation of wildlife populations does not have singular effects on ecological integrity, but rather has far-reaching consequences that lead to the instability of our health, livelihoods and national security," said Chris Golden, one of the researchers, in a news release.

The scientists found three examples in which declines could be linked to conflict. One of them included altered economic structure which led to exploitive labor practices. Wildlife declines can actually bring about the need for more labor to collect scarcer resources, which means that there could be trafficking of children and adults to undertake forced labor under abusive circumstances.

In addition, the scientists found that another issue was the first of profiteering groups that use violence to control wildlife resources. For example guerilla groups are drawn to huge profits gained through the trafficking of illicit wildlife items. The scientists also noted that vigilante resource management that escalates into conflict can also be caused by declining wildlife resources.

"Wildlife loss is widely viewed as a symptom of social unrest and injustice; we show with this work that it is often the source of these social outcomes," said Justin Brashares, one of the researchers. "As such, wildlife management should be a central element of efforts to mitigate conflicts as seemingly disparate as child slavery, ivory trafficking and piracy."

The findings are published in the journal Science.