In this episode Michael speaks with Duan Biggs, Associate Professor and Olajos Goslow Chair at Northern Arizona University. They discuss Duan’s extensive work and engagement in management and global policy in the governance of wildlife trade, and in a community and rights-based response to the Illegal Wildlife Trade. Based on his extensive experience, Duan describes how managing wildlife trade, and tackling illegal trade towards sustainable conservation outcomes requires alignment with the late Nobel Laureate Lin Ostrom’s principles of good sustainable governance. The principles of those affected by policies and rules needing to be key participants in their formulation and fair and legitimate distribution of costs and benefits from policies being particularly important. Duan highlights that legitimate and strong enforcement is key ingredient in managing wildlife trade and curbing illegal wildlife trade, but needs to be accompanied by strong deeply participatory governance systems. In this episode we also discuss how the governance challenges in the Convention of Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), are echoed in other domains of global governance and the backlash and political and governance challenges in the US.

Resources and references:

Duan Biggs’ Lab website: https://www.resilientconservation.org/