Deterrents and Drivers of Poaching in a Natural Resource Dependent Bahamian Community

The illegal harvesting of natural resources is a major threat to wildlife conservation globally, but poaching is a poorly understood phenomenon. The threat is perhaps most important to understand in biodiversity hotspots. We began addressing this need with a qualitative study of poaching in an isolated natural resource dependent community in the Bahamas. We interviewed 31 community members, with 6 follow up interviews. We found poaching sea turtles, fish, and shellfish was pervasive, habitual, and accepted. Justification for poaching centered on economic rationales (e.g., others are better off, no alternatives) and included three sub-themes: social injustice (e.g., neglect by central government, outsiders stealing the resource), community tradition (e.g., locals have always harvested resource without negative impacts), and a lack of credible law enforcement (e.g., too few officers, corrupt officers).  These results highlight the need for multi-pronged responses to poaching in rural natural resource dependent communities that provide education, credible law enforcement, and most important, viable livelihood alternatives for residents.