A PARTICIPATORY PLACE NETWORK APPROACH TO CONSERVATION CRIME PREVENTION

Abstract

Conservation crime remains a persistent and escalating driver of global biodiversity loss, generating widespread ecological harm and compounding socio-economic risks. Despite decades of enforcement and intervention, prevention efforts often remain reactive, offender-centered, and constrained by limited spatial intelligence and heavy reliance on enforcement-generated data. This dissertation advances a proactive, place-based, and participatory approach to conservation crime prevention by integrating crime science with geoscience. Using wildlife poaching around Pù Mát National Park, Vietnam, as a case study, the research pursues three objectives: (1) identify neglected crime-associated places beyond crime sites; (2) characterize how these places form stage-specific place networks across the offense process; and (3) evaluate how the Place Network Investigation (PNI) model transfers to rural conservation contexts and how it can be refined. Chapter 1 establishes the theoretical and methodological foundation, introducing the integration of crime science and geoscience alongside the research design, study site contexts, and data collection process. Chapter 2 applies PNI-guided participatory mapping with communities and spatial analysis to surface “hidden” crime-associated places, especially convergent settings and corrupting spots, often extending beyond protected-area boundaries. Chapter 3 integrates crime scripting with spatial social network analysis to represent poaching as a staged, mobility-driven process structured by place-to-place movements. Chapter 4 evaluates PNI’s transfer to conservation crime, identifying key application challenges and proposing a refined framework that adds place sub-categories and new variables to enhance transferability and to enable further spatial and temporal analysis. This dissertation contributes (i) a conceptual reframing of conservation crime as a networked crime-facilitating places, (ii) a replicable participatory-spatial-network workflow for modeling conservation crime place network, and (iii) practical, place-based guidance for prioritizing intervention leverage points beyond hotspot-only approaches.