About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline

LOG IN
LOG IN


16 Erasmus L. Rev. 14 (2023)
Plant Blindness and the Law on International Trade in Wildlife

handle is hein.journals/erasmus16 and id is 16 raw text is: Plant Blindness and the Law on International Trade in Wildlife Tanya Wyatt &Alison Hutchinson* Abstract While habitat destruction threatens other-than-human life across the planet, overexploitation and illegal trade are the second leadingsource of threatstowildlife. 'Wildlife' though predominantly is taken to mean other-than-human animals, and plants are largely overlooked or ignored even though they are critical to human societies and the health of the planet. Adopting a green criminological analysis, this article provides evidence that legislation governing wildlife use and protection is speciesist and 'plant blind'. Through a content analysis of 185 countries' wildlife trade legislation, we find that not all legislation includes plants and that in some legis- lation different species of plants are regarded differently. This means that there are gaps in the framework of legal pro- tection for some plants, which can have real-world conse- quences. For instance, lack of protection can lead to reduced conservation for exploited plants, which in turn can increase the loss of biodiversity and further threaten ecosystem 14 health and planetary well-being. Legislative and societal plant blindness needs to be challenged and overturned to help stop the biodiversity crisis. Keywords: green criminology, plant blindness, speciesism, Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Spe- cies of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), environmental crime. 1 Introduction Overexploitation and illegal trade are threatening one million species of wildlife.' While the illegal trade in wildlife has become a global area of concern, for the most part 'wildlife' is taken to mean other-than-human animals. Even in critical criminological and social sci- ence scholarship highlighting the speciesist nature of efforts to combat wildlife trafficking, plants are usually not the focus of attention.2 In this article, we adopt a Tanya Wyatt was a Professor of Criminology at the Northumbria Univer- sity in Newcastle, United Kingdom. Alison Hutchinson is a Postdoctorate Researcher at the University of Sheffield, United Kingdom. 1 IPBES (Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services), IPBES Global Assessment Summary for Policymakers, www.ipbes.net/sites/default/files/downloads/summaryforpolicymakers_ ipbesglobalassessment.pdf (last visited 7 May 2019). 2 J. Marguiles, L. Bullough, A. Hinsley, D. Ingram, C. Cowell, B. Goettsch, B. Klitgard, A. Lavorgna, P. Sinovas &J. Phelps,' Illegal Wildlife Trade and the Persistence ofPlant Blindness,1 Plants, People, Planet 173, at 182(2019); Hutchinson, A., Stephens-Griffin, N. and Wyatt, T. (2022) Speciesism and the Wildlife Trade: Who gets Listed, Downlisted and Uplisted in CITES?', green criminological gaze to argue that this 'plant blind- ness'3 extends to national legislation transposing inter- national commitments supposedly designed to protect wildlife from overexploitation from trade. First, we out- line the green criminological gaze by discussing what speciesism and plant blindness are; this sets the scene for why such biases are important. Then, we detail the current conservation status of plants, including the na- ture and scope of the threats to plants from overex- ploitation and illegal trade. This is followed by an over- view of the global legal framework for trading plants and a discussion on the importance of plant visibility and inclusion in conservation and wildlife legislation. We then describe our methodology, which involves a content analysis of legislation implementing the Con- vention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), specifically analysing the legal definitions of wildlife. This approach establish- es how definitions for wildlife (including plants) are rec- ognised within national regulations transposing CITES, with the potential for plants to be recognised as protect- ed wildlife on the one hand, and alternately recognised as an exploitable resource on the other. Finally, we de- tail our findings as to whether plants are legally defined as wildlife. We conclude with a discussion of how plant blindness can be combatted and what this would mean for criminology and wildlife law. 1.1 Green Criminology, Speciesism and Plant Blindness Green criminology challenges many of the stances of the orthodox views of criminology and many criminal justice and legal systems, but relevant to this article is green criminology's advocacy that humans are not the only victims of environmental harm and crime.4 Society as a whole, particularly regarding humans' use of other beings, needs to reconsider its speciesist nature that only focuses on humans and sees other-than-human animals as resources.5 As White6 and others note, this is International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy, 11(2), pp. 191- 209. doi: 10.5204/ijcjsd.1945; T. Wyatt, Wildlife Trafficking: A Deconstruc- tion of the Crime, Victims and Offenders. Second Edition (2021). 3 J.H. Wandersee and E.E. Schussler,'Preventing Plant Blindness', 61(2) The American Biology Teacher 82 (1999). 4 See R.White, Transnational Environmental Crime: Toward an Eco-global Crim- inology (2011) and A. Nurse and T. Wyatt, Wildlife Criminology (2020) among others. 5 SeeR. Sollund, The Crimes ofWildlife Trafficking. Issues ofJustice, Legalityand Morality (2019) among others. 6 White, above n. 4. doi: 10.5553/ELR.000236 ELR 2023|1nr.1