Beyond Biodiversity: Conservation as an Incubator for Justice Reform

Conservation organisations work in some of the most legally fragile environments in Africa, yet their potential to strengthen justice systems remains almost entirely overlooked. In global rule-of-law debates, conservation is treated as a niche sector—important for biodiversity and tourism, perhaps, but peripheral to the core business of improving justice. The opposite is true. Conservation landscapes often reveal what is working—and what is failing—inside a country’s criminal justice system more starkly than anywhere else.

Rangers face the same systemic shortcomings that affect the handling of human trafficking, sexual offences and organised crime. In many states with under-resourced justice systems, almost every case – no matter the crime – lands in the same courtroom before the same magistrates, handled by the same prosecutors. Specialisation is expensive and criminal justice is often the last sector to receive meaningful investment.

The consequences are visible on the ground. In one central African country, an organisation found itself feeding a poacher on remand because without support, he would have starved in custody. These daily realities give conservation actors an unusually clear view of how justice systems operate at their most fragile.

I often hear conservation NGOs say, “That’s not our work.” This misses a fundamental point. When rangers exercise powers of arrest, or manage crime scenes, they are not outside the justice sector—they are firmly within it. When they hand over a suspect to the police, their responsibility does not end at the door - especially when their operations rely heavily on donor support. The legal and reputational risk they carry may, if local mechanisms fail, play out in global north courtrooms before judges with little insight into the complexities on the ground.

Conservation teams are often embedded in places where the state is weakest. In many places, their personnel are the only face of authority around protected landscapes. Many operate with a logistical capacity and responsiveness that the courts and police cannot match. Many have developed trust with communities that national law enforcement has never tried to earn. Unlike donors with short project cycles, some conservation organisations remain in place for decades – giving them a continuity and influence that few justice sector actors possess.

This is a form of leverage that remains strikingly underused.

There is precedent for using a single crime type as the entry point for broader reform. Donor funding that began with a narrow focus has reshaped institutions far beyond its original scope. Wildlife crime support in Kenya, Uganda and Botswana led to policies that apply to all criminal offences. Sexual offence funding in Kenya introduced video interviews for vulnerable witnesses – protocols with wider application. Counter-terrorism support in Nigeria and Kenya produced procedural changes that can accelerate all complex trials.

Conservation could also play a catalytic role generating solutions that travel far beyond environmental crime. Yet the sector remains overlooked and often reluctant, frequently defaulting to the familiar ritual of training prosecutors and judges. To be candid, these sessions usually amount to having the best-educated people in the system paid to sit and read through laws that they are already responsible for applying. Well attended, but seldom transformative.

The consequences are clear to see for anyone who has spent time in these landscapes. In northern Kenya, police officers in a remote outpost hid under their desks during a raid because they had nothing to defend themselves with. In Botswana, a rural courtroom had to close at midday because the heat became unbearable and the air-conditioning had failed. In Malawi, prosecutors cannot access case law – or anything – online because of unreliable internet. These are not unusual stories for many jurisdictions.

Small, targeted support can make a disproportionate difference: building a proper armoury for a remote police post, erecting a witness-waiting area at a rural court, or fixing custody suites, toilets and desks in stations where almost nothing works. These modest improvements, creating a visible sense of order and professionalism, can potentially change behaviour more than training does—the justice sector’s own form of “broken windows.”

Used well, conservation landscapes can serve as incubators for justice reform — places where small improvements are tested, refined and ultimately scaled. Few sectors are better placed to demonstrate what practical, incremental justice strengthening can look like in the communities that need it most. By acknowledging this opportunity, conservation could become one of the most effective and enduring entry points for improving justice across entire systems.

The opportunity is enormous, long-term and hiding in plain sight. It deserves far greater attention.

About the author: Shamini Jayanathan OBE is an international lawyer specialising in criminal justice reform across Africa and Asia.