Description
In this paper we further develop understandings of the role of the non -human in IR by focusing on the political ecologies of animals in order to challenge and disrupt debates on global environmental change. To date, animals have largely been absent in IR scholarship, though there have been recent attempts to rectify this via analyses that argue for a multispecies approaches (see Pereira and Renner, 2023; Fishel, 2023; Mitchell, 2024; Leep, 2023; Youatt, 2020). In this paper, we build on and move forward these debates by focusing on the journeys taken by songbirds along transnational ‘flyways’. These journeys are now becoming increasingly difficult as a result of habitat destruction, climate change and bird crime. The protection of flyways and the animals that rely on them require international co-operation, and one of the key environmental frameworks is the Convention on Migratory Species (CMS, or Bonn Convention). We examine how CMS addresses how the cultures of migratory songbirds shape the dynamics of wildlife crime during their journeys along the flyways.
