An international scoping review of rangers' precarious employment conditions

Michelle Anagnostou; Virginia Gunn; Oriona Nibbs; Carles Muntaner; Brent Doberstein

doi:10.1007/s10669-022-09845-3

An international scoping review of rangers' precarious employment conditions

Environ Syst Decis. 2022;42(4):479-503. doi: 10.1007/s10669-022-09845-3. Epub 2022 Feb 1.

Authors

Michelle Anagnostou¹, Virginia Gunn^{2

3

4}, Oriona Nibbs⁵, Carles Muntaner^{4

6}, Brent Doberstein⁷

Affiliations

¹ Geography and Environmental Management, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON Canada.
² MAP Centre for Urban Health Solutions, Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute, Unity Health Toronto, Toronto, ON Canada.
³ Unit of Occupational Medicine, The Institute of Environmental Medicine, Karolinska Institute, Stockholm Region, Sweden.
⁴ Lawrence S. Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON Canada.
⁵ Environment, Resources and Sustainability, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON Canada.
⁶ Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON Canada.
⁷ Geography & Environmental Management, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON Canada.

Abstract

Protecting wildlife and other natural resources requires engaging and empowering local communities, ensuring compliance with rules, and ongoing monitoring and research. At the frontline of these efforts are rangers. Despite their critical role in maintaining the integrity of parks and protected areas, rangers across the world are exposed to precarious employment conditions and hazardous work environments. We conducted an international scoping review to understand which employment and working conditions are examined in the context of the ranger occupation and to assess whether the concept of precarious employment is used in the conservation, criminological, and environmental sustainability literature on rangers. We reviewed publications from Web of Knowledge, Scopus, ProQuest, and Medline, and grey literature for relevant English language articles published between 2000 and 2021. Our findings are based on the analysis of 98 included studies. We found that the most commonly discussed aspect of rangers' employment and working conditions was the hazardous social and physical work environment, although this was often accompanied by severe income inadequacy, employment insecurity, and a lack of social security, regulatory support, and workplace rights. Such employment and working conditions can cause adverse impacts on rangers' mental and physical health, well-being, and safety, and are also detrimental to their ability to adequately protect biodiversity. We conclude by outlining the need for sustainable solutions and additional research based on established conceptualizations of the precarious employment concept and other related concepts. Lastly, we suggest that governments should acknowledge the importance of rangers through their recognition as essential workers and provide greater support to improve their employment conditions.

Supplementary information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10669-022-09845-3.

Keywords: Conservation officer; Decent work; Job quality; Occupational health; Protected areas; Sustainable development.

Publication types

Review