Arguably, researching the trade and trafficking of natural resources, such as wildlife crime, environmental crime, trafficking of natural commodities, unregulated and unreported fishing, factory farming, human–wildlife conflict, to name a few examples, involves all four areas of threat. ...research can be extremely emotionally taxing for both the researcher and research participants. ...it offers the researcher an opportunity to think through potentially “risky”, dangerous, harmful, and ethically compromising fieldwork situations, while reflecting on their own positionality and protection of themselves, research participants, and data. ...they are required to fill out risk assessments and complete specialized training for hostile environments. With increasing use of qualitative research methods within the wildlife trafficking research field, coupled with the growing importance of human–wildlife interactions exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, this disparity in ethical regulations needs imminent addressing. ...with the current emphasis on ‘decoloniality’, an ethical review process could ensure that parachute social science is avoided, and equity and sustainable collaboration between stakeholders are foregrounded in the research.