Nature Crime: Understanding and Tackling a Key Threat to the Climate and Land Use Agenda

By Charles Victor Barber, Karen Winfield, and Rachael Petersen 

Nature crime1 occurs when individuals or criminal networks illegally exploit natural ecosystems to extract natural resources. Nature crimes include illegal logging, illegal mining, illegal fishing, illegal wildlife trade,2 and the illegal conversion of forests and wetlands for agriculture or other uses. These crimes are often associated with financial crime of various types, as well as labor and human violations and official corruption. The prevalence of nature crime and associated corruption and criminal behavior constitutes a serious barrier to progress in tackling climate change, slowing biodiversity loss, reducing the risk of future zoonotic pandemics, and achieving sustainable, peaceful, and equitable human development. The scale of the nature crime economy is immense. It is variably estimated to be the third- or fourth-largest illicit economy in the world (after drug trafficking and trade in counterfeit goods) with an annual value of as much as $281 billion, but this figure underestimates its indirect impacts: governments are deprived annually of some $7-12 billion in timber and fisheries revenues, while the indirect costs of undermining ecosystem services may be as high as $1-2 trillion per year (World Bank 2019a).  

San Francisco: Climate and Forests 2030, 2021. 30p.