By Billy Kyte | Giulia Roncon

With the aim to support individuals in building resilient communities working to prevent, counter, and limit the damage of environmental crime, this handbook documents the challenges faced by defenders working in the environmental crime field and provides guidance to support their resilience.

The first section of the handbook analyzes definitional understandings of environmental crime and explores the impacts and harms it can perpetuate. The second section assesses the risks and challenges commonly faced by environmental defenders, including an assessment of their needs, and explores emergent regional issues that may play a part in such vulnerabilities. The final section presents a repository of best practices and tools that can help stakeholders to access available resources and to mitigate the potential risks they face.

The handbook draws from consultations involving nearly 100 prominent figures from civil society and media across Africa and Asia. Whilst findings are therefore geographically specific to some extent, our work confirms that the challenges experienced by environmental defenders in these regions were replicated globally as well. Although each country and regional context is different, the handbook outlines strategies that could be broadly implemented to support the community of stakeholders dedicated to tackling environmental crime worldwide.

Geneva, SWIT: Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC). 2023.

By Institute For Economics & Peace

From the document: "The Ecological Threat Report (ETR) is a comprehensive, data-driven analysis covering 3,594 sub-national areas across 221 countries and territories. It covers 99.99 per cent of the world's population and assesses threats relating to food insecurity, water risk, demographic pressures, and natural disasters. This report identifies countries that have the highest risk, both now and in the future, of suffering from major disasters due to the ecological threats they face, the lack of societal resilience, and other factors. These countries are also the most likely to suffer from conflict. The 2023 ETR aims to provide an impartial, data-driven foundation for the debate about ecological threats facing countries and sub-national areas and to inform the design of resilience-building policies and contingency plans."

Institute For Economics & Peace . 2023. 77p.

Genevieve Kotarska and Lauren Young

This paper explores the environmental and human security risks associated with critical mineral extraction, how rising demand for critical minerals in the context of the net zero transition will impact these risks, and what options exist for the UK to address these risks.

Critical minerals are broadly defined as minerals that are of vital importance for technology, the economy and national security and are also subject to serious risks relating to the security of their supply. This paper uses the term ‘critical minerals’ broadly, focusing on minerals considered to be of high criticality to the UK in particular. It recognises that this is not a fixed list, and that a country’s specific assessment will affect whether a mineral is considered critical.

A dramatically increased supply of these minerals will be vital for the net zero transition – both in the UK and internationally – and to meet the target to limit global temperature rise to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, set at the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Paris Conference in 2015.

Yet the extraction of critical minerals poses various environmental and human security risks, many of which pose a threat to the net zero transition, in the UK and globally. This paper explores the environmental and human security risks associated with critical mineral extraction, how rising demand for critical minerals in the context of the net zero transition will impact these risks, and what options exist for the UK to address these risks. It identifies key environmental risks as including the potential for critical mineral extraction to contribute to deforestation, pollution, soil degradation, water scarcity and biodiversity loss. In relation to human security, key risks identified include the potential for critical mineral extraction to contribute to human rights abuses, labour exploitation, crime, conflict and corruption. Where mining takes place on or near Indigenous lands, both environmental and human security risks are found to disproportionately affect already-disenfranchised communities.

While a number of these risks are well established, there is a potential for burgeoning demand for critical minerals to accelerate potential harms. Such harms can occur in situations where rising demand pushes governments to remove or overlook relevant regulations; where new extractive operations open up in countries without mining histories, which lack the infrastructure or capacity to manage the associated risks; where harmful boom–bust cycles of extractive activity occur due to ongoing technological advances; and where a race to secure supplies of critical minerals exacerbates competition and geopolitical tensions.

If the mining sector fails to address these risks as demand booms, public opinion across source and supply countries might turn against the net zero transition as the harms are perceived to outweigh the benefits. It is crucial that the UK leverages its unique position as an international trade, financial and mining hub to help the international community mitigate the risks posed in this regard.

Based on the findings of this research, the authors suggest the following ways forward for consideration by the UK government, many of which are also applicable to other governments in the Global North:

• Use its role as a mining and financial hub to improve regulation, standards and transparency in relation to investment in critical minerals based on key environmental priorities, for example, through the application of the Taskforce on Nature-Related Financial Disclosures, Science-Based Targets for Nature, Global Reporting Initiative and other similar initiatives, thereby supporting integration of high-quality targeted frameworks into this burgeoning sub-sector. This will reward and enhance uptake of best practice by businesses and support regulation in producer countries globally.

• Develop an updated industrial strategy on critical mineral use specifically, to support the strategic acquisition and use of critical minerals and facilitate prioritisation across key industries should a shortage of critical minerals occur. This should be used alongside the UK’s Critical Minerals Strategy to ensure that critical minerals are used strategically, particularly in the face of fluctuations in supply.

• Given the criticality of the net zero transition and the minerals it requires, review domestic policies to maximise recovery of critical minerals that are already in consumer supply chains, in the form of waste. This would broaden opportunities for critical mineral sourcing aside from extraction via new mines. This should include prioritising the upscaling of the UK’s recycling capacity to facilitate the reuse of critical minerals, mindful of the fact that while recycling alone cannot meet demand for critical minerals, estimates suggest that recycling could meet 10% of global demand, while bringing jobs to the UK in support of the ‘levelling up’ agenda.

• Work with manufacturers on extended producer responsibility, right to repair and design-to-recycle best practice to move towards a circular economy and ensure that critical minerals are reused and recycled wherever possible, thereby reducing demand. This will help to reduce wastage of critical minerals and decrease pressure on supply chains.

• Support improved consumer requirements for standards around the production of critical minerals. An example of this can be seen in the case of the 2023 EU Regulation on Deforestation-Free Products, which could be adapted for the critical mineral sector in the UK and more widely across the Global North.

• Support governments in source countries to develop the infrastructure and capability to manage mining-related risks. This could involve providing development assistance to build capacity to apply regulation and best practice, while supporting initiatives that mainstream biodiversity, conservation and social justice into regulation. Such regulation should improve the development and practice of the mining sector in producer countries, in collaboration with other actors working in this area, such as relevant aid agencies and multilateral development banks.

• Consider how to integrate innovative concepts and proposals that call for a paradigm shift in our approach to economic activity, human wellbeing and the natural world. This can be achieved through an approach which prioritises the pursuit of human and ecological wellbeing over material growth, and has the potential to help us better assess, understand and mitigate the environmental and social harms associated with the mining sector and other sectors dependent on natural resources

London: Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies -RUSI, 2023. 49p.

By Joel Salvador Herrera and , Cesar B. Martinez-Alvarez

A growing body of evidence suggests that criminal organizations across the Global South actively exploit natural resources in the communities where they operate with important sociopolitical consequences. In this article, we investigate the case of Mexico where the incursion of criminal groups into the mining and export-agricultural sectors impacts violence at the local level. We propose two mechanisms that explain why criminal groups diversify. First, the war-profit motive suggests that competition and state repression prompt criminal organizations to look for non-traditional sources of incomes and to build up their violence-making capacities. Second, the governance motive suggests that extracting rents from key industries represents a strategy for these organizations to establish territorial control in local communities. Using homicide data from 2007 to 2011, we demonstrate that access to primary sector revenues is associated with higher levels of violence among Mexican municipalities. Using qualitative evidence from Michoacán, we show how the introduction of criminal governance systems to rural areas was a key factor in explaining why criminal groups diversified toward mining and export-agriculture.

World Development. Volume 151, March 2022, 105769

By Michelle Anagnostou

The intensified illegal trade of wildlife has contributed to the unsustainable decline of wildlife populations, the destabilization of ecosystems, and threatens economic development and human security. Though often lacking empirical evidence, convergence theory has emerged recently as a topic of interest among researchers, practitioners, and the media to explain the growing overlap of criminal activities in an increasingly globalized world. In this paper, I explain the interdisciplinary theoretical foundations for the interconnectivity of criminal networks, including connections between illegal wildlife trade networks and non-state armed groups. I also outline and discuss various perspectives on the convergence of the illegal wildlife trade with other organized crime activities. I conclude by highlighting the urgent need for a better understanding of the role of the organized criminal groups involved in the illegal wildlife trade, and of how these groups converge with other types of criminal activities. The policy implications of filling in this knowledge gap are twofold: firstly, understanding how criminal networks converge can facilitate the implementation of more effective law enforcement and investigations that target high-profile offenders, as opposed to focusing on low-level poachers; and secondly, this understanding can foster more cooperation across agencies and jurisdictions to address multiple crime types and crime in convergence settings

Environmental Challenges. Volume 5, December 2021, 100222

By Nancy Frank

FROM CHAPTER 1: “OVER THE LAST ten to fifteen years, a number of tragic episodes have elevated public consciousness of crimes against health and safety. The Love Canal disaster, in which an entire neighborhood had to be permanently evacuated because it had been built on an abandoned chemical dump, became only a prelude to a growing awareness of hazardous waste disposal problems. In the Pinto case the Ford Motor Company was indicted on charges of reckless homicide for selling the Pinto even though the company allegedly was aware that the car had a tendency to explode when involved in rear-end collisions. The accident at Three Mile Island, in which a nuclear reactor started to melt down before technicians were able to bring it under control, dramatically illustrated the risks that are created and managed by profit-seeking firms.”

NY. Harrow and Heston. 1985. 112p.

By R. Nishino and T. Kitade  

 TRAFFIC conducted online surveys to track changes after voluntary ivory bans were introduced from November 2019 on Yahoo Shopping and Yahoo Auction, Japan’s largest platforms for online ivory trade, following similar voluntary bans already implemented by Rakuten-Ichiba, Rakuma and Mercari. The trading practices of a major auction house, Mainchi Auction, and trends in illegal ivory exports were also examined to understand better the domestic ivory market in Japan. The COVID-19 pandemic has made it difficult to assess physical markets. RESULTS: Effective measures by companies The number of shops selling ivory on Yahoo Shopping and Rakuten-Ichiba as B2C (business to consumer) trade and the volume of ivory trade on Yahoo Auction, a mixture of B2C and C2C (consumer to consumer) trade, have reduced by almost 100% and more than 99%, respectively as a result of the platform-wide voluntary ivory ban. There was no observable shift in either B2C or C2C trade to other platforms after the introduction of the ivory ban on Yahoo’s platforms. Monitoring of ivory bans by companies such as Mercari and Rakuma was seen to have been effective 

TRAFFIC, Japan Office, Tokyo, Japan., 2020. 30p.

By Ban Animal Trading and EMS Foundation

The international trade in the majority of reptiles, amphibians and arachnids is mostly unregulated, often unlawful and a growing industry in South Africa. Data on the trade in these species is unreliable and insufficient, because most countries do not keep records or compile data unless the species is listed on the CITES Appendices. Even then the data is incomplete. One reason for this is that, unlike so-called charismatic species such as lions, elephants, tigers and primates―perceived to have higher intrinsic value―reptiles, including species such as snakes, lizards, turtles, tortoises, alligators and crocodiles are, in terms of public perception, and often because of the negative stereotypes attached to them, considered less desirable creatures, lack the charismatic appeal of anthropomorphic species and consequently they are afforded less attention.

South Africa: Ban Animal Trade and EMS Foundation, 2020. 94p.

Edited by Willem van Schendel and Itty Abraham

Illicit Flows and Criminal Things offers a new perspective on illegal transnational linkages, international relations, and the transnational. The contributors argue for a nuanced approach that recognizes the difference between "organized" crime and the thousands of illicit acts that take place across national borders every day. They distinguish between the illegal (prohibited by law) and the illicit (socially perceived as unacceptable), which are historically changeable and contested. Detailed case studies of arms smuggling, illegal transnational migration, the global diamond trade, borderland practices, and the transnational consumption of drugs take us to Asia, Africa, Latin America, Europe, and North America. They allow us to understand how states, borders, and the language of law enforcement produce criminality, and how people and goods which are labeled "illegal" move across regulatory spaces.

Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2006. 281p.

Edited by Martin A Andresen, Paul J. Brantingham and J. Bryan Kinney

A careful analysis of environmental factors is key to understanding the causes of crime, to solving crimes, and eventually helping to predict and prevent them. Classics in Environmental Criminology is a comprehensive collection of seminal pieces from legendary contributors who focus on the role that the immediate environment plays in the occurrence of a crime.

Boca Raton : Taylor & Francis/CRC Press, 2010. 552p.

By Elizabeth Burke Voorhees

The purpose of this study was to identify core competencies for supervisory-level security management professionals working in the sports and entertainment industry. Qualified and trained sport and event security-management professionals are essential to support the U.S. homeland security objectives outlined in Presidential Policy Directive21. Providing effective safety and security for sports and entertainment events requires specialized knowledge and skill on the behalf of security-management practitioners who detect, deter, prevent, and respond to potential risks and threats. This qualitative research study employed a Delphi research design to elicit expertise from a purposefully selected panel of experts (N = 36). The expert panel suggested a list of competencies in Delphi round one and rated each competency statement based on level of importance and frequency using a 5-point Likert scale. The expert panel produced 136 core competencies in seven clusters: Risk Management, Emergency Planning, Problem Solving and Decision Making, Leadership, Communication, Building Collaborative Relationships, and Human Resource Management. Twenty-nine panelists successfully completed all three rounds of the Delphi study yielding a 93.5% response rate. Sport and event security management professionals and industry stakeholders can use the validated list of competencies to develop human capital and improve performance though the strategic application of human resource management,

Hattiesburg, MS: University of Southern Mississippi, 2010. 247p.

By Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA)

The coronavirus pandemic of 2020 saw the world come to a virtual standstill, with global lockdowns disrupting or halting transport and trade routes and travel. The hopes that illegal wildlife trade activities would also be disrupted or halted were largely misplaced – as millions of people worldwide adapted and started working from home, so too did the traffickers. Over the past decade, we have seen a shift of focus as organised criminal networks involved in illegal wildlife trafficking from the continent of Africa to markets in East and South-East Asia have further turned their attention from East and Southern Africa to West and Central Africa, moving their operations to both source and export increasing quantities of illegal wildlife. Based on ongoing EIA investigations, this report presents a brief analysis of these two regions and provides an overview of the ongoing activities of the networks operating in them. Through engagement with illegal traffickers and traders operating out of Nigeria and beyond, details and documents shared with investigators reveal how they exploit the existing status quo of the region, which has a wealth of natural resources but is faced with a number of challenges – pockets of civil unrest, high levels of poverty and weak rule of law, all underpinned by corruption.

London; Washington, DC: EIA, 2020. 27p.

By Bridget Connelly and Henry Peyronnin

Wildlife trafficking in the air sector in Latin America and the Caribbean (also known as the LAC region) is a serious and significant problem. As in other regions, the confluence of habitat destruction, economic polarization, and convenient availability of international travel has facilitated wildlife trafficking at a national, regional, and international level. The consequences for wildlife populations have been dire – against the backdrop of a 94% drop in regional animal population sizes between 1970 and 2020, the C4ADS Air Seizure Database shows that seizures of animal products along air routes increased steadily until 2019.

The LAC region poses particular concern for two reasons. First, it is one of the principal remaining repositories of biological and species diversity in the world. Increasing wildlife trafficking will continue to degrade this essential environment. Second, the LAC region is the home to many of the world’s most capable and violent trafficking organizations, which raises the risk that wildlife trafficking will empower organizations seeking to impose more direct harms on humans.

Washington, DC: USAID Reducing Opportunities for Unlawful Transport of Endangered Species (ROUTES). 2021. 16p.

By Livia Wagner

Criminal groups quickly recognized that controlling large swaths of land and illicit and legitimate enterprises linked to illegal gold mining in the Peruvian Amazon enabled them to generate larger profit margins with fewer risks due to the lack of a government law enforcement presence. Gold constitutes an ideal medium for criminal groups to launder proceeds obtained from other illegal activities. Compared to other natural resources and illicit goods, gold is valuable by volume. Also, COVID-19 is not only having an impact on the global economy and surging unemployment. It is driving gold prices to historical record highs since 2012, leading to an influx of illegal miners to unlicensed mining sites where they invade protected indigenous lands, stripping swaths of forest bare, poisoning rivers with mercury, and laundering illegal gold through mineral shops. The nexus between illegal mining and other organized crime complicates the design of strategies to address this problem effectively. Specifically, intersections with human trafficking and forced labor, migrant smuggling, and the drug trade have been identified. However, the form and degree can vary significantly.

Miami: Florida International University, The Jack D. Gordon Institute for Public Policy, 2021. 27p.

By Camila Gianella, Maritza Paredes and Lorena Figueroa

Policies and strategies implemented to combat illegal logging in Peru appear to have had limited success. Addressing corruption in the forest sector requires an understanding of the role of political and informal power arrangements that shape individual and collective behaviours. Forest governance outcomes can only be strengthened by considering the networks, actors, powers, and interests that interact with wider conditions.

Bergen, Norway: Chr. Michelsen Institute, 2021. 25p.

By The Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA)

For a decade, Vietnam has been repeatedly highlighted for its role in the international illegal wildlife trade, so it is encouraging to see the recent efforts taken by the Government to address its involvement; it is to be congratulated for the measures it has taken and the successes it has had domestically. Yet despite these efforts to tackle illegal wildlife trade in country, Vietnam’s reputation is tarnished by the fact that it is the primary destination for illegal wildlife products sourced from across Africa and shipped by criminal networks directly or indirectly to meet the demand in Vietnam and beyond. These networks are accelerating the decline of Africa’s biodiversity and are exacerbating corruption and weak rule of law in many source and transit countries in the continent.

London; Washington, DC: EIA, 2021. 32p.

By Lucy Vigne and Esmond Martin

The report ‘Myanmar’s Growing Illegal Ivory Trade with China’ released today (subs: October 2, 2018) shows that one town in particular, Mong La - a frontier town in the notorious Golden Triangle on the border of China - has experienced a ‘prolific growth’ in ivory trading. The number of new ivory items seen for sale in the town grew by 63% in three years, and now accounts for over a third of the ivory seen in the country.

The report by ivory trade specialists Lucy Vigne and Esmond Martin recounts how Chinese visitors smuggle worked ivory from Mong La back home with little concern about getting caught. This ivory has often come up the Mekong River into the lawless eastern periphery of Myanmar where it is for sale in both retail and bulk. The wholesale price for African raw ivory in late 2017 in the Golden Triangle region has remained stable at about USD 770 to USD 800 per kg since late 2015.

Myanmar has the largest captive, or ‘domestic’, elephant population in the world with over 5,000 individuals. Traders there say that the internal ivory trade is legal for trimmed domestic elephant tusk tips and from licensed animals that have died, and operate accordingly. (Trading in the tusks of the remaining wild elephants in Myanmar – numbering perhaps 2,000 – is acknowledged to be illegal). The ivory from captive elephants is used for local carving and retail sale especially in Mandalay and Yangon. Their tusks are also sold wholesale in Mandalay to Chinese traders, who smuggle them across the China border in contravention of the existing international ivory trade ban.

Traders reported that 90% of buyers were Chinese wishing to smuggle the ivory home, as also found by the same authors in market surveys in Hong Kong (2015) and Laos (2017). In Vietnam (2016) this was estimated to be 75%.

Nairobi, Kenya: Save the Elephants, 2018. 92p.

By Mary Utermohlen

"This report highlights the widespread, pervasive nature of wildlife trafficking by air, with each major world region impacted. Our analysis shows that traffickers of all types exploit the same vulnerabilities within airports, often using the same trafficking methods to circumvent law enforcement and airport authorities. Furthermore, seizure data shows that many wildlife trafficking networks rely on the same smuggling methods over time, suggesting that a thorough understanding of airport-specific or country-specific trafficking patterns could be instrumental in reducing the air transport system's vulnerability to trafficking," said the report’s author Mary Utermohlen, Program Director at C4ADS.

In addition to contributing to the extinction of endangered species, threatening local livelihoods, and undermining regional and global security, illegal wildlife trade is a risk factor for the spread of zoonotic diseases. According to the Center for Disease Control, three out of every four new or emerging infectious diseases originate in animals. Many of the species seized in air transport—including live birds, live reptiles and mammals—are high-risk carriers of zoonotic diseases and may end up in illegal or unregulated markets around the world.

Godalming, UK: Traffic, 2022. 12p.

By InSight Crime

Peru’s 70 million hectares of Amazon forest are being razed at an alarming rate. This investigation reveals the range of culprits behind the devastation: from illegal gold miners who leave behind pools of poisonous mercury, to poor locals coopted into harvesting valuable trees, to a complex web of front companies, agribusiness subsidiaries, corrupt officials and criminal groups that prosper from the Amazon’s destruction.

Conducted with the Igarapé Institute – a Brazil-based think tank devoted to development, security and climate issues – the six-part series also unravels the crucial links in the chain of specific environmental crimes contributing to forest loss, including illegal logging, illicit gold mining, coca cultivation, wildlife trafficking and the usurping of lands for cattle farms and booming agricultural industries.

Peru’s Amazon, which covers nearly half of the Andean country, is rich in biodiversity and critical to the capture of carbon, which mitigates global warming. Political instability and corruption, however, have made protecting it much more difficult. Meanwhile, demand from international markets for wood, gold and other forest products increases the threat to Indigenous communities, animal habitats and protected reserves.

Washington, DC: InSight Crime; IGARAPÉ INSTITUTE , 2022. 61p.

By Philip Rothrock, Laura Weatherer, Kate Ellis, Leah Samberg, Stephen Donofrio, Ciro Calderon

Over the past few decades, cocoa production has emerged as a driver of land use change, particularly in West Africa. In addition to its significant contributions to deforestation, cocoa production has also faced intense public scrutiny due to human rights violations, especially the use of child labor.

In Trends in the Implementation of Ethical Supply Chains: A 2020 Snapshot of the Cocoa Sector, Forest Trends’ Supply Change Initiative joined the Accountability Framework Initiative (AFi) to shed light on current trends in implementing best practice for achieving ethical supply chains across the cocoa sector. For this analysis, Supply Change researched and analyzed company sustainability commitments, production and procurement policies, and progress reporting against the common approaches for pursuing ethical supply chains outlined in the Accountability Framework.

Washington, DC: Forest-Trends, 2021. 22p.