By Jodie Wrigley

While scholarly debate continues about possible causal links between climate events and violent extremism, the evidence suggests that these events make communities more vulnerable to recruitment, provide fertile ground for anti-democracy sentiment, and erode trust in institutions and governments. It is recognised that many of these challenges play out in and leverage the on- and offline public sphere. Strategic communication, therefore, is an essential tool to utilise in this space to help prevent and counter violent extremism. This Policy Brief provides a starting point to explore further the potential nexus between climate events, violent extremism, and strategic communication. It explores a whole-of-society view of the potential strategic communication challenge and what actions practitioners could implement now to help address or minimise this existing or potential emerging threat . For the latest updated statistics on wildlife crime visit the World Animal Foundation website.

The Hague: The International Centre for Counter-Terrorism - ICCT, 2024. 30p.

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 Faith Honor , Amanda Shaverand Devin Thorne

The trafficking of pangolins and their scales drives corruption, undermines the rule of law, creates public health risks, and even threatens local and regional security. Additionally, the illicit pangolin trade may have even played a role in onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.1 Critically, the trade—and all of its related challenges—appears to be growing: between 2015 and 2019, 253 tonnes2 of pangolin scales were confiscated, and the annual quantity of pangolin scales seized increased by nearly 400%. To expose the logistics of how these scales are trafficked internationally, Tipping the Scales uses publicly available seizure data and investigative case studies. The global plight of pangolins is increasingly well-known, but less understood are the opaque supply chains that enable pangolin trafficking. To trace this illicit system from consolidation hubs in West and Central Africa to China’s consumer markets, Tipping the Scales analyses 899 pangolin seizures. Drawing on C4ADS’ Wildlife Seizure Database, law enforcement partner seizure data, official government documents, corporate data, and expert interviews, the report details how traffickers nest their activities within licit systems of trade and commerce. To disrupt this trade, C4ADS identifies opportunities for intervention and capacity building.

In Section I, the report finds that pangolin scale traffickers have co-opted bushmeat supply chains and legal breeding programs for their illicit activities. Bushmeat scale trafficking supply chains are particularly prominent in Central and West Africa; 72% of African scale seizures over the last five years have come from those regions. Growing demand for pangolin meat and scales has made pangolins a dual-transaction good3 that relies on transport networks between rural areas and urban and coastal distribution hubs. Further, the report finds that pangolin breeding programs in sub-Saharan Africa obscure the lines between poaching, conservation, and science. In Section II, the report finds that bulk pangolin scale shipments often exit the continent through coastal countries in Central and West Africa. While 70% of intercontinental trafficking instances tied to Africa rely on the air transport sector, 81% of the total weight of pangolin scales are trafficked intercontinentally via the maritime transport sector. China and Hong Kong are the trade’s most prominent destinations. Since 2015, 42% of the 195 tonnes of pangolin scales seized throughout Asia originated in Africa and were seized in or bound for China or Hong Kong. In Section III, the report finds that there are more than 1,000 companies, hospitals, and other entities participating in China’s legal market for medicinal pangolin products. In this market, which allows companies to privately stockpile pangolin scales, traffickers exploit lax regulations to sell scales from Africa and Asia. Government-reported pangolin scale consumption quotas, geo-tagged company data, and seizures suggest that Guangdong and Hunan provinces have relatively high levels of exposure to both the legal pangolin market and pangolin trafficking. Based on these findings, Tipping the Scales makes 10 recommendations to increase detection of and improve enforcement against transnational criminal networks operating in Africa and Asia (see page 58).

Washington, D: C4ADS, 2020. 60p.

By Insight Crime

This present study on Bolivia was led by InSight Crime. The findings and analysis are based on one year of open-source and fieldwork investigation in the cities of La Paz and Santa Cruz, and desk research, phone, and face-to-face interviews with environmental experts, government and security officials, members of local communities, academics, and others.1 The report provides a snapshot of the complex web of actors (state and non-state) and relationships fueling environmental crime in the Bolivian Amazon. Rather than just diagnosing the issue, the study aims to raise new dialogue and intervention opportunities regarding environmental crime in the region. This study addresses long-standing issues of securing land rights to traditional communities in the Amazon, many of which currently face new forms of land grabbing and land trafficking, notably by export companies extracting natural resources. It also includes ideas for reforming and strengthening structurally weak and corruption prone public institutions in the Bolivian Amazon, notably those related to land, environmental, and security issues. Finally, the report also sheds light on the transnational and cross-border dynamics of environmental crime in Bolivia in activities such as wildlife trafficking and illegal mercury trafficking for river-gold mining and illegal logging exports. The complexity of increasingly globalized supply chains initiating in or cutting through the Bolivian Amazon call for more and stronger regional and international cooperation to dismantle environmental crime and protect the forest and its people

Washington, DC: Insight Crime, 2024. 73p.

By Rachel Killean

This paper reviews key definitions of ecocide that have emerged since the 1970s, from Richard A Falk’s early draft International Convention on the Crime of Ecocide, to the Stop Ecocide Foundation Expert Panel’s definition of 2021, and analyses enduring legal and political challenges to the prospects for a new international crime. Despite the latter definition gaining prominence and considerable support we argue that there is a continuing necessity to reflect on the key challenges to the development of an international crime that can actually deliver accountability for serious crimes against the environment, and that engagement with previous definitions can assist in these reflections. We discuss core problems with categorising and negotiating ecocide, guaranteeing legality and ascertaining appropriate gravity and requisite levels of intention. Based on our analysis of past and present definitions, and the social construction of related crimes and international norms, we advocate for a robust articulation of the potential crime that balances foreseeability and flexibility, detached from the requirements of the other core crimes and includes an understanding of intent that embraces reckless acts and omissions and which avoids a cost versus benefit analysis. While we are advocates of ecocide’s criminalisation, we are also conscious of the political and operational barriers to ecocide’s creation and implementation. As such, we argue both for interim measures such as non-binding declarations in support of ecocide, and for humility with regards to what the law can meaningfully achieve. For us, ecocide represents one possible tool in a toolkit that must include a range of legal and political interventions to prevent and repair environmental destruction.

Australia, Sydney, University of Sydney Law School. 2023, 18pg

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 Melina Risso, et al.

Environmental crime became the world’s third most lucrative illicit economy after drug trafficking and smuggling, with estimates of $110 to $281 billion in annual profits. Between 2006 and 2016, environmental crimes grew at a rate of 5% to 7% per year, a pace two or three times faster than that of global GDP growth. Money laundering is part of the criminal machinery that plunders the Amazon Rainforest.

The study “Follow the Money: connecting anti-money laundering systems to disrupt environmental crime in the amazon” reveals the need for systems, agencies, and institutions responsible for preventing money laundering to turn their attention to the connections between this illicit practice and environmental crimes.

The Igarapé study shows that the money laundering cycle follows three stages before the laundered funds can enter the financial system: placement, layering, and integration. However, not all proceeds from criminal activity are directly laundered into the formal financial system. Thus, informal diversification constitutes the process of moving illegal flows into the informal economy. It is estimated that 30% of the money to be laundered is used to pay the operating expenses of illicit economies. Cash transactions, divided into small amounts and deposited by “money mules,” are used to finance the hiring of precarious labor, accommodations, food, security, transportation, health services, leisure, and machinery, for example. The remaining 70% of illicit proceeds are formally inserted into the financial system.

Rio de Janeiro - RJ - Brasil ; Igarape Institute, 2023. 33p.

By Melina Risso, et al.

Environmental crime in the Amazon has become one of the largest illicit economies in the world, generating annual profits estimated at between $110 billion and $281 billion. However, only 6.3% of money laundering cases reported between 2017 and 2020 to the Financial Action Task Force of Latin America (Gafilat), the main body responsible for combating illicit financial flows in the region, were related to environmental crimes.

To assess the level of attention and priority given to environmental crimes at each stage of the anti-money laundering system, we are launching the second publication in the “Follow the Money” series. Focusing on the three key countries of the Amazon basin – Brazil, Colombia, and Peru – the study proposes an analytical approach to the legal and institutional capacities to combat money laundering in five dimensions: 1) strategic planning and preventive measures; 2) monitoring and detection – financial intelligence units; 3) mandatory reporting of suspicious transactions; 4) criminal investigation; and 5) Prosecution and sanctions.

Rio de Janeiro - RJ - Brasil , Igarape Institute, 2023. 43p.

By Faith Ngum | Radha Barooah

What constitutes an environmental crime has long been subject to debate. However, human-induced environmental degradation and biodiversity loss are both pertinent. Local communities, largely indigenous groups, living around biodiverse areas comprising forests, mountains and marine ecosystems stand to be among the first affected. The presence of illegal extractive activities, whether mining or logging, attracts men from outside these areas and effectively ‘masculinizes’ these territories. This disrupts regular life and threatens the safety of women, who often have to venture into forests to carry out domestic activities. The impact varies from community to community and is linked to gender roles and patriarchy, and sometimes includes physical violence. This policy brief presents case studies from four forest ecosystems: the Arajuno forests of the Ecuadorian Amazon, the Sierra Tarahumara forests in Mexico, the Yabassi forests in Cameroon and the rainforests of North Sumatra in Indonesia. The findings show that while local indigenous communities rally to defend their territories against extractive operations and perceived environmental crimes, gender norms and patriarchy limit women’s voices and participation. However, women’s participation in resistance movements has gradually increased, especially against large-scale state concessions, and many have become leading environmental defenders in their communities. Their motivation to voice their perspectives and challenge dominant narratives against indigenous communities through various acts of solidarity is firmly rooted in their desire to protect their livelihoods. Their resilience strategies are similar but context-specific and nuanced across the communities in the four forest ecosystems analyzed in this brief.

Geneva, SWIT: Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime 2023. 34p.

By Lucy Vigne and Esmond Martin

Executive summary ■ From 2013 to 2016, Laos’s retail ivory market has expanded more rapidly than in any other country surveyed recently. ■ Laos has not been conforming with CITES regulations that prohibit the import and export of ivory. Since joining CITES in 2004, only one ivory seizure into Laos has been reported to the Elephant Trade Information System (ETIS). ■ Almost no arrests, let alone prosecutions and punishments, have been made of smugglers with ivory coming in or out of the country. ■ Most worked ivory for sale in Laos originates from elephants poached in Africa. ■ Ivory has also been entering Laos illegally from Thailand, as Thai traders have been offloading their ivory following the imposition of much stricter regulations there. ■ In late 2013 the average wholesale price of raw ivory sold by Lao traders peaked at about USD 2,000/kg. ■ By late 2016, the average wholesale price of raw ivory in Laos had declined to USD 714/kg, in line with prices elsewhere in the region. This price was much higher than in African countries, such as Sudan (Omdurman/Khartoum), where the average wholesale price of ivory was USD 279/kg in early 2017. This price differential is due to the extra expenses incurred in transport and bribes to government officials on the long journey to Asia. ■ In Laos, the decline in the wholesale price of raw ivory between 2013 and 2016, as elsewhere in the region, was mainly due to the slowdown in China’s economy, that resulted in an oversupply of illegal ivory, relative to demand. ■ Ivory items seen for sale in Laos are carved or machine-processed in Vietnam by Vietnamese and smuggled into Laos for sale, or are processed by Chinese traders in Laos on new computerdriven machines. Ivory carving by Lao people is insignificant. ■ In Laos, the survey found 81 retail outlets with ivory on view for retail sale, 40 of which were in the capital, Vientiane, 21 in Luang Prabang, 8 in Kings Romans, 5 in Oudom Xay, 3 in Pakse, 2 in Dansavanh Nam Ngum Resort and 2 in Luang Nam Tha. ■ The survey counted 13,248 ivory items on display for sale, nearly all recently made to suit Chinese tastes. Vientiane had 7,014 items for sale, Luang Prabang 4,807, Kings Romans 1,014, Dansavanh Nam Ngum Resort 291, Oudom Xay 93, Luang Nam Tha 16, and Pakse 13. ■ Most outlets, displaying the majority of worked ivory, also sold souvenirs, Chinese herbal teas or jewellery, or were hotel gift shops. ■ Outlets were usually owned by traders from mainland China. The number of Chinese-owned shops had risen in Laos from none recorded in the early 2000s to several in 2013, including one main shop in Vientiane’s Chinese market and two on the main tourist street of Luang Prabang. By 2016, there were 22 and 15 outlets, respectively, in these two areas, both of which are popular with Chinese visitors. By 2016, Chinese outlets with ivory had also sprung up in other locations, mainly those visited by the increasing number of Chinese. ■ In 2016, the most common ivory items for sale were pendants, followed by necklaces, bangles, beaded bracelets and other jewellery, similar to items for sale in 2013, but in far larger quantities. ■ The least expensive item was a thin ring for USD 3 and the most expensive was a pair of polished tusks for USD 25,000. ■ Retail prices for ivory items of similar type were higher than elsewhere in Kings Romans, which is visited primarily by wealthier Chinese visitors with money to spend. ■ Mainland Chinese buy over 80% of the ivory items in Laos today. There are sometimes buyers from South Korea and other Asian countries, according to vendors. ■ Laotians today generally buy amulets that are made of bone or synthetic material, rather than ivory items.

Nairobi, Kenya: Save the Elephants, 2027. 92p.

By The Joint Analytical Cell (JAC)

In early October, the Joint Analytical Cell (JAC) released the results of a collaborative analysis into a fleet of Chinese-linked distant-water squid fishing vessels. These vessels are known as the “150 Series,” named as such because each vessel’s reported Maritime Mobile Service Identities (MMSI) numbers all start with the numbers one-five-zero. This group of vessels identified in the report appear to have engaged in behavior consistent with attempts to conceal their identity by MMSI spoofing — changing and sharing names over Automatic Identification System (AIS), as well as using multiple MMSIs, making it extremely challenging to monitor and enforce their activities. Following the identification of this behavior, which has been linked with illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing activities, the JAC engaged with China to better understand the nature and motivation of the behavior identified.

Long Beach CaliforniaL Global Fishing Watch, 2023. 46p.

By The Wildlife Justice Commission

The report builds on our first crime convergence report, published in 2021, which analysed a set of 12 case studies, and illustrated the varied ways that wildlife crime can overlap or intersect with other serious and organised crimes.

It presents additional analysis and insights from three in-depth case studies, based on open-source research and intelligence collected during Wildlife Justice Commission investigations. These three case studies add to the knowledge base on this issue, which will continue to develop globally as more cases are detected and analysed.

Wildlife crime is a cross-cutting criminal activity which cannot be tackled in isolation from other crimes. Crime convergence should be further studied and integrated as part of the approach to tackle wildlife crime and organised crime more broadly. An improved understanding of this intersection can help to identify more strategic policy and law enforcement responses to address it.

The Hague: Wildlife Justice Commission, 2023.39p.

By Lauren Young, Cathy Haenlein and Grace Evans

Comprising everything from small-scale, near-shore activity to industrial-scale, long-distance operations, the current IUU fishing threat has the potential to evolve significantly in a warming world. A global horizon scan explores the impacts of climate change on IUU fishing over the next 10 years and beyond.

Illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing is a multifaceted global threat, occurring worldwide in inland waters, exclusive economic zones (EEZs) and on the high seas. Comprising everything from small-scale, near-shore activity to industrial-scale, long-distance operations, the current IUU fishing threat has the potential to evolve significantly in a warming world.

These evolutions stand to occur as fish populations themselves respond to a warming climate. Alongside critical stressors such as overfishing, oceanic warming is set to continue to contribute to an ongoing overall decline in fish populations globally. In parallel, there is evidence that key species are shifting poleward and to deeper waters, with declines in marine catch potential expected in the tropics. Combined with the effects of melting sea ice, changing weather patterns and the growth of marine heatwaves, among other factors, the impact on aquatic ecosystems is potentially highly destabilising.

These disruptive environmental changes have a range of potential implications for IUU fishing activity. The need to anticipate future trends across the threat landscape is thus pressing.

This paper presents the results of a global horizon scan conducted to explore the impacts of climate change on IUU fishing over the next 10 years and beyond.

The scan gathered globally available information by eliciting submissions from contributors worldwide, with a group of expert assessors collating and prioritising trends based on their ‘novelty’, ‘plausibility’ and ‘potential impact’. The scan produced a ranked list of 20 priority trends, categorised into four thematic areas. While the scan considered both emerging threats and opportunities, most of the 20 priority trends speak to emerging challenges, with potential options to address them where feasible and appropriate.

The first group of trends emerging from the scan covers evolving IUU fishing issues linked to shifting fish stocks and distributions. A number of these have the potential to challenge existing management and enforcement frameworks. Potential trends identified relate to an emerging ‘race to fish’ in the Arctic; ice loss and rising demand in the Antarctic; climate change impacts on the Humboldt Current System; novel interactions between mobile industrial fleets and smaller vessels; and domestic fishery closures potentially altering the length of supply chains.

The second group of trends relates to contested maritime boundaries and ungoverned spaces. Potential emerging trends include risks arising where fish cross between EEZs, and where sea-level rise feeds into maritime boundary disputes; evolving intersections between IUU fishing and geopolitical tensions in the South China Sea; the rising importance of IUU fishing in maritime security discourse; and the push to expand marine protected area (MPA) cover despite unresolved issues around the policing of MPA borders.

The third group of trends relates to evolving socioeconomic and criminological dynamics across small-scale IUU fishing and larger-scale operations. Potential issues include the incentivisation of IUU activity as livelihoods are undermined; risk-taking and vulnerability in the face of extreme weather; reliance on illegal labour practices in the face of reduced profitability; and evolving criminal tactics and patterns of crime convergence with growing seafood scarcity.

The fourth group of trends relates to challenges and opportunities for monitoring and enforcement. Potential emerging issues relate to vessel monitoring capabilities to detect climate-driven changes in IUU activity; gaps around the evaluation of interventions; persistent weaknesses in the transnational response; port infrastructural upgrades; and mounting public pressure for transparency.

To support efforts to address these trends, this paper offers a set of broad considerations for the range of stakeholders involved in the global response to IUU fishing. With future policy unable to address climate impacts in isolation, these are designed to be considered in the wider context of other evolving aspects of fisheries management.

Advance planning is essential. Many identified potential impacts of climate change are rooted in already visible trends, with advance action needed given the time required to update multilateral agreements, for example. Dedicated monitoring is needed to track changes in fish stocks relative to specific governance arrangements, as are forward-looking fisheries crime assessments.

Vessel-monitoring capabilities must be bolstered to detect climate-driven changes in activity. IUU fishing vessels could exhibit greater spatial mobility as they pursue shifting fish stocks, yet numerous gaps persist in vessel identification and monitoring capabilities. Gaps in state-level capacity to analyse unprocessed data continue to act as a barrier, with sustained work to build analytical capacity required.

Enforcement must be strengthened and adapted to a climate-changed future. With perpetrators of large-scale IUU fishing potentially becoming increasingly geographically mobile, gaps in international cooperation must be addressed. Systematic evaluation of existing enforcement, mitigation and deterrence methods is also needed to inform future interventions. Beyond this, challenges around the policing of expanding MPAs must be addressed.

Enhanced transparency and traceability must be pursued. As fish distributions shift and potentially alter the length of supply chains, responses continue to be hindered by a lack of transparency. Fishing-specific transparency legislation should be passed, ultimate beneficial ownership registries expanded, and schemes such as the Fisheries Transparency Initiative supported.

Geopolitical stakes woven into fishing activity must be accounted for. As stocks of key species decline and their distributions shift, new juxtapositions of marine biomass concentration and fishing effort across jurisdictional boundaries risk altering the geopolitical stakes involved. A clear focus on fisheries is needed as part of wider efforts to build mutual trust and cooperation in affected areas.

Resilience among artisanal fishing communities must be strengthened. In a range of locations, climate change could affect the vulnerabilities facing fishing-dependent communities as key species shift out of reach to deeper, cooler waters. Evidence-based measures must be enacted to enhance resilience to climate change, including long-term ‘pro-poor’ strategies to strengthen adaptive capacities.

High-volume IUU fishing must be treated with the severity it deserves. With IUU fishing often treated as a minor issue, the disconnect between crime type and response could grow, as shifting fishing grounds potentially increase IUU actors’ reliance on sophisticated organised criminal operations. National legislation must be updated such that large-scale IUU fishing qualifies as a serious crime per the UN Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime, with enforcement responses tailored to address shifting crime convergence.

London: RUSI, Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies, RUSI Occasional Paper, March 2023. 67p.

By J. Sean Doody, Joan A. Reid, Klejdis Bilali, Jennifer Diaz and Nichole Mattheus

Despite the immense impact of wildlife trafficking, comparisons of the profits, costs, and seriousness of crime consistently rank wildlife trafficking lower relative to human trafficking, drug trafficking and weapons trafficking. Using the published literature and current events, we make the case, when properly viewed within the context of COVID-19 and other zoonotic diseases transmitted from wildlife, that wildlife trafficking is the most costly and perhaps the most serious form of trafficking. Our synthesis should raise awareness of the seriousness of wildlife trafficking for humans, thereby inducing strategic policy decisions that boost criminal justice initiatives and resources to combat wildlife trafficking.

Crime Sci. 2021; 10(1): 19.

By Anthony C. Dixon, Graham Farrell & Nick Tilley

Objective

Illegal dumping of household and business waste, known as fly-tipping in the UK, is a significant environmental crime. News agencies reported major increases early in the COVID-19 pandemic when waste disposal services were closed or disrupted. This study examines the effect of lockdowns on illegal dumping in the UK.

Method

A freedom of information request was sent to all local authorities in the UK asking for records of reported incidents of fly-tipping for before and after the first national lockdown. ARIMA modelling and year-on-year comparison was used to compare observed and expected levels of fly-tipping. Urban and rural local authorities were compared.

Results

A statistically significant decline in fly-tipping during the first lockdown was followed by a similar increase when lockdown ended. The effects largely cancelled each other out. There was pronounced variation in urban–rural experience: urban areas, with higher rates generally, experienced most of the initial drop in fly-tipping while some rural authorities experienced an increase.

Conclusion

Waste services promote compliance with laws against illegal dumping. When those services were disrupted during lockdown it was expected that fly-tipping would increase but, counter-intuitively, it declined. This enhanced compliance effect was likely due to increased perceived risk in densely populated urban areas. However, as lockdown restrictions were eased, fly-tipping increased to clear the backlog, indicating temporal displacement.

Crime Science (2022) 11:8 https://doi.org/10.1186/s40163-022-00170-3

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: Henry Peyronnin

Regulating Illicit Gold draws on C4ADS analysis of the illicit gold trade to identify obstacles facing regulators and companies as they seek to achieve compliance with conflict minerals regulations, highlights the limitations of existing US laws pertaining to illegal gold and other minerals, and explores several potential areas in which these regulations can be strengthened or extended.

US lawmakers and public officials recognize the trade in illicit gold as a pressing environmental and social problem, but no comprehensive regulatory framework exists under which to stop the flow of illicit gold to the United States. The challenge of tracing gold supply chains is complicated by four key factors: gold’s physical and commercial characteristics; the growing sophistication of illicit gold trading networks; corruption in source, transit, and destination countries; and the fragmentation of the global gold market. Although two laws partially address this regulatory gap in the United States, neither provides a strong set of rules that apply equally to public companies and private entities. Regulating Illicit Gold draws on C4ADS analysis of the illicit gold trade to identify obstacles facing regulators and companies as they seek to achieve compliance with conflict minerals regulations, highlight the limitations of existing US laws pertaining to illegal gold and other minerals, and explores several potential areas in which these regulations can be strengthened or extended.

Washington, DC: C4ADS March, 2021. 18p.

By James Allan

Litter is ugly and an overwhelming majority of Britons want action. Since the 1960s littering has increased by 500%. Years of inaction, compounded by a lack of personal responsibility and a sharp increase in littering during the COVID-19 pandemic has made the problem worse.

Policy Exchange first recommended a national and coordinated approach to litter in Litterbugs published in 2009, but it was not until 2017 that the Government published the first ever national strategy that dealt with litter and littering behaviour. Furthermore, in 2022 the Office for Environmental Protection has said that the Government has yet to move beyond mere commitments to policy delivery.

This report calls for the Government to implement a new and revitalised Litter Strategy, including a significantly more aggressive approach to fines, including higher penalties, with a Local Authority League Table to name and shame those councils that are not using their powers; a new National Litter Awareness Course (modelled on the National Speed Awareness Course), backed by educational campaigns, to transform attitudes to personal responsibility; increased investment in bin infrastructure, with consideration of bins embedded in local design codes; and a large scale pilot of a digitised Deposit Return Scheme to enhance recycling.

London: Policy Exchange, 2023. 45p.

By Allan Thornton, et al.

A report into how the first CITES-approved ivory sale led to an increase in elephant poaching.

In 1997, CITES Parties voted to down-list the elephant populations of Botswana, Namibia and Zimbabwe, followed swiftly by a supposedly one-time only sale in 1999 of stockpiled ivory to Japan.

This report provides documentation of the resulting soaring rates across the African continent, despite the predictions of ‘experts’ that such a sale would satiate the market.

London: Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), 2020. 36p.

By Richard Chelin

Pangolin trafficking is not simply an environmental management problem – it is a transnational organised crime.

Pangolins – also known as scaly anteaters – are among the most trafficked wildlife species in Africa and are considered the most trafficked mammal globally. The huge demand for their scales and meat, largely from Southeast Asia, has created a lucrative illicit market run by transnational criminal syndicates.

In Africa, most countries use generic anti-wildlife crime policies and strategies to address the illicit trade in pangolins. This approach fails to address specific issues related to the protection of pangolins, such as the loopholes in policies in dealing with the illegal trade in the species.

This policy brief identifies the gaps in existing policies and strategies, and offers evidence-based policy recommendations for the protection of pangolins and to stem illicit trade in Africa.

Enact Africa, 2019. 16p.