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: 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 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 Earth League International and John Jay College of Criminal Justice

Environmental crime convergence, the focal point of this report, poses an imminent threat to our planet’s delicate ecosystems. To address this urgent issue, ELI, and John Jay College present ELI’s revolutionary 4-Type Environmental Crime Convergence paradigm to comprehensively understand and combat the intricate web of transnational organized crime operations that perpetuate environmental degradation.

The foundation of this report is built upon the fieldwork and intelligence analysis of ELI’s investigators and crime analysts, who have gathered first-hand evidence of Environmental Crime Convergence directly from some of the world’s most notorious environmental criminals and their networks. Drawing on years of investigative fieldwork in the Americas, Europe, Africa, and Asia, over two dozen case studies have emerged from ELI’s work as primary sources of data.

This report highlights five (5) case studies of the transnational criminal networks in Latin America identified by ELI that illustrate the convergence of environmental and wildlife crime with other serious crimes and expose the severity of the issue at a global scale.

Los Angeles: Earth League International, 2023. 83p.

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 Jacqueline Cochrane and Ashwell Glasson

Summary Technology offers a critical avenue for nimble, innovative and proactive responses to wildlife crime. Harnessing these opportunities is essential, as wildlife crime is driving the rapid, unsustainable and increasingly irreversible depletion of animal and plant populations. Wildlife crime also poses risks to human security and undermines development and governance. Technology can either boost efforts to combat wildlife crime, or exacerbate and directly enable it. New approaches are needed to develop, procure and implement technology in the wildlife crime response. This policy brief offers a framework for a sustainable and strategic approach that prioritises the human element and maximises impact. Key findings ∙ The illegal wildlife trade is the fourth largest illegal trade globally, posing significant risks to human security, development and good governance. ∙ Unlike other illicit commodities, illegal wildlife products are derived from a finite and rapidly dwindling resource. ∙ Technology is not neutral: it can either exacerbate and drive wildlife crime, or significantly boost efforts to combat it. ∙ Decision making around technology must first take stock of corruption as a core enabler of wildlife crime and must adopt a ‘back-to-basics’ approach. ∙ To be sustainable and strategic, the development, procurement and implementation of technology in combating wildlife crime needs to be human-centred.

ENACT-Africa, 2022. 16p.

By Alastair MacBeath and Julia Stanyard

The consequences of wildlife trafficking go beyond the threat it poses to ecological integrity and the survival of many wild species. Wildlife trafficking is also a public health threat, through its role in the emergence of zoonotic pathogens, and a national and local security threat, generating revenues for organized criminal groups and militias, and contributing to the breakdown in rule of law that exacerbates local conflict and undermines livelihoods. Effective transnational communication, cooperation and coordination between law enforcement and criminal justice agencies and other stakeholders along illicit commodity chains are fundamental components of a successful counter-wildlife trafficking strategy. This could include many activities, but a priority is that front-line enforcement and judicial officers have the ability to share information and intelligence with their counterparts. This could be through joint investigations and prosecutions or in the form of coordinated strategic actions to prevent the operation of wildlife trafficking networks. Effective international cooperation must facilitate secure, accountable, fast and efficient communications. It must be durable and create continuity, not rely on single individuals who may change roles, and it must build trust between officers and agencies

Geneva: Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime and Wildlife Conservation Society, 2023. 49p.

By Gohar Petrossian

Humans are deeply dependent on fishing―globally, fish comprise 15 percent of the protein intake for approximately 3 billion people, and 8 percent of the global population depends on the fishing industry as their livelihood. The global fishing industry is plagued by illegal fishing, however, and many highly commercial species, such as cod, tuna, orange roughy, and swordfish, are extremely vulnerable.

Through criminological analysis, The Last Fish Swimming emphasizes the importance of looking at specific environmental factors that make illegal fishing possible. It examines such factors as proximity to known ports where illegally caught fish can be landed without inspection (i.e., ports of convenience), fisheries monitoring, control and surveillance efforts, formal surveillance, and resource attractiveness in 53 countries that altogether represent 96 percent of the world's fish catch. The book calls upon the global community to address the illegal depletion of the world's fish stock and other similar threats to the world's food supply and natural environment in order to ensure the sustainability of the planet's fish and continuation of the legal fishing industry for generations to come.

Santa Barbara. Praeger. 2019. 191p.

By The Donkey Sanctuary

Global donkey populations are in crisis. Donkeys are being traded and stolen as the demand for their skins increases, driven by the production of ejiao, a traditional Chinese remedy believed by some to have medicinal properties. It is estimated that the ejiao industry currently requires approximately 4.8 million donkey skins annually. With China’s donkey herd reducing from 11 million in 1992 to just 2.6 million currently, the ejiao industry has had to source donkey skins from around the world, placing unprecedented pressure on donkey populations globally, and contributing to the collapse of some national donkey populations. For many of the world’s most vulnerable communities, and women in particular, donkeys are a pathway out of poverty and can be the difference between destitution and modest survival. They are used daily to collect water and provide transport for families to attend health clinics and children to attend school. The income generated by donkeys transporting goods to market enables owners to invest in savings schemes, contributing to building stronger economies within their communities. For these people the trade in donkey skins has had a catastrophic impact

Sidmouth, Devon, UK: The Donkey Sanctuary, 2019. 60p.

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 Richard Wortley and Lorraine Mazerolle

Environmental criminology is a generic label that covers a range of overlapping perspectives. At the core, the various strands of environmental criminology are bound by a common focus on the role that the immediate environment plays in the performance of crime, and a conviction that careful analyses of these environmental influences are the key to the effective investigation, control and prevention of crime. Environmental Crime and Crime Analysis brings together for the first time the key contributions to environmental criminology to comprehensively define the field and synthesize the concepts and ideas surrounding environmental criminology. The chapters are written by leading theorists and practitioners in the field. Each chapter will analyze one of the twelve major elements of environmental criminology and crime analysis.

Cullompton, UK: Willan Publishing, 2011. 320p.

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 Sage Melcer and Simon Zadek.

A new report published today from Finance for Biodiversity (F4B) points to how to break the environmentally-destructive connection between environmental crimes and legitimate investments. F4B calls on the global financial community, working with regulators and civil society organisations, to take steps to ensure the entire financing value chain is free of environmental crimes.

Environment crime, such as illegal wildlife trade and logging, is now one of the most profitable global criminal enterprises, generating up to almost USD300 billion in criminal gains each year, and creating even more profound damage and cost to the environment and society. Many entirely legal enterprises benefit from such environmental crimes, as do those who finance them.

The report highlights the opportunity to reduce environmental crimes by widening the scope and interpretation of existing Anti-Money Laundering (AML) rules. Pointing to the limits of such an approach, however, the report highlights the need to go further, and proposes a way forward paralleling anti-slavery and conflict diamond approaches. Finally, it encourages the financial community to take leadership in advancing widely adopted and effective voluntary measures to ensuring environmental crime-free financing value chains, and points to first-mover advantages in avoiding likely reputation damage, litigation, and poorly-designed legislation.

The report is an invited contribution to the UK Government-sponsored Global Resource Initiative (GRI), a multi-sectoral taskforce mandated to provide recommendations on greening the UK’s international supply chain footprint. Its recommendations are, however, internationally applicable.

Finance for Diversity, 2022. 17p,

By Tomomi Kitade, Masayuki Sakamoto, Chris Madden Hof

Japan customs records reported 564 kg of hawksbill tortoiseshell seized in 71 incidents between 2000 and 2019, representing some 530 Hawksbill Turtles. Over half was seized between 2015 and 2019 alone. The Hawksbill Turtle is listed as “Critically Endangered” in the IUCN Red List. In recent years, the major source region appears to have shifted from Southeast Asia to the Caribbean. The report highlights the current marine turtle trade situation in Japan, including the trends in illegal commodity imports —hawksbill tortoiseshell, in particular—and an analysis of manufacturers’ stockpiles, domestic regulations, and online trade.

Tokyo: World Wildlife Fund for Japan, 2021. 16p.

By Saket Badolaand and Astha Gautam

TRAFFIC’s “HIGH FLYING: Insight into wildlife trafficking through India's airports” analysis found the trafficking of over 70,000 native and exotic wild animals, including their body parts or derivatives (weighing around 4000kg) in 140 wildlife seizure incidents at 18 Indian airports between 2011-2020. Many of the seized species are categorised as threatened on the IUCN Red List and listed in the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) Appendices, regulating its trade to protect the species from decline.

One example, the Indian Star Tortoise, is listed as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List. However, traffickers clearly disregard the threatened status and international CITES rules in Appendix I prohibiting its trade as the Indian Star Tortoise was the highest number of native species seized between 2011-2020. Among the species groups seized (including both Indian and exotic species), reptiles were the most encountered group during the study period (46%), followed by mammals (18%), timber (13%), and species from the marine environment (10%).

The highest number of native species seized included the Indian Star Tortoise, followed by the Black Pond Turtle Geoclemys hamiltonii.

The highest number of non-native species seized, Red-Eared Slider Turtle, followed by the Chinese Pond Turtle Mauremys reevesii.

Chennai International Airport, Tamil Nadu, recorded the highest number of wildlife seizure incidents, followed by Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport, Mumbai and Indira Gandhi Airport New Delhi. The study's findings reflect the ongoing trafficking and not an actual representation as most of the illegal wildlife trade goes unchecked and unreported.

Godalming, UK: Traffic, 2022. 12p.

By Environmental Incentives, LLC, Foundations of Success, and ICF International

Killing protected or managed species and the illegal trade in wildlife and their related parts and products (hereafter called “wildlife crime”) are among the most severe threats to global biodiversity. Hundreds of millions of individual animals belonging to hundreds of species are the targets of illegal harvesting and trade. Wildlife crime not only threatens the survival of focal species, but may also significantly alter ecosystem function and stability when one or more species are substantially depleted or even made locally extinct. High-value wildlife products are often trafficked by organized criminal syndicates and are known to finance violent non-state actors including terrorist groups. Armed conflict can exacerbate wildlife killing and trafficking, and trafficking is frequently associated with other crimes such as money laundering (Loucks et al. 2008, UNODC 2012). Wildlife criminals create insecurity in rural communities and kill park rangers, hurting morale and recruitment of park staff and reducing tourism and associated revenue needed for conservation and community development. For developing countries, loss of revenue from trade, taxes, and/or tourism can be significant and particularly damaging (Rosen & Smith 2010). The illegal trade in wildlife can also introduce and/or spread pathogens (Gómez & Aguirre 2008), posing major risks to human and livestock health, with implications for food security, commerce, and labor productivity (i.e., Ebola virus outbreak). Despite focused efforts often lasting several decades, wildlife crime remains a global threat (Broad & Damania 2010, Sharma et al. 2014). The importance of wildlife crime as a threat to conservation and development has attracted the attention of governments, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), research institutions, and multilateral organizations globally. Strategies to combat wildlife crime depend on accurate and reliable knowledge,

Washington, DC: United States Agency for International Development, 2017. 76p.

By Charles Victor Barber, Karen Winfield, and Rachael Petersen

The Climate and Land Use Alliance (CLUA), with the support of Meridian Institute, is exploring the integration of climate and land use with justice, equity, health, and economic recovery through Climate and Forests 2030: Resources for Funders. This focus is intended to inspire innovation and investment in integrated work on forests, rights, and sustainable land use and will inform a new strategic plan for CLUA for the period 2021 to 2030. To inform the thinking, CLUA commissioned a series of “thought pieces” to provide diverse inputs into developing a more integrated approach for forests and land use. These are meant to stimulate discussion and debate

Nature crime 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, 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,

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

By Mark Burnett, Natalia Dronova, Maren Esmark, Steve Nelson, Asle Rønning, and Vassily Spiridonov

The high northern latitudes support rich biological diversity, including expansive fish stocks, large colonies of seabirds, benthic communities, and a wide variety of marine mammals. Arctic biodiversity and biological productivity is of great international economic importance. About 70 per cent of the world’s total white fish supply comes from arctic waters. This marine resource is also extremely significant to arctic regional and coastal communities. Illegal fishing for Atlantic cod and Alaska pollock in the Arctic threatens the health of these globally important fisheries and their resilience to climate change. It undermines all efforts to build sustainable fisheries management regimes – a pressing objective in the Arctic, where temperatures are rising at twice the global average. Extensive data for the Barents Sea contrasts with the limited information available about estimated illegal fishing in the Russian Far East. As well as providing alarming illustrations of how widespread IUU fishing can become when adequate measures are not taken, the Arctic also gives encouraging examples of how IUU fishing can be greatly reduced. In the Barents Sea region, Norway and Russia have cooperated on fisheries management for several decades. Experience working together has resulted in concrete measures to control, regulate and monitor fishing. These measures have borne fruit recently with the reduction in illegal fishing in the Barents Sea. This achievement shows how coordinated efforts among governments, industry and non-governmental organisations can make a real difference in stopping criminal fishing activities. The current challenge is to keep up the momentum, learn from positive experiences, and leverage our commitment and knowledge to expand the fight against illegal fishing.

Oslo, Norway: World Wildlife Fund, International Arctic Programme, 2008. 52p