The Rise of Environmental Crime: A Growing Threat to Natural Resources, Peace, Development and Security

Indeed, OECD reported in 2014 that the share of ODA (Offi- cial Development Assistance) to governance and peace had been declining by a relative 3% annually since 2009. 1 This has actually led to a weakening of the enforcement and pros- ecution sector in recent years, especially in the least devel- oping countries. The sheer financial scale and sophistication of environmental crimes now require an entirely different scale of coordinated responses and international collaboration, working across ministries and jurisdictions at the national level, to interna- tional cross-UN and trans-border collaboration. Achieving this level of sophistication will require significant donor support because the sites most affected by environmental crimes are also in the countries with the least resources to address them. Efforts to curb the wider environmental crimes have become particularly important in response to threats against peace and security, so vital to sustainable development. Across the world, terrorist and non-state armed groups are increasingly benefitting financially from or engaging with organized crime, as recognized by the UN Security Council Resolution S/RES/2195 (2014). In the Trans-Sahara, armed groups like Al Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and Al Mourabitoun and others are smuggling drugs, cigarettes, migrants and commodities for profit. Da’esh or ISIS is heavily involved in trafficking of oil and antiques, amongst other commod- ities, showing yet a diversification by targeting antiques. Taliban make their primary incomes from drugs and taxa- tion. Non-state armed groups, terrorist groups and others are increasingly now also engaging in environmental crimes and thrive on the exploitation of natural resources, similar to the incomes derived from other forms of contraband. This provides them with a low-risk high-profit source of revenue compared to their traditional incomes from other forms of smuggling, human trafficking, drugs or counterfeit products. This, in turn, undermines peacekeeping efforts. Groups like Janjaweed and LRA have, like other groups in the region made incomes from ivory. In Peru and Colombia – which currently have the largest cocaine production in the world, illegal gold mining is becoming a profitable alternative to drugs. Organized criminal groups also use environmental crimes to launder money from drug trafficking. Groups bene- fitting or have benefitted in the past from illegal or unregulated exploitation of natural resources include Al Shabaab, which prior to the intervention by the AU in Somalia made 38–56 million USD annually on the illicit charcoal trade. Much of this traffic, including by organized crime, continues. In the Amazon, armed groups like FARC are taxing timber, gold and coltan. FARC for instance makes an estimated 12 million USD annually by extorting illegal gold miners. Criminal networks behind the conflict in eastern DRC, a conflict which has killed several million people, have spent around 2% of their proceeds to fund 25–49 different rebel groups. According to some esti-

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