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

Illegal wildlife trade Estimates of the illegal trade in wildlife are generally around 7–23 billion dollars annually, 72-75 including anything from insects, reptiles, amphibians to mammals. It concerns both live and dead specimens or even products made from wildlife or plants. The specimens and products are used for pharmaceutical, ornamental or traditional medicinal purposes. Illegal harvest and trade includes a range of species from iconic ones like gorillas, orangutans, elephants, tigers, rhinos, Tibetan ante- lopes and pangolins to corals, birds, reptiles and sturgeon for caviar. These species often constitute significant financial transactions, both for national economies as well as to black markets. Due to lack of clear definitions, the boundaries between different types of environmental crimes is sometimes unclear.

Organized environmental criminal networks increasingly operate like global multinational businesses, connecting local resources to global markets through complex and interlinked networks often embedded in the business community and in government, sometimes including those tasked with protecting wildlife. Crime groups coordinate through harvesting, trading, and transporting networks to subvert national and interna- tional laws and move wildlife products to market. 76 A financier who can supply weapons and material to poaching parties often directs harvesting networks. Harvesting networks can include poor villagers, park rangers, professional hunters, conservation authorities as well as large poaching gangs such as rebel groups or insurgents working under the direction of a financier. 77 Involvement by the political elite in poaching syndicates greatly increases the number of illegal kills and can directly contrib- utes to high rates of poaching. 78 In the long term organized wildlife crime, enabled by corrup- tion, contributes to the erosion of the state across the continent, challenging countries to control their own borders, resources, and government policies. As illicit economies grow and polit- ical power is looted by transnational criminal organizations states will weaken further in a vicious cycle of state degradation accompanied by increased foreign illicit trade. Corruption is one of the most effective and pernicious weapons of organized crime. 79 Organized crime, non-state armed actors, and to some extent armed groups affiliated with the state, benefit when the state is weakened by corruption. 80 Government complicity in organized crime undermines the confidence of local popula- tions in their government. 81 Rule of law is undermined through corruption of law enforcement and the judiciary. Government officials, when implicated in transnational crime, are rarely prosecuted, further undermining government legitimacy. 82

Transnational crime robs governments of the funds required to perform primary functions related to fighting corrup- tion, controlling borders, and developing the economy, among other things. At the same time criminal groups inject resources into communities, undermining efforts at local government capacity building and legitimacy creation, 83 undermining of the connection between states and socie- ties. In the worst impacted communities individuals look elsewhere for economic and physical security. 84-85 Illicit econ- omies and traffics provide a source of employment and repre- sent a large part of developing economies’ income and can sometimes be the most accessible means to accumulation for impoverished communities. 86 Allowed to flourish, organized crime groups can develop local institutions and exploit griev- ances against government policies and resentment towards lack of development and lack of opportunity. 87-88

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