Transnational Crime Flashcards
What is environmental crime?
Acts or activities that are a violation of environmental legislation and causes significant harm to the environment and human health (UNEP, 2021)
Types of environmental crime
Illegal logging & Timber Trade
Illegal fisheries
Illegal wildlife trade and poaching
Illegal mining and trade in minerals
Illegal waste trafficking and dumping
What is the estimated value of illegal logging annually?
Between 30-100 billion dollars
How much does illegal logging increase by every year?
5%
What are the impacts of illegal logging?
-Loss of Biodiversity
-Deforestation
-Threatening the livelihood of those reliant on forest resources
-Climate change
What is an example of threatened livelihood for those reliant on forest resources?
Clearing land can cause landslides and denies forest dependent communities access to food, medicine and fuel (Interpol, 2012)
What are the most affected areas for illegal logging?
Amazon Basin, Central Africa and Southeast Asia
What is illegal logging and timber trade?
Harvesting wood in violation of regulations for example harvesting timber from protected areas, felling protected species and exceeding logging quotas (INTERPOL, 2017)
What are the successes of combatting illegal logging?
In mid 2000s in Amazon Basin, they attributed to a short-term law enforcement effort. However, long term trends showed that it was temporary
What are the failures of combatting illegal logging?
Decline in illegal logging is due to more advanced laundering operations masking criminal activities and not due to an overall decline in illegal logging
Companies make money clearing forests and impoverished farmers convert forest land into farmland
Other scams include falsification of eco-certification
What are the organisations that stop environmental crime?
- Worlds customs organisation
- UN office for drugs and crime
- Interpol
- World bank
- CITE
What is illegal fisheries?
A range of illegal activities in the fisheries sector including illegal fishing, drug trafficking, money laundering, corruption and document fraud
What is the estimated value for fish?
23 billion dollars
What are the impacts of illegal fisheries?
Income and employment in fisheries and other industries and activities in the supply chain
Biodiversity
The growth of various forms of organised crime
Threat to food supply
What are the failures of combatting illegal fisheries?
Criminal activities are difficult to detect and the offenders are difficult to investigate and prosecute
Pursuing the vessels and the persons on board withthem, coupled with the difficulty of identifying vessels, vessel movement and ownership which undermines law enforcement action (Nellemann et al, 2016)
What are the causes of illegal logging?
Weaknesses and laxity in forest governance
Illegal charcoal, furniture and timber trade
Profit motives
Lack of education and awareness about the importance of protecting the environment
Environmental crimes are seen as victimless as it’s not directed at a person and no immediate consequences
What are the various organised crimes illegal fisheries creates?
Drug trafficking
Human trafficking
Fraud
Terrorism
Arm trafficking
What are the causes of illegal fisheries?
Fishing licenses are issued am under poor regulatory procedures
Being caught, cost of fines and prosecution are relatively low compared to the huge profits that can be made by doing activities involving illegal fisheries
What could be done to stop illegal fisheries?
- INTERPOL- introduced two operations, operation stingray (2012-2013) and operation pesc-am (2015)
- WWF Organisation (2016) has technology solution e.g. satellite data and a web based tool
What could be done to stop illegal logging?
- Worlds Custom Organisation
- UN Office for drugs and crime
- INTERPOL
How does World Customs Organisation stop illegal logging?
Raises awareness to customs officers about environmental crime
Works closely with other organisations such as CITES, UNEP and World Bank
How does the UN Office for Drugs and Crime stop illegal logging?
To fight corruption, strengthen law enforcement and support sustainable livelihoods
Lacks donor awareness and funding
How does INTERPOL stop illegal logging?
Their forestry crime working group provided strategic advice to improve the effectiveness of law enforcement operations in the forestry sector
What technology solutions does the WWF organisation do to stop illegal fisheries?
- Through existing satellite data, they can reveal where illegal fishing activity may be taking place
- A web based tool that looks at data tracking the movement of fish from port to port and country to country. The tool highlights any trade information that looks suspicious and possibly illegal
What is operation stingray II (2012-2013)?
Investigation of high risk fishing vessels operated by transnational organised crime groups
What is operation pesc-am (2015)?
Aims to safeguard coastal protected species
Identifies high risk fishing vessels operating in Central America to disrupt illegal fishing activities
What is the citation for the estimated value of illegal logging and illegal fisheries
Havoscope (2012)
What is the citation for both the causes of illegal logging?
Rinkesh (2017)
What is the citations for the successes or failures in combatting illegal logging?
Nellemann (2012)
What is the citation for the definition of illegal fisheries?
Nellemann (2016)
What is the citation for the successes and failures of combatting illegal fisheries?
Nellemann (2016)
What is the citation for the two operations INTERPOL does?
Strategic report (2016)
How much forest has been lost in the last 50 years?
17% (WWF, 2016)
How many people have a job in the forest sector and how many have a job related to the sector?
13.2 million people
41 million people
Why does illegal charcoal furniture and trade cause illegal logging?
Charcoal is used for heating and choking in most developing countries.
Trees are used to make charcoal.
The soaring demand for furniture and timber also prospers the practice of illegal logging
How is illegal logging caused due to weaknesses and laxity in forest governance?
Many countries have an unclear legal framework due to forest governance in producer countries which are very poor.
Laws are poor at addressing illegal logging concerns.
Limited resources, weak institutions and poor laws have contributed to inadequate law enforcement and lack of proper land use management.
Harder for formal systems to strictly enforce laws guarding against illegal logging.
Creates room for businesses and individuals to deliberately over harvest or take advantage of the legislation gaps
How does illegal fisheries impact the growth of human trafficking?
People are smuggled and illegal workers due to illegal isolation in the workplace
What are the successes of combatting illegal fisheries?
- ENS has coordinated complex fisheries crime investigations resulting in the detection of hundreds of cases of illegal harvest, processing and transportation of fish
- Great police awareness- ENS has helped the police community to recognise the real threat of fisheries crimes to national security and public health
What has contributed to inadequate law enforcement and lack of proper land use management which cause illegal logging?
Limited resources
Weak institutions
Poor laws
How much of carbon emissions is due I llegal clearing the forests to obtain timber?
11%
Who thinks of environmental crimes as low priority?
Policy makers, courts and governments
What is the result of treating environmental crimes as low priority?
Perpetrators will not be prosecuted
What are two climate change issues?
The reduction of the total forest cover area exposing most of the land to high temperatures and extreme weather conditions
Clearing of forests to obtain timber is equally responsible for 11% of carbon emissions which impacts climates worldwide.
Why do traffickers commit tax evasion and fraud and what is an example?
To avoid additional costs e.g., fishing without a license
How do people commit fraud through lack of food hygiene?
Concealing illegal catches with legal ones
Relabelling expired products as fresh
Falsifying the origin of the fish
What is a transnational crime?
A crime that cross borders between countries, organised crime groups which operate in more than one state, take place in one country but their consequences affect another country.
How do offenders achieve illegal logging?
Falsifying logging permits
Bribing officials to obtain concession
Hacking government websites
Mixing illegal timber with legal timber
