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Date: April 30, 2024 Tue
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Results for illegal logging
118 results foundAuthor: Ottitsch, Andreas Title: Impact of Reduction of Illegal Logging in European Russia and on the EU and European Russia Forest Sector and Trade Summary: From the executive summary: "this report examines the potential impacts of implementing trade controls, such as the licensing scheme proposed in the European Union's FLEGT (Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade) Action Plan, aimed at preventing trade in illegally logged timber between North-Western Russia. The results are based on three linked studies: 1) an assessment of the volume of timber of unknown origin (i.e. possibly from illegal logging) produced in North-West Russia; 2) an assessment of existing controls that might prevent illegally logged material originating in the Russian Federation from entering EU-markets; 3) a scenario analysis on the impacts of a possible Voluntary FLEGT Partnership Agreement between the European Union and the Russian Federation." Details: Joensuu, Finland: European Forest Institute, 2005 Source: Year: 2005 Country: Finland URL: Shelf Number: 115396 Keywords: European UnionIllegal LoggingRussian Federation |
Author: Ottitsch, Andreas Title: Impact of reduction of illegal logging in European Russia on the EU and European Russia forest sector and trade. Summary: The report examines the potential impacts of implementing trade controls, such as the licensing scheme proposed in the European Union's FLEGT (Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade) Action Plan, aimed at preventing trade in illegally logged timber between North-Western Russia. The results are based on three linked studies: (i) An assessment of the volume of timber of unknown origin (i.e. possibly illegal logging) produced in North-West Russia; (ii) An assessment of existing controls that might prevent illegally logged material originating in the Russian Federation from entering EU-markets and; (iii) A scenario analysis on the impacts of a possible Voluntary FLEGT Partnership Agreement between the European Union and the Russian Federation. Details: Joensuu, Finland: European Forest Institute, 2005, 131p. Source: Internet Source Year: 2005 Country: Finland URL: Shelf Number: 115396 Keywords: AsiaEnvironmental OffensesIllegal Logging |
Author: Brack, Duncan Title: Illegal Logging and Related Trade: 2008 Assessment of the Global Response (Pilot Study) Summary: Illegal logging and its related trade has for some years been recognized by international decision-makers as one of the world's most pressing environmental problems. In many timber-producing countries the majority of trees are illegally cut, resulting in significant losses of assets and revenues and devastating damage to the forests upon which hundreds of millions of the world's poorest people depend. More than ten years have now passed since the G8 leaders recognized the problem, in 1988, and committed to act. During that time, large amounts of time and money have been spent trying to tackle the problem. This paper attempts to measure what difference this effort has made. Details: London: Chatham House, Energy, Environment and Development Programme, 2009. 97p. Source: Year: 2009 Country: International URL: Shelf Number: 117829 Keywords: Illegal LoggingOffenses Against the Environment |
Author: Pye-Smith, Charlie Title: Crime and Persuasion: Tackling Illegal Logging, Improving Forest Governance Summary: This report looks at the role governments play in the practice of illegal logging. Details: London: Department for International Development, 2010(?). 51p. Source: Year: 2010 Country: International URL: Shelf Number: 118110 Keywords: Illegal Logging |
Author: Pescott, Michael J. Title: Forest Law Enforcement and Governance: Progress in Asia and the Pacific Summary: Forest law enforcement and governance (FLEG) is a specific and recognizable field of professional practice within forest management. A country's FLEG framework provides the foundation for combating forest crime and for realizing the true potential that sustainable forest management can contribute to socio-economic development. With increasing demand for wood products and for environmental services in Asia and the Pacific, the value of strenghening FLEG will undoubtedly increase in the future. The papers in this volume aim to provide an overview of the current FLEG-related initiatives for 16 of the most forest-rich nations in Asia and the Pacific. Details: Bangkok: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific, 2010. 205p. Source: Year: 2010 Country: Asia URL: Shelf Number: 118615 Keywords: Forest ManagementIllegal LoggingOffenses Against the Environment |
Author: Global Witness Title: Investigation Into the Illegal Felling, Transport and Export of Precious Wood in SAVA Region Madagascar Summary: In the period since February 2009, a dramatic increase in the felling and cutting of rosewood has been reported in the SAVE Region of north-east Madagascar. As a result, several investigative missions have been sent into the region to gather evidence of these activities. In July 2009, Global Witness and the Washington-based Environmental Investigation Agency, Inc., were contacted by the Malagasy institution, Madagascar National Parks, to assist their efforts in investigating the illegal harvest of precious wood in the SAVA Region, and the associated international trafficking of illegal timber. The investigation team observed intensive logging of rosewood trees in the northeast of Masoala National Park, and transport of logs to Antalaha. The intensive transport of rosewood in broad daylight, on sections of road policed by Gendarmerie posts, both to the south and to the north of Antalaha, demonstrates a serious breakdown in the rule of law - if not the active collusion of law enforcement authorities with illegal timber traffickers. Details: London; Global Witness; Washington, DC: Environmental Investigation Agency, Inc., 2009. 40p. Source: Internet Resource Year: 2009 Country: Madagascar URL: Shelf Number: 118750 Keywords: Illegal LoggingIllegal Trade, LumberOffenses Against the EnvironmentPolice Corruption (Madagascar) |
Author: Hamid, Abdel HA Title: Nature and Extent of Environmental Crime in Sudan: Situation Report Summary: This report analyses the nature and extent of environmental crime in Sudan. The study was carried out between October 2008 and March 2009 with two main objectives, namely to assess the nature and extent of environmental crime, and to determine the capacity needs of the environmental law enforcement agencies in the country. Details: Pretoria, South Africa: Institute for Security Studies, 2010. 38p. Source: Internet Resource Year: 2010 Country: Sudan URL: Shelf Number: 118791 Keywords: Illegal LoggingOffenses Against the EnvironmentPoachingPolutionWildlife Crime |
Author: Global Witness Title: The Untouchables: Forest Crime and the Concessionaires - Can Cambodia Afford to Keep Them? Summary: This report details the major illegal activities of a selection of concessionaires currently operating in Cambodia. It comprises both a historical record of concessionaire activity in Cambodia since 1995, and a critique of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) - funded concession review carried out by consultants Fraser Thomas. The report details the illegal activities of 12 concessionaires, and the fact that three further concessions are almost certainly no longer viable in the short term. Details: London: Global Witness, 1999. 17p. Source: Internet Resource Year: 1999 Country: Cambodia URL: Shelf Number: 119230 Keywords: Illegal LoggingOffenses Against the EnvironmentWildlife Crime |
Author: Walters, Julie Title: Following the Proceeds of Illegal Logging in Indonesia Summary: low number of prosecutions in Indonesia for illegal logging may not offer a strong enough deterrent against engaging in what is a lucrative crime. However, the movement of offenders and proceeds tied to illegal logging through other countries in the region offers some opportunities to support Indonesia’s law enforcement responses. Details: Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology, 2010. 6p. Source: Internet Resource; Trends & Issues in Crime and Criminal Justice, No. 391 Year: 2010 Country: Indonesia URL: Shelf Number: 109420 Keywords: Illegal LoggingOffenses Against the EnvironmentWildlife Crime |
Author: Brack, Duncan Title: Controlling Illegal Logging: Consumer-Country Measures Summary: Consumer countries contribute to the problems of illegal logging by importing timber and wood products without ensuring that they are legally sourced. Over the last few years, however, consumer countries have taken a series of measures to try to ensure that they exclude illegal timber products from their markets. The bilateral voluntary partnership agreements negotiated between the EU and timber-producing countries, which will establish a licensing scheme for legal timber, offer one of the best ways of controlling the trade but will be slow to establish. Broader measures to exclude illegal timber lack some of the benefits of this approach but can be implemented more quickly and with greater coverage. The extension of the Lacey Act to timber in 2008 was a significant development, providing the US with an effective means of encouraging the timber industry to exercise 'due care' and preventing imports of illegal timber. Whether the EU's 'due diligence' regulation will prove as effective remains to be seen. Public procurement policies aimed at purchasing legal (and, usually, sustainable) timber can prove very effective in excluding illegal timber from segments of a consumer-country market. All these developments will encourage the spread of the voluntary certification and legality verification schemes, but at the same time are likely to expose them to increasing pressures, for example from fraud. Details: London: Chatham House, 2010. 12p. Source: Internet Resource; Briefing Paper Year: 2010 Country: International URL: Shelf Number: 118627 Keywords: Illegal LoggingOffenses Against the EnvironmentWildlife Crime |
Author: Environmental Investigation Agency Title: Rogue Traders: The Murky Business of Merbau Timber Smuggling in Indonesia Summary: During 2009 and 2010 EIA/Telapak carried out undercover investigations into the illicit merbau trade in China and Singapore, as well as Surabaya, Makassar and Papua in Indonesia. These investigations reveal how significant amounts of illegal merbau, in the form of square logs and rough sawn timber, continue to be smuggled out of Indonesia, with the bulk bound for China. They also uncover the illegal activities of two rogue timber traders; Hengky Gosal, the man behind a foiled attempt to ship 23 containers of merbau logs, and Ricky Gunawan, a serial smuggler based in Surabaya. Details: London: Environmental Investigation Agency; Bogor, Indonesia: Telepak, 2010. 13p. Source: Internet Resource Year: 2010 Country: Indonesia URL: Shelf Number: 119547 Keywords: Illegal LoggingIllegal TradeOffenses Against the EnvironmentSmugglingWildlife Crime |
Author: Mwanika, Philip Arthur Njuguna Title: Eco-Cop: Environmental Policing in Eastern Africa Summary: The power to police, as part of statecraft , is a basic attribute of contemporary government that manifests in a vast array of sites of governance, including not only the state itself, but also areas such as the community, the household and industry, and contemporary realms such as the war against terrorism. This paper looks at a particular dominant realm of governance that is a mainstay of modern policing, i.e. the environmental protection realm, and particularly the policing component known as environmental crime management. Towards that end, this paper attempts to make sense of the policing component understood as ‘environmental policing’ and how it is operationalised in Africa. Case studies from the Great Lakes and the Horn of Africa have been adopted. The question of whether the police institution in the continent should be involved in environmental protection or have an environmental enforcement component has been critically investigated against a backdrop of the political, societal, administrative and bureaucratic realities in the mentioned geo-political concerns. Details: Pretoria: Institute for Security Studies, 2010. 16p. Source: Internet Resource: ISS Paper 215: Accessed September 17, 2010 at: http://www.iss.co.za/uploads/215.pdf Year: 2010 Country: South Africa URL: http://www.iss.co.za/uploads/215.pdf Shelf Number: 119827 Keywords: Environmental ProtectionIllegal FishingIllegal LoggingIllegal TradeOffenses Against the EnvironmentPolicingWildlife Crimes |
Author: Greenpeace Title: The Untouchables: Rimbunan Hijau's World of Forest Crime and Political Patronage Summary: Rimbunan Hijau (RH) dominates the logging industry in Papua New Guinea and has interests in Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, Malaysia, Vanuatu, Indonesia, New Zealand and Russia, making it one of the world's largest forest destroyers. Many of these operations are characterised by documented illegalities and environmental destruction. The company seems impervious to criticism and appears to be protected by an extensive and well-established network of political patronage and media control. Details: Amsterdam: Greenpeace, 2004. 19p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed September 21, 2010 at: http://www.wrm.org.uy/countries/Malaysia/RHreport.pdf Year: 2004 Country: Papua New Guinea URL: http://www.wrm.org.uy/countries/Malaysia/RHreport.pdf Shelf Number: 119840 Keywords: Illegal LoggingOffenses Against the EnvironmentWildlife Crime |
Author: Lawson, Sam Title: Illegal Logging and Related Trade: Indicators of the Global Response: Country Report Cards Summary: This report card assesses the imports of illegally sourced wood, the government response, the private-sector response, media attention and areas for improvement for Brazil, Cameroon, Ghana, Indonesia, Malaysia, China, Vietnam, UK, United States, The Netherlands, France and Japan. Details: London: Chatham House, 2010. 12p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed October 12, 2010 at: http://www.chathamhouse.org.uk/research/eedp/papers/view/-/id/913/ Year: 2010 Country: International URL: http://www.chathamhouse.org.uk/research/eedp/papers/view/-/id/913/ Shelf Number: 119934 Keywords: Illegal LoggingIllegal TradeOffenses Against the EnvironmentWildlife Crime |
Author: Bricknell, Samantha Title: Environmental Crime in Australia Summary: Environmental crime is the perpetration of harms against the environment that violate current law. The term environmental harm is often interchanged with environmental crime and, for some, any activity that has a deleterious effect on the environment is considered an environmental crime. At the other end of the spectrum, the harm may be conceived of as a crime per se only if it is subject to criminal prosecution and criminal sanction. The activities that are recognised in Australia as environmental crimes include: pollution or other contamination of air, land and water; illegal discharge and dumping of, or trade in, hazardous and other regulated waste; illegal trade in ozone-depleting substances; illegal, unregulated and unreported (IUU) fishing; illegal trade in (protected) flora and fauna and harms to biodiversity; illegal logging and timber trade; illegal native vegetation clearance; and water theft. Compared with other crimes, environmental crime has taken longer to be accepted as a genuine category of crime. Changing perceptions about the vulnerability of the environment, particularly with respect to long-term outcomes of environmentally harmful practices, has altered this view to the extent that most behaviour with a potential environmental consequence is now tightly regulated. Environmental crime has received some research attention in Australia but little in the way of a comprehensive account. This report aims to address this by assembling the available literature to examine the nature and extent of environmental crime in Australia and the laws and other processes in place to prevent, deter and sanction environmental offences. Details: Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology, 2010. 132p. Source: Internet Resource: AIC Reports, Research and Public Policy Series 109: Accessed October 18, 2010 at: http://www.aic.gov.au/documents/2/1/1/%7B211B5EB9-E888-4D26-AED4-1D4E76646E4B%7Drpp109.pdf Year: 2010 Country: Australia URL: http://www.aic.gov.au/documents/2/1/1/%7B211B5EB9-E888-4D26-AED4-1D4E76646E4B%7Drpp109.pdf Shelf Number: 120006 Keywords: Illegal FishingIllegal LoggingIllegal TradeOffenses Against the EnvironmentWildlife Crime |
Author: Jaakko Poyry Consulting Title: Overview of Illegal Logging Summary: This report prepared for the Australian Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry provides an overview of the estimated impact of illegal logging on Australian imports of forest and wood products. Details: Melbourne: J P Management Consulting, 2005. 21p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed October 19, 2010 at: http://www.daff.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0009/37593/illegal_logging_report_16sept05.pdf Year: 2005 Country: Australia URL: http://www.daff.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0009/37593/illegal_logging_report_16sept05.pdf Shelf Number: 120014 Keywords: Illegal LoggingOffenses Against the Environment |
Author: Center for International Economics Title: A Final Report to Inform a Regulation Impact Statement for the Proposed New Policy on Illegally Logged Timber Summary: The Australian Government is considering introducing a policy to combat illegal logging and associated trade by establishing systems that will promote trade in legally logged timber and, in the long term, trade in timber and wood products from sustainably managed forests. The proposed policy includes restricting importation of illegally logged timber and thereby assisting in reducing the environmental, social and financial damage caused by it to Australia and other countries in the region. It also includes action to require disclosure of species, country of harvest and any certification at point of sale. This report is the final report to the Department of Agriculture Forestry and Fisheries (DAFF) on the Regulation Impact Statement (RIS) process required for the policy. It is designed to assist DAFF to inform Government consideration of the options for combating illegal logging and associated trade in the most cost effective and efficient manner. It has drawn on initial consultations based on an issues paper circulated earlier in the process, a Consultation (Draft) RIS and stakeholder submissions responding to that and on interactions with government agencies with portfolio interests in combating illegal logging and associated trade. After considering a range of options, the report concludes that, because of Australia's limited share in the international timber trade, Australia should consider only non-regulatory policy options to combat illegal logging. Capacity building is one possibility. This has not been assessed here as this was not of concern to the Office of Best Practice Regulation. Nonetheless, an advantage of capacity building options is that they are designed to tackle the problem of illegal logging at its source. That is, they are designed to change ambiguous laws and/or to see enforcement of laws closer to the source of the problem. They also act directly on domestic production, not just part of trade. At this level, Australia is likely to provide more direct leadership and to establish influence without creating reasons for retaliation or non-cooperation. It can also limit and contain costs by targeting action toward initiatives where it has a reasonable chance of success. Bilateral and/or plurilateral agreements designed to tackle illegal logging by directly influencing the reform and enforcement of forestry laws in the country of origin of the problem may also hold promise. They too are targeting all levels of production in risk countries, not just a small amount of exports. Details: Canberra: Centre for International Economics, 2010. 144p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed October 19, 2010 at: Year: 2010 Country: Australia URL: Shelf Number: 120015 Keywords: Illegal LoggingOffenses Against the Environment |
Author: Rekins, Martins Title: Illegal Logging in Latvia and Export of Forest Products to the UK Summary: For several years illegal logging and forest crime have been priority issues for WWF globally as well as Pasaules Dabas Fonds (formerly WWF Latvia) forest programme. The previous studies conducted by WWF and its partners about the forest sector in Latvia have concluded that illegal logging and forest crime are major factors undermining the economic development of the industry, creating social problems and adverse environmental consequences. Export of forest products brought in about one third of Latvia’s export revenues in 2004, exceeding 1 billion EUR. The United Kingdom was the biggest trade partner (300 million EUR in 2004) and Latvia was the second largest supplier of timber products to the UK after Sweden. The main export product is sawn timber, constituting more than 90 % of all exported volume. The study has three main goals: to provide an overview on development trends of illegal logging and forest crime in Latvia; to gather information about the leading Latvia’s exporters of forest products to the United Kingdom and evaluate purchasing policy and corporate social responsibility of these companies; and to provide recommendations for responsible governmental organisations, industry and other stakeholders for further activities to eliminate illegal logging and forest crime in Latvia. Details: Riga, Latvia: Pasaules Dabas Fonds, 2006. 27p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed October 20, 2010 at: http://www.pdf.lv/doc_upl/IllegalLogin.pdf Year: 2006 Country: Latvia URL: http://www.pdf.lv/doc_upl/IllegalLogin.pdf Shelf Number: 120031 Keywords: Illegal LoggingOffenses Against the EnvironmentWildlife Crime |
Author: Global Witness Title: Investigation Into the Global Trade in Malagasy Precious Woods: Rosewood, Ebony and Pallisander Summary: In June 2009, Madagascar National Parks (MNP) with an official mandate of the Ministry of the Environment and Forests contracted Global Witness and the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) to investigate and monitor the flow of illegally harvested precious wood from the national parks and surrounding areas of Madagascar’s SAVA Region. This illicit trade in rare, high-value species such as ebony, rosewood and pallisander serves export markets in China, the United States and Europe, where it is used to manufacture furniture and musical instruments. The quick profits on offer have fuelled a timber rush which has decimated Madagascar’s few remaining precious forests. Our November 2009 report, Investigation into the illegal felling, transport and export of precious wood in SAVA Region Madagascar1, revealed the inner workings of the trade and the extent of the damage. It estimated the traffic’s value at up to USD460,000 per day on international markets, with most profits pocketed by a small group of “timber barons”, who typically channel the money into overseas bank accounts and property. This latest report tells what happened next. It traces several important developments since the November publication, and presents findings from our follow-up investigations into the trade flows and consumer markets which facilitate and promote demand for Madagascar’s precious woods. Details: Washington, DC: Environmental Investigation Agency; London: Global Witness, 2010. 31p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed November 1, 2010 at: http://www.financialtaskforce.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/Illegal_Timber_Report_261010.pdf Year: 2010 Country: Madagascar URL: http://www.financialtaskforce.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/Illegal_Timber_Report_261010.pdf Shelf Number: 120136 Keywords: Illegal LoggingIllegal TradeOffenses Against the EnvironmentWildlife Crime |
Author: Jaramillo, Ana Lucia Title: Stemming Illegal Logging and Timber Trade: An Overview of the European Union FLEGT Action Plan Summary: Over the last four decades, there has been a global recognition of the damage to world forests caused by illegal logging and the related trade in illegally produced timber products. The European Community (hereinafter “EC”), as a major timber-consuming market, understands that the EC’s demand for timber, and the subsequent money flow there from, perpetuates the negative effects of illegal logging. The EC recognises that illegal logging poses a threat to wild fauna and flora, to the indigenous people living in the forests of timber-producing countries, the depressing effect on the economies of timber-producing countries, and the fact that profits of illegal logging often flow back to corrupt regimes and conflict zones. The purpose of this report is to give an overview of the EC’s effort to tackle illegal logging and trade in illegally produced timber. Details: Brussels: Institute for Environmental Security, 2008. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed November 8, 2010 at: http://www.envirosecurity.org/pathfinder/FLEGT_web.pdf Year: 2008 Country: Europe URL: http://www.envirosecurity.org/pathfinder/FLEGT_web.pdf Shelf Number: 120203 Keywords: Illegal LoggingOffenses Against the EnvironmentWildlife Crimes |
Author: Tacconi, Luda Title: Learning Lessons to Promote Forest Certification and Control Illegal Logging in Indonesia Summary: Illegal logging is a cause for widespread concern. It has negative environmental impacts, results in the loss of forest products used by rural communities, creates conflicts, and causes significant losses of tax revenues that could be used for development activities. The Nature Conservancy and World Wide Fund for Nature developed the Alliance to Promote Certification and Combat Illegal Logging in Indonesia to respond to the concern about illegal logging. The Alliance is a three-year initiative that aims to: 1. Strengthen market signals to expand certification and combat illegal logging, 2. Increase supply of certified Indonesian wood products, 3. Demonstrate practical solutions to achieve certification and differentiate legal and illegal supplies, 4. Reduce financing and investment in companies engaged in destructive or illegal logging in Indonesia, 5. Share lessons learned from the project. The Alliance seeks to learn lessons from its ongoing work to inform and adapt its activities, as well as to inform other initiatives seeking to address similar problems. This report is part of this lessons learning process. This report assesses the situation in Indonesia, including a quantitative estimation of illegally produced logs, discusses the causes of illegal logging, and describes the national and international policy and trade context. Then, it considers the work undertaken by the Alliance to address illegal logging in Indonesia; it summarizes the strategy of the Alliance, describes its rationale, and assesses the assumptions underlying the rationale and the objectives. Finally, it summarizes the progress made by the Alliance towards achieving its goal, highlights the lessons that can be learnt from the work in progress, and provides recommendations for the Alliance. Details: Jakarta, Indonesia: Center for International Forestry Research, 2004. 82p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed December 21, 2010 at: http://www.cifor.cgiar.org/publications/pdf_files/Books/BTacconi0401.pdf Year: 2004 Country: Indonesia URL: http://www.cifor.cgiar.org/publications/pdf_files/Books/BTacconi0401.pdf Shelf Number: 120566 Keywords: Illegal LoggingOffenses Against the Environment |
Author: Setiono, Bambang Title: Fighting Forest Crime and Promoting Prudent Banking for Sustainable Forests Management: The Anti Money Laundering Approach Summary: If illegal logging was a crime involving only poor forest-dependent people, truck drivers or underpaid forest rangers, it would not be difficult to stop. With involvement of financiers of illegal logging, known as cukong, legal timber industries, and government officers, illegal logging becomes a complex problem not only for Indonesia, but also for the international forestry community. The current forestry law enforcement approach fails to capture the masterminds of illegal logging. However, the money laundering law enforcement approach which ‘follows the money’ provides an important option to deal with the masterminds of illegal logging. This new approach requires banks and other financial service providers to be more active and prudent in dealing with financial transactions related to their customers. Bank customers could include financiers of illegal logging, timber industries, law enforcement and government officers. Overall, proper implementation of the anti money laundering regime should provide opportunities for promoting prudent banking practices and sustainable forest management, and for curtailing forestry crimes. Details: Jakarta, Indonesia: Center for International Forestry Research, 2005. 25p. Source: Internet Resource: CIFOR Occasional Paper No. 44: Accessed February 1, 2011 at: http://www.cifor.cgiar.org/publications/pdf_files/OccPapers/OP-44.pdf Year: 2005 Country: International URL: http://www.cifor.cgiar.org/publications/pdf_files/OccPapers/OP-44.pdf Shelf Number: 120653 Keywords: Illegal LoggingMoney LaunderingOffenses Against the Environment |
Author: Tacconi, Luca Title: National and International Policies to Control Illegal Forest Activities Summary: The purpose of this study is to critically examine the range of national and international policy options available to reduce illegal forest activities. Illegal forest activities include a broad array of legal violations that range from violating ownership and use rights to engaging in corrupt relationships. They also may span activities at all stages of the forest production chain, from the acquisition of authorizations, to planning, to harvesting and transport of raw material and finished products, to financial management. Illegal forest activities pose a significant threat to the sustainability of forest ecosystems, result in losses of government revenues, foster a vicious cycle of bad governance, and may contribute to increased poverty and social conflict. As such, they have received considerable attention from the international community, particularly in recent years. Yet, significant gaps still exist both in the identification and evaluation of policy responses and in linking such responses to critical development priorities such as improved governance, improved livelihoods for the rural poor, environmental protection, sustainable forest management (SFM), and economic development. As such, the current debate on illegal forest activities has yet to recognize fully the broader implications of some options for such priorities. In this study we provide a framework for addressing these issues and to narrow these gaps. We present an overview of the symptomatic manifestations of illegal forest activities: Forest products generated in violation of government policies represent a very significant fraction of total production and may amount to 10-15 billion dollars in lost government revenues. We then provide a simple framework to understand the problem. In this framework we lay out that profit and income maximization are key aspects of the economic behavior of firms and individuals. Illegal behavior is more likely when the benefits derived from violating the law (e.g., timber mining, tax evasion, harvesting protected species or in unauthorized areas) exceed the costs of non-compliance. In large part, the policy options that are listed in the report consist of measures that reduce the economic rewards from illegal behavior, either by increasing the rewards of compliance, or by increasing the costs of non-compliance. Potential underlying market, governance and institutional causes of illegal forest activities, as well as capacity and technical factors are identified. We do so by first relying on the lessons learned from efforts to promote SFM over the past two decades. There are several reasons for doing so and particularly the fact that efforts to promote SFM and to reduce illegal forest activities are motivated by similar goals and challenges. These lessons learned from SFM experiences are then integrated with knowledge and insights gained from recent developments in our understanding of good forest governance to develop an array of possible policy responses by producer and consumer countries. An analysis of existing trade and environmental agreements, their lessons, and potential relevance to addressing illegal forest activities is presented. An analysis of trade data shows that Asian producer countries export mainly to other Asian countries, whereas African countries export mostly to Europe. Therefore, trade measures adopted by Asian consumer countries are most likely to have an impact on illegal trade and illegal logging in Asia (with the exception of China that imports from Africa as well). Trade measures implemented by European countries are most likely to be effective on illegal trade and illegal logging in Africa. The report concludes by presenting principles, criteria, and initial sequencing steps to aid the development of appropriate policy options to reduce illegal forest activities. Details: Jakarta, Indonesia: Center for International Forestry Research, 2003. 63p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed February 1, 2011 at: http://www.cifor.cgiar.org/publications/pdf_files/events/Illegal-logging.pdf Year: 2003 Country: International URL: http://www.cifor.cgiar.org/publications/pdf_files/events/Illegal-logging.pdf Shelf Number: 120568 Keywords: Illegal LoggingIllegal Trade (Forest Products)Offenses Against the Environment |
Author: Yanfang, Tian Title: China's Imports of Russian Timber: Chinese Actors in the Timber Commodity Chain and Their Risks of Involvement in Illegal Logging and the Resultant Trade Summary: Since the end of the 1990s, the Sino-Russian border regions have witnessed a dramatic, unprecedented increase in cross-border timber trade that has made Russia the largest log supplier for China’s expanding wood industry sector. Driving factors include: severe constraints in China’s domestic wood supplies, the availability of rich forest resources in the Russian Far East and Siberia, liberalised trade policies and demand from both domestic and European, Japanese and US markets for low cost Chinese wood products. This study provides a contextual description and analysis of the cross-border timber trade boom and the actors involved. It examines the current challenges faced by a largely inefficient Russian forestry sector and decentralised Russian forest administration in the context of illegal logging and unsustainable forestry practices, both widely viewed as having reached serious dimensions. This study focuses on the involvement and role of Chinese actors throughout the supply chain. Chinese companies have entered the Russian forestry sector, introduced greater efficiency and proved competitive. This involvement has also opened doors for Chinese actors to inadvertently or intentionally participate in illegal activities throughout the supply chain. In addition to timber harvesting, Chinese actors are involved as intermediaries in the commercial log depots and control the wholesale timber market in some parts of Russia. Chinese actors have also increasingly invested in wood processing in Russia, partly in response to the adjustment of the Russian export tax on logs. Most recently, there has been a trend towards vertical integration for Chinese companies, with intermediaries and wood importers attempting to extend their business to every node of the trading network. On the Chinese side of the border, preferential tax policies and infrastructure investment have spurred a rapid development of the timber processing industry with private sector processing mills replacing state-owned timber processing factories. To promote responsible timber trade within this context of commodity chain transformation, the study recommends the following measures: Establish inspection sites near the commercial depots; Enhance the effectiveness of administrative inspection through technical improvement, harmonisation of regulations and setting-up of an integrated monitoring system; Localise international forest certification schemes; Chinese and Russian government agencies to provide joint guidance on documentation that could be used by traders to establish a chain of custody for forest products; Establish a China-Russian multi-stakeholder working group to monitor the timber trade and exchange customs data in a timely manner; Chinese government to revise its procurement policy to favour legal and sustainable wood. Details: Kanagawa, Japan: Institute for Global Environmental Strategies, 2008. 45p. Source: Internet Resource: Forest Conservation, Livelihoods and Rights Project - Occasional Paper No. 2: Accessed February 14, 2011 at: http://enviroscope.iges.or.jp/modules/envirolib/upload/1569/attach/1569.pdf Year: 2008 Country: Russia URL: http://enviroscope.iges.or.jp/modules/envirolib/upload/1569/attach/1569.pdf Shelf Number: 120769 Keywords: Illegal LoggingIllegal TradeOffenses Against the Environment |
Author: Lawson, Sam Title: Illegal Logging and Related Trade: Indicators of the Global Response Summary: Illegal logging and associated trade in illegally sourced wood products are important causes of deforestation and forest degradation in many developing countries. Forest destruction in turn contributes up to 20 per cent of global carbon dioxide emissions. Illegal logging also robs cash-strapped governments of vital revenues, has a devastating impact on the livelihoods of forest-dependent people, and fosters corruption and conflict. Over the last decade governments, the private sector and civil society have recognized these impacts and have made increasing efforts to tackle the problem. This study attempts to measure the scale and the effectiveness of the response to illegal logging. It examines the response in countries where illegal logging occurs and also in those countries which import, process and consume illegally sourced wood. In addition to measuring the extent to which illegal logging and associated trade has changed over time, the study examines how attention to the problem has changed and how governments and the private sector have responded. Various indicators and means of verification have been designed, tested and used by Chatham House to measure the response in five timber-producing countries, five consuming countries, and two countries whose timber trade is largely based on processing imported raw material for export. The study finds that while illegal logging remains a major problem, the impact of the response has been considerable. Illegal logging is estimated to have fallen during the last decade by 50 per cent in Cameroon, by between 50 and 75 per cent in the Brazilian Amazon, and by 75 per cent in Indonesia, while imports of illegally sourced wood to the seven consumer and processing countries studied are down 30 per cent from their peak. Details: London: Chatham House, 2010. 132p. Source: Accessed February 15, 2011 at: http://www.chathamhouse.org.uk/files/16950_0710pr_illegallogging.pdf Year: 2010 Country: International URL: http://www.chathamhouse.org.uk/files/16950_0710pr_illegallogging.pdf Shelf Number: 120770 Keywords: Illegal LoggingIllegal TradeOffenses Against the Environment |
Author: Lopez-Casero, Federico Title: Customs Collaboration to Combat the Interntional Trade in Illegal Timber Summary: While it is widely understood that forests fulfil economic, social and environmental functions that are critical to human survival and wellbeing, their destruction continues at an alarming rate; the area of primary forest in Asia decreased at an average rate of 1.5 million hectares per annum from 1990-2005 (FAO 2006, 135). Not all of this deforestation is planned. In developing tropical countries, illegal logging is a significant cause of forest degradation that often leads to permanent land use conversion. Because timber markets mostly do not distinguish between legal and illegal timber, international trade can inadvertently act as a driver of illegal logging. Various initiatives are underway to reform the international timber trade to support legal and sustainable forest operations. This policy brief presents the findings of a study conducted by IGES and The Nature Conservancy (TNC) from June 2008 to January 2010 under the Responsible Asia Forestry and Trade (RAFT) programme for customs agencies to be involved in this endeavour. We mostly associate customs with collecting revenues and combating the trade in narcotics, weapons, etc. but the IGESTNC study found that customs could also play an important role in reducing the cross-border movement of illegal timber. The recommendations of the IGES-TNC study include: • Use existing bilateral agreements on illegal logging to build the capacity of customs and collaboration within and between countries for more effective enforcement of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). • Use export declarations as a check on legality at the point of import. • Target regional processes and platforms for regular meetings between customs and forestry officials. • Make more effective use of existing World Customs Organisation (WCO) networks and tools. Details: Kanagawa, Japan: Institute for Global Environmental Strategies, 2010. 8p. Source: Internet Resource: Policy Brief No. 11: Accessed February 15, 2011 at: http://enviroscope.iges.or.jp/modules/envirolib/upload/2934/attach/pb11_e.pdf Year: 2010 Country: International URL: http://enviroscope.iges.or.jp/modules/envirolib/upload/2934/attach/pb11_e.pdf Shelf Number: 120772 Keywords: Customs/BordersIllegal LoggingIllegal TradeOffenses Against the Environment |
Author: Baker, Shawn Title: An Analysis of Timber Trespass and Theft Issues in the Southern Appalachian Region Summary: Timber theft is a crime within the forest industry which has not received a large amount of attention within research literature. As a result, there are no recent estimates available of the extent of the problem. The southern Appalachian region has conditions which seem to be conducive to timber theft, but convictions for timber theft in the area are infrequent. In order to address these issues, a study was undertaken in a 20 county region of the southern Appalachians to interview law enforcement officers and prosecuting attorneys about their knowledge of timber theft and their current level of investigation and prosecution. To ascertain the extent of timber theft, interviews were also carried out with both industrial and non-industrial landowners. The survey results indicate that both prosecuting attorneys and law enforcement officers are generally knowledgeable regarding timber theft and trespass. Results were similar between those individuals who had experience with the crime as well as those who did not. The overriding perception from both prosecuting attorneys and law enforcement officers was that timber theft should be handled as a civil violation. This perception was primarily a result of the frequent lack of properly located boundary lines to prove ownership of the property, and the difficulty of proving criminal intent. The study found 22 convictions for timber theft out of 36 criminal cases in the past three years. Due to a low response rate (16%) from non-industrial private forest landowners, estimates of the extent of timber theft were determined from the industrial landowner data and the law enforcement and attorney surveys. Based on these data, the impact of timber theft was conservatively estimated at 120 incidents per year, resulting in a loss of approximately $300,000 per year within the study area. An extrapolation of this to the entire southern Appalachian region would mean over $4 million per year. The results of this research indicates that there are potential areas for improvement in the conviction of timber theft offenders as well as in reducing the total number of theft incidents. The current statutes used to deal with timber theft are generally inadequate to provide prosecutors with the potential to convict most timber thieves because of the unique evidentiary requirements of a timber theft. As a result, changes in the statute would likely provide the greatest remedy. Civil statutes are also inadequate in many states to provide landowners the opportunity to obtain a suitable civil judgment. Information needs to be disseminated to landowners, law enforcement officers, and prosecuting attorneys about the aspects of timber theft which are most pertinent to them, and how the problem should be dealt with both before and after the theft. Details: Blacksburg, VA: Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 2003. 118p. Source: Internet Resource: Master's Thesis: Accessed June 30, 2011 at: http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/theses/available/etd-05212003-153313/unrestricted/timb_theft_thesis.pdf Year: 2003 Country: United States URL: http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/theses/available/etd-05212003-153313/unrestricted/timb_theft_thesis.pdf Shelf Number: 121931 Keywords: Illegal LoggingTheft of Natural ResourcesTimber Theft |
Author: Felbab-Brown, Vanda Title: The Disappearing Act: The Illicit Trade in Wildlife in Asia Summary: Southeast Asia, with its linkages into the larger Asian market that includes China, Indonesia, and India, is one of the world’s biodiversity hotspots as well as one of the world’s hotspots for the illegal trade in wildlife and wildlife parts. Although demand markets for wildlife, including illegally-traded wildlife are present throughout the world, China ranks as the world’s largest market for illegal trade in wildlife, and wildlife products, followed by the United States. Globally, the volume and diversity of traded and consumed species have increased to phenomenal and unprecedented levels, contributing to very intense species loss. In Southeast Asia alone, where the illegal trade in wildlife is estimated to be worth $8-$10 billion per year, wildlife is harvested at many times the sustainable level, decimating ecosystems and driving species to extinction. Other environmental threats such as climate change, deforestation and other habitat destruction, industrial pollution, and the competition between indigenous species and invasive species often impact ecosystems on a large scale. But the unsustainable, and often illegal, trade in wildlife has the capacity to drive species into extirpation in large areas and often into worldwide extinction—especially species that are already vulnerable as a result of other environmental threats. The threats posed by illegal (and also legal, but badly managed and unsustainable) trade in wildlife are serious and multiple. They include irrevocable loss of species and biodiversity; extensive disturbances to larger ecosystems; economic losses due to the collapse of sustainable legal trade of a species and its medicinal and other derivate products, or of ecotourism linked to the species; severe threats to the food-supply and income of forest-dependent peoples; spread of viruses and diseases; and the strengthening of organized crime and militant groups who use the illegal trade in wildlife for provisions and financing. At the core of the illegal trade in wildlife is a strong and rapidly-expanding demand. This includes demand for bushmeat — by marginalized communities for whom wildlife meat is often the primary source of protein, and for the affluent who consume exotic meat as a luxury good. Other demand for wildlife is for curios, trophies, collections, and accessories, furs and pets. Much of demand arises out of the practice of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) which uses natural plant, animal, and mineral-based materials to treat a variety of illnesses, maintain good health and longevity, and enhance sexual potency, and is practiced by hundreds of millions of people. Although effective medicinal alternatives are now available—many of these TCM potions fail to cure anything, and the supply of ingredients for TCM frequently comes through illegal channels and crisis-level poaching — demand for TCM continues to expand greatly. The expansion of supply of illegally-sourced and traded wildlife has been facilitated by the opening up of economies in Southeast and East Asia and the strengthening of their international legal and illegal trade connections; infrastructure development linking previously inaccessible wilderness areas; and commercial logging. The illegal trade in wildlife involves a complex and diverse set of actors. These include illegal hunters — ranging from traditional and poor ones to professional hunters, layers of middlemen, top-level traders and organized-crime groups, launderers of wildlife products (such as corrupt captive- breeding farms and private zoos), militant groups, as well as local and far-away consumers, both affluent and some of the world’s poorest. Other stakeholders in the regulation of wildlife trade and conservation include logging companies, agribusinesses, the fishing industry, local police and en- forcement forces, and governments. Policies and enforcement strategies for curbing the illegal trade in wildlife to ensure wildlife conservation and preserve biodiversity need to address the complex and actor-specific drivers of the illegal behavior. In Southeast and East Asia, government policies to prevent illegal trade in wildlife continue to be generally characterized by weak laws governing wildlife trade, limited enforcement and low penalties. Government efforts to inform publics largely unaware of (and often indifferent to) how their consumer behavior contributes to the devastation of ecosystems in the region and world-wide also continue to be inadequate. Monitoring of captive-breeding facilities in Asia is often poor, thus facilitating the laundering of illegally-sourced wildlife and undermining the capacity of the legal trade in wildlife to curb illegal and unsustainable practices. Nonetheless, there has been intensification and improvement of government response to the illegal trade in wildlife in Asia, with many governments in the region toughening laws and increasing law enforcement, the Southeast Asian countries establishing the ASEAN-Wildlife Enforcement Network (ASEAN-WEN) to facilitate law enforcement, and even China undertaking more extensive labeling of legal wildlife products. The extent of unsustainable, environmentally damaging, and illegal practices that still characterize the wildlife trade in Asia and in many parts of the world cries out for better forms of regulation and more effective law enforcement. Unfortunately, there are no easy solutions to the problem; and almost every particular regulatory policy is either difficult to implement or entails difficult trade-offs and dilemmas. Details: Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 2011. 43p. Source: Internet Resource: Working Paper No. 6: Accessed July 7, 2011 at: http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/Files/rc/papers/2011/06_illegal_wildlife_trade_felbabbrown/06_illegal_wildlife_trade_felbabbrown.pdf Year: 2011 Country: Asia URL: http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/Files/rc/papers/2011/06_illegal_wildlife_trade_felbabbrown/06_illegal_wildlife_trade_felbabbrown.pdf Shelf Number: 122000 Keywords: Illegal LoggingIllegal Wildlife TradeOffenses Against the EnvironmentOrganized CrimeWildlife Crime (Asia) |
Author: Magrath, William Title: CHAINSAW Project: An INTERPOL Perspective on Law Enforcement in Illegal Logging Summary: INTERPOL’s Project CHAINSAW was initiated in July 2008 in consultation with the World Bank. The World Bank raised concern that the illegal logging issue has, to date, principally been considered from an environmental perspective and requested INTERPOL, the only International Criminal Police Organisation, to examine the problem from the perspective of international criminal justice. When it comes to breaching national and international laws, undertaking and developing illegal activities at transnational level, and jeopardizing public safety; illegal logging becomes a criminal issue and the individuals responsible for illegal logging become criminals subject to sanctions. The World Bank also underlined the limited knowledge of the criminal justice system and need for better understanding of international law enforcement mechanisms among forestry policy makers. The CHAINSAW report is developed from a perspective of timber as a commodity, and illegal logging (more precisely illegal timber trafficking) as a succession of criminal activities undertaken at an international level by a network of organized criminals. The report provides a better appreciation of law enforcement systems and a better understanding of the way police agencies cooperate, or in some cases fail to cooperate, at an international level. It discusses the role and functions of INTERPOL to a non law enforcement audience This report is not exhaustive but aims to give a better idea of how legal texts, law enforcement agencies, and police cooperation all form a criminal justice system that could be more relevant and applicable to forest governance. The CHAINSAW report is not an operational report; it does not contain nominal data such as the names of illegal timber traffickers, names of companies engaging in illegal activities, or the locations of those activities. It will define the structure of the phenomenon and its different components, and also identify the law enforcement mechanisms and tools available to counter illegal logging. The CHAINSAW report includes information obtained from a variety of sources including police information from INTERPOL National Central Bureaus (NCB’s), data collected by national customs offices, research papers by environmental organisations, articles from criminology journals, and reports written by Non-governmental Organisations (NGO’s). One of the difficulties met while drafting the report was locating accurate statistics. The authors found that when used to support a point of view, numerical data is often biased, if not conflicting. This has resulted, for this report, in available statistics being employed only for illustrative purposes, not demonstrative. Nonetheless it is hoped that the contents of this report will provide a useful additional framework for policy makers and those responsible for forest governance and will help galvanize interest and support for stronger efforts among traditional law enforcement authorities to address illegal logging and illegal timber trade. Details: Lyon, France: INTERPOL; Washington, DC: The World Bank, 2010? 57p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed August 12, 2011 at: http://www.interpol.int/Public/EnvironmentalCrime/Manual/WorldBankChainsawIllegalLoggingReport.pdf Year: 2010 Country: International URL: http://www.interpol.int/Public/EnvironmentalCrime/Manual/WorldBankChainsawIllegalLoggingReport.pdf Shelf Number: 122377 Keywords: Illegal LoggingOffenses Against the Environment |
Author: Kaczynski, Vlad M.. Title: Illegal Activities in Marine Protected Areas: The Case of Guinea-Bissau, West Africa Summary: At the time when many industrialized economies enjoy healthy economic growth, many developing countries including these located in Sub-Saharan Africa suffer an outright decline in welfare, economic crisis and deterioration of their natural environments. In many poor countries, in spite of great potential of their coastal resources, technological, economic and managerial capabilities to use them do not exist or in order to gain badly needed hard currency they export or allow to take away by foreigners their natural resources thus feeding other markets including these in rich industrialized countries. As a result deficit of food and malnutrition is deepening in the developing countries and Africa is the most appealing example of this trend. Coastal lands in poorest African countries are increasingly cleared of mangroves, their fishery resources are exploited by foreign operators and drug trafficking is expanding because of weak or absent capabilities of these states to control these pressures and activities. The United States interests in successful economic growth and good governance in developing countries of Africa are multifaceted. Some of these interests are economic: the economic success or failure of these countries determine the gains from trade and investment that the United States reaps in its economic relations with many African countries. Other US interests are of security nature and illegal resource exploitation combined with growing smuggling of drugs to Europe and the US are of great concern for the US Home Security Department as well as to the US development and aid programs. The poor state’s failure is both the cause and consequence of international criminality, including pirate operations and international drug trafficking. Such states are easy prey for criminal groups, pirates and drug smugglers. The poor coastal African country of Guinea-Bissau cannot afford to establish or maintain necessary controls and surveillance system to prevent these negative trends and these include environmental degradation that is caused by tropical deforestation, overfishing, soil erosion, loss of biodiversity and long-term climate change. Additional challenge this country faces is quickly growing drug trafficking that transits through Guinea-Bissau waters and land routes to push drugs from Africa and South America to the industrialized markets, particularly Europe and the United States. Is there a strategic significance of inequities in income levels, economic growth and, in capabilities of poor nations to assure good governance and sustainable use of their natural resources and if so, which policy might the industrialized countries pursue to address those strategic concerns? The similar question may be posed in regard to ther ocean policy toward developing countries having in mind continuing deterioration of their marine and coastal environments and declining possibilities to produce food of aquatic origin for their growing populations. Details: Seattle, WA: School of Marine Affairs and Jackson School of International Studies, University of Washington; Republic of Guinea-Bissau, West Africa: Ministry of Interior, 2006. 11p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed August 15, 2011 at: http://akson.sgh.waw.pl/~trusek/globalization/papers/kaczynski-djassi.pdf Year: 2006 Country: Guinea-Bissau URL: http://akson.sgh.waw.pl/~trusek/globalization/papers/kaczynski-djassi.pdf Shelf Number: 122390 Keywords: Drug TraffickingIllegal FishingIllegal LoggingMaritime CrimeOffenses Against the Environment (Guinea-Bissau) |
Author: Chimeli, Ariaster B. Title: The Use of Violence in Illegal Markets: Evidence from Mahogany Trade in the Brazilian Amazon Summary: Agents operating in illegal markets cannot resort to the justice system to guarantee property rights, to enforce contracts, or to seek protection from competitors’ improper behaviors. In these contexts, violence is used to enforce previous agreements and to fight for market share. This relationship plays a major role in the debate on the pernicious effects of the illegality of drug trade. This paper explores a singular episode of transition of a market from legal to illegal to provide a first piece of evidence on the causal effect of illegality on systemic violence. Brazil has historically been the main world producer of big leaf mahogany (a tropical wood). Starting in the 1990s, policies restricting extraction and trade of mahogany, culminating with prohibition, were implemented. First, we present evidence that large scale mahogany trade persisted after prohibition, through misclassification of mahogany exports as “other tropical timber species.” Second, we document relative increases in violence after prohibition in areas with: (i) higher share of mahogany exports before prohibition; (ii) higher suspected illegal mahogany activity after prohibition; and (iii) natural occurrence of mahogany. We believe this is one of the first documented experiences of increase in violence following the transition of a market from legal to illegal. Details: Bonn, Germany: Institute for the Study of Labor, 2011. 46p. Source: Internet Resource: IZA Discussion Paper, No. 5923: Accessed September 3, 2011 at: http://ftp.iza.org/dp5923.pdf Year: 2011 Country: Brazil URL: http://ftp.iza.org/dp5923.pdf Shelf Number: 122631 Keywords: HomicidesIllegal LoggingIllegal Markets (Brazil)Offenses Against the EnvironmentTimberViolence |
Author: Baumuller, Heike Title: Keeping Illegal Fish and Timber off the Market: A Comparison of EU Regulations Summary: . Illegal fishing and logging, and the international trade in illegally sourced fish and wood products cause enormous environmental and economic damage. Consumer countries contribute to the problem by importing fish and timber without ensuring legality – a problem the EU tries to address with two new regulations. In this briefing paper, Duncan Brack, Heike Baumüller and Katharina Umpfenbach compare the recently adopted EU regulations on illegal fish and timber products. The authors contrast the very different approaches and highlight areas that might need further strengthening. •In response to the global problem of illegal logging and fishing, and the failure of the international community effectively to address the problem, the European Union has moved to tighten its own regulations. •The EU regulation to combat illegal fishing introduces comprehensive certification and traceability requirements for anyone wishing to import fish products into the EU, and provides for extensive enforcement measures that can be used by European authorities to ensure compliance with the regulation. •The EU regulation on illegal logging establishes a licensing system with countries that have entered into voluntary partnership agreements (VPA) with the EU. An additional regulation is currently being developed to try to ensure that illegal timber from all countries is excluded from the EU market. •The broad scope of the illegal fishing regulation, in terms of its geographical reach and its emphasis on enforcement is, at least in part, motivated by the ‘common property’ nature of global fisheries resources, which makes it difficult to address the impacts of illegal fishing at the national level. •The bilateral VPA process recognizes the national character of forest governance. While slow in their implementation, the VPAs – with their emphasis on capacity-building and stakeholder engagement – have the potential to trigger long-lasting governance reforms. Details: London: Chatham House, 2009. 12p. Source: Internet Resource: Briefing Paper: Accessed September 3, 2011 at: http://www.chathamhouse.org/sites/default/files/public/Research/Energy%2C%20Environment%20and%20Development/bp1009_fishandtimber.pdf Year: 2009 Country: Europe URL: http://www.chathamhouse.org/sites/default/files/public/Research/Energy%2C%20Environment%20and%20Development/bp1009_fishandtimber.pdf Shelf Number: 122342 Keywords: Illegal Fishing (Europe)Illegal LoggingIllegal MarketsTimberWildlife Crime |
Author: Palmer, Charles E. Title: The Extent and Causes of Illegal Logging: An Analysis of a Major Cause of Tropical Deforestation in Indonesia Summary: This paper considers the scale and underlying causes of recent high rates of deforestation in Indonesia. Its extent during 1997-98 is analysed using a materials balance model, the results of which demonstrate the seriousness of the problem at a time when the Indonesian economy was suffering the effects of the Asian financial crisis. The behaviour of the principal agents, illegal loggers, is discussed in the context of market and government failures and rent-seeking or corruption. A culture of corruption originated at the top of government during the tenure of ex-President Suharto, leading to market and government failures in the forestry sector, thus resulting in the creation of high levels of rent. A culture of corruption ensures that policy failures cannot be reversed and may lead to further intervention to benefit the status quo. Rent-seeking behaviour then spread to all levels of government, via a lack of good example at the top, leading to the creation of illegal logging networks. Since rent from illegal logging is higher than that for legal logging, there is an incentive for agents to ignore costs associated with sustainable forest management. Illegal logging, and hence inefficient resource use, is further encouraged by institutional failures such as weak enforcement and monitoring capacity, as well as policy failures at the international level too. Consequently, Indonesia’s forests have been intensively deforested for perhaps as long as 30 years, with little or no attention given to sustainable forest management. Details: London: Economics Department, University College London and Centre for Social and Economic Research on the Global Environment, University College London and University of East Anglia, 2001(?). 33p. Source: Internet Resource: CSERGE Working Paper: Accessed November 1, 2011 at: http://www.cserge.ucl.ac.uk/Illegal_Logging.pdf Year: 2001 Country: Indonesia URL: http://www.cserge.ucl.ac.uk/Illegal_Logging.pdf Shelf Number: 123209 Keywords: Illegal LoggingOffenses Against the Environment |
Author: Elliott, Lorraine Title: Transnational Environmental Crime: Applying Network Theory to an Investigation of Illegal Trade, Criminal Activity and Law Enforcement Reponses Summary: In his National Security Statement to Parliament in December 2009, the Australian Prime Minister observed that "transnational crime – [including] the illegal exploitation of resources – will remain a continuing challenge" (Office of the Prime Minister of Australia, 2009). According to Sandro Calvani, the Director of UNICRI – the UN Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute – governments face multiple challenges in dealing with the illegal exploitation of resources. Those challenges include "scarce awareness and knowledge of the phenomenon, … insufficient regulation, … growing involvement of organized crime … high profits [and] … scarce international cooperation" (Calvani 2009, p. 14). While this illegal exploitation, captured in the concept of transnational environmental crime (TEC), has become a matter of growing concern for Australian and international security, environmental and criminological policy, the nature and extent of the associated illegal trade and criminal activity remains under-researched. Nor has there been a comprehensive and critically-informed analysis of the nature and extent of international cooperation on policy, compliance and enforcement in response to TEC. This research project therefore has three key objectives: to advance our understanding of the ways in which environmental commodities that are either sourced illegally or destined for illegal markets are traded; to draw on International Relations theories of networks to develop and apply conceptual tools that can aid in understanding the organizational structures of TEC networks and the political, social and economic assets that sustain illicit chains of custody; to examine and analyse existing transnational policy and operational law enforcement responses, particularly those that function through network arrangements, to arrive at a more comprehensive understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of the ways in which governments and other actors are responding to the challenges of TEC. This short working paper provides an overview of the background to this research project, expands on these three key themes, canvasses the conceptual framework that informs the research, and introduces the methodologies that will guide our investigations. Details: Canberra, Australia: Transnational Environmental Crime Project, Department of International Relations, School of International, Political and Strategic Studies, The Australian National Library, 2011. 17p. Source: Transnational Environmental Crime Project, Working Paper 1/2011: Internet Resource: Accessed on January 28, 2012 at http://ips.cap.anu.edu.au/ir/tec/publications/TEC_Working_Paper_1_2011.pdf Year: 2011 Country: Australia URL: http://ips.cap.anu.edu.au/ir/tec/publications/TEC_Working_Paper_1_2011.pdf Shelf Number: 123849 Keywords: Environmental CrimeEnvironmental LawHazardous WastesIllegal LoggingTransnational CrimeWildlife Smuggling |
Author: Engler, Maylynn Title: Opportunity or Threat: The Role of the European Union in Global Wildlife Trade Summary: The European Union (EU) ranks as the top global importer by value of many wild animal and plant commodities, including tropical timber, caviar, reptile skins and live reptiles. In 2005, the legal trade in wildlife products in the EU had an estimated declared import value of EUR93 billion, and EUR2.5 billion excluding timber and fisheries. As EU membership has expanded, the magnitude of the EU market for wildlife and wildlife products has also increased. The links between biodiversity conservation and sustainable development are now universally acknowledged, for example in the Millennium Development Goals and the conclusions of the World Summit on Sustainable Development. A sustainable trade in wild species can contribute significantly to rural incomes, and the effect upon local economies in developing countries can be substantial. The high value of wildlife and wildlife products can also provide a positive incentive for local communities to conserve wild species and their habitats. Consequently, sustainable wildlife trade is potentially beneficial to species and habitat conservation, as well as contributing towards sustainable livelihoods and development. However, unsustainable and illegal trade is a major factor driving biodiversity loss and poses a serious threat to the long-term survival of species including Big-leaf Mahogany Swietenia macrophylla, Vicuña Vicugna vicugna, and sturgeon species. Illegal wildlife trade also affects the economies of developing countries: illegal logging costs developing country governments an estimated EUR10–15 billion every year in lost revenue. There is a huge and escalating demand in Member States for exotic pets, tropical timber, and other wildlife products. While the majority of this wildlife trade into and within the EU is conducted legally, continued demand for some rare and protected species means that illegal wildlife trade still occurs. From 2003 to 2004, enforcement authorities in the EU made over 7000 seizures involving over 3.5 million CITES-listed specimens; from 2000–2005, almost 12 t of caviar were seized. The effect on wild populations of rare and endangered species can be devastating: in the last four years seizures in the EU of the Critically Endangered Egyptian Tortoise Testudo kleinmanni represented around 13% of the total estimated population remaining in the wild. The demand for rare specimens and products means that black market values can be very high: certain species of tortoise can fetch EUR30 000 per specimen. Low political awareness is also an exacerbating factor behind unsustainable and illegal trade, as are high prices for wildlife and low penalties. Low penalties may also influence trade routes: countries with low penalties become the gateway for illegal trade. It is little wonder that organized crime syndicates are engaged in wildlife crime. TheEUhas accomplished many significant achievements in wildlife law enforcement. These could be enhanced considerably through greater national, regional and interregional co-ordination. A co-ordinated EU wildlife trade enforcement action plan with identified priorities, and building on growing political will would considerably strengthen the EU’s response to illegal trade. The sustainability of the trade in wildlife is another key issue to address. Four case studies in this report (tropical timber, reptiles, caviar, and Vicuña products) highlight the role the EU plays in the global wildlife trade, and how the EU could co-ordinate its external assistance actions to maximise effectiveness. The European Commission and EUMember States have made a number of laudable interventions to ensure that trade is sustainable. However, EU external interventions are ad hoc and there are no means of ensuring co-ordination or complementarity of actions from the Member States or the European Commission. A strategic approach, based on priorities identified in collaboration with range States, would enable synergies to be developed, coordination between programmes and monitoring of the effectiveness of assistance interventions. The EU has made a number of policy commitments relevant to wildlife trade. The EU’s Sustainable Development Strategy provides the broad framework for the responsible management of natural resources and requires environmental sustainability to be part of all EU external policies. The Thematic Programme for Environment and Sustainable Management of Natural Resources (ENRTP), under the Thematic Strategy, identifies broad objectives which align strongly with the objectives of the CITES Strategic Vision and with priorities identified in this report for EU external assistance. Furthermore, the EU Biodiversity Action Plan specifically calls for a co-ordinated EU response to unsustainable trade and constructive follow up to EU import suspensions. These political commitments set a positive course for the EU in taking responsibility to ensure wildlife trade is sustainable. But they are vague in terms of priorities, concrete targets and timelines required to achieve these goals, and lack specific guidance on meeting these obligations. Wildlife trade is implicitly recognized in all EU commitments to biodiversity conservation and its interface with sustainable development. Explicit acknowledgement of the steps required to achieve legal and sustainable wildlife trade came in December 2006 when the EU Council of Ministers adopted Council Conclusions calling upon the European Commission and the Member States: • To build capacity to strengthen implementation of CITES and policies for the conservation and sustain able use of wildlife in developing countries, ensuring complementarity of assistance provided, and • To reinforce efforts to combat illegal trade through a strengthened and co-ordinated response and actions for the enforcement of CITES. Details: Brussels, Belgium: Traffic Europe, 2007. 56p. Source: Internet Resource: Traffic Europe Report: Accessed February 13, 2012 at: www.traffic.org/general-reports/traffic_pub_trade15.pdf Year: 2007 Country: Europe URL: Shelf Number: 124113 Keywords: Illegal LoggingIllegal TradeOffenses Against the EnvironmentWild Animal TradeWildlife Crime (Europe) |
Author: Fröhlich, Tanja Title: Organised environmental crime in a few Candidate Countries Summary: The study at issue investigates organized environmental crime in the five Accession Countries: Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Lithuania and Poland. The study encompasses: a numerical evaluation of cases of organised environmental crime in the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Lithuania and Poland; an analysis of the legal environment concerning organised environmental crime in the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Lithuania and Poland; a review of the enforcement structures concerning organised environmental crime in the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Lithuania and Poland. The following sectors are covered: illegal commercial trade in endangered species and their products; illegal pollution, dumping and storage of waste, including transfrontier shipment of hazardous waste; illegal commercial trade in ozone depleting substances; illegal dumping and shipment of radioactive waste and potentially radioactive material; illegal logging and illegal trade in wood; and illegal fishing. Details: Kassel, Germany: BfU, 2003. 625p. Source: Final Report: Internet Resource: Accessed March 2, 2012 at http://ec.europa.eu/environment/legal/crime/pdf/organised_candidate_countries.pdf Year: 2003 Country: Europe URL: http://ec.europa.eu/environment/legal/crime/pdf/organised_candidate_countries.pdf Shelf Number: 124362 Keywords: Endangered SpeciesEnvironmental Crime (Czech Republic) (Estonia) (HuIllegal FishingIllegal LoggingOffenses Against the EnvironmentOrganized CrimePollution |
Author: Bosello, Francesco Title: The Economic and Environmental Effects of an EU Ban on Illegal Logging Imports. Insights from a CGE Assessment Summary: Illegal logging is widely recognized as a major economic problem and one of the causes of environmental degradation. Increasing awareness of its negative effects has fostered a wide range of proposals to combat it by major international conservation groups and political organizations. Following the 2008 US legislation which prohibits the import of illegally harvested wood and wood products, the European Union (EU) is now discussing a legislation proposal which would ban illegal timber from the EU market. In this study we use the ICES computable general equilibrium model to estimate the reallocation of global demand and timber imports following the pending EU legislation. With this exercise our final objective is to assess the economic impacts and measure the potential emission reduction resulting from the introduction of this type of policy. Results show that while the EU ban does not seem particularly effective in reducing illegal logging activities, its main effect will be the removal of illegal logs from the international markets. In addition, the unilateral EU ban on illegal logs increases secondary wood production in illegal logging countries as their exports become relatively more competitive. Through this mechanism, part of the banned, illegal timber will re-enter the international trade flows, but it will be “hidden” as processed wood. This effect is, however, limited. Finally, given the limited effect on overall economic activity, effects on GHG emissions are also limited. Direct carbon emissions from logging activities can decrease from 2.5 to 0.6 million tons per year. Details: Venice: Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM), 2010. 34p. Source: FEEM Working Paper 67.2010: Internet Resource: Accessed March 17, 2012 at http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1627988## Year: 2010 Country: Europe URL: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1627988## Shelf Number: 124567 Keywords: EconomicsIllegal LoggingOffenses Against the EnvironmentPollution |
Author: Goncalves, Marilyne Pereira Title: Justice for Forests: Improving Criminal Justice Efforts to Combat Illegal Logging Summary: Every two seconds, across the world, an area of forest the size of a football field is clear-cut by illegal loggers. In some countries, up to 90 percent of all the logging taking place is illegal. Estimates suggest that this criminal activity generates approximately US$10–15 billion annually worldwide—funds that are unregulated, untaxed, and often remain in the hands of organized criminal gangs. Thus far, domestic and international efforts to curb forest crimes have focused on preventative actions, but they have had little or no significant impact. While prevention is an essential part of enforcement efforts to tackle illegal logging, it has not halted the rapid disappearance of the world’s old-growth trees. New ideas and strategies are needed to preserve what is left of forests. This paper suggests that current practice be combined with a more targeted, punitive approach, through more effective use of the criminal justice system. It argues that the criminal justice system should form an integral part of any balanced and organized strategy for fighting forest crime. This strategy should include initiatives to enhance the efficiency of criminal justice in combating illegal logging—that is, the investigation, prosecution, and conviction of cases, as well as the confiscation of the proceeds of criminal activity. These initiatives should be deployed in parallel with preventive programs, and the two approaches should complement and reinforce each other. The criminal justice system has been used in the fight against illegal logging, but only in very sporadic instances and in limited and ineffective ways. Moreover, in those few cases, it has tended to target low-level criminals whose involvement in illegal logging is due to poverty. As such, it has created no real deterrent and has encouraged skeptics to further discount the relevance of criminal justice methods. Large-scale illegal operations are carried out by sophisticated criminal networks, and law enforcement actions need to be focused on the “masterminds” behind these networks—and the highlevel corrupt officials who enable and protect them. Pursuing these important targets through the criminal justice system will require creativity and a clear focus on those criminal justice rules and procedures that prove most effective. The objective of this paper is to inform policy makers and forestry and law enforcement actors how they can use the criminal justice system in fighting illegal logging. It seeks to mobilize them to take action and address the various criminal acts involved in illegal logging operations. The paper puts forward practical suggestions that can be implemented to achieve a tangible improvement in this fight. Rather than focusing on a single element of the criminal justice system, it provides a broad overview of the topic. Future papers may provide an opportunity to flesh out further detail. Because the role of the criminal system in fighting illegal logging has thus far been minimal, there are few documented successes, and little data to explain why the criminal justice system has not been more widely used in this context. To find new ideas as to how the criminal justice system can be used against illegal loggers, this paper therefore draws on experience gained from dealing with other types of crime (money laundering, corruption, and so forth). The policy and operational recommendations made in this paper are based on legal and operational frameworks that are already in place in almost every country in the world. By making good use of these existing frameworks, we can take an important step towards ensuring the preservation and the sustainable management of the world’s forests. Policy recommendations include: Develop an integrated criminal justice strategy for illegal logging that adopts and implements clear and comprehensive policies; Improve domestic cooperation; Enlist the private sector; Engage civil society actors; and Include criminal justice as part of development assistance programs to combat illegal logging. Operational recommendations include: Work together; Attack corruption; Proactively target vulnerabilities and significant offenders; Consider all applicable offenses—not just regulatory environmental offenses; Follow the money; Employ all available criminal tools to address these complex crimes; and Improve international cooperation. Details: Washington, D.C.: The World Bank, 2012. 56p. Source: World Bank Study R67: Internet Resource: Accessed March 21, 2012 at http://siteresources.worldbank.org/EXTFINANCIALSECTOR/Resources/Illegal_Logging.pdf Year: 2012 Country: International URL: http://siteresources.worldbank.org/EXTFINANCIALSECTOR/Resources/Illegal_Logging.pdf Shelf Number: 124631 Keywords: CorruptionCriminal Justice PolicyEnvironmental CrimeIllegal LoggingOffences Against the Environment |
Author: World Growth Title: A Poison, Not a Cure: The Campaign to Ban Trade in Illegally Logged Timber Summary: Environmental groups, such as WWF and Greenpeace, have a global goal of halting commercial forestry and forestry in native forests. One of their strategies to advance this campaign is to generate global concern that illegal logging is a major global problem. One presumption is that high volumes of illegally-sourced wood products are entering the global market. This presumption cannot be substantiated and is very likely to be untrue. The campaign urges trade bans on imports of illegal timber. It has also been driven by industrialized countries, in particular the UK. The campaign is also supported by protectionist interests in the timber and paper industry in the U.S., the EU and Australia, with the aim of limiting imports of more competitive products from developing countries. It is commonly alleged that commercial interests drive illegal logging and that this, in turn, causes severe deforestation. This contention is wrong. The causes of deforestation and illegal logging are complex: they include poverty, increased population growth, poor governance and weak property rights. In most cases, illegal logging represents a failure of developing economies to enforce the law. The Extent of Illegal Logging The extent of illegal logging is uncertain. Most studies and policies have been based on a 2004 study by Seneca Creek and Associates for the American Forest and Paper Association which finds between 8% and 10% of produced and traded timber may come from suspicious sources. Other research shows only 15% of globally produced timber is traded. Even if it were desirable to use trade controls to achieve non-trade purposes, the share traded is so small, that leveraging is negligible and prospects of success very small. Though the report is cited frequently in the literature, it suffers from significant flaws, including a lack of comprehensive and reliable data sources. These limitations are acknowledged by the study’s authors who state that there is limited information on illegal logging and that it is impossible to know the extent of illegal forest activity with any degree of certainty. The study is now outdated with the incidence of illegal logging decreasing in key countries in recent years. The 2004 global estimate is, for the most part, based on illegal logging in Indonesia, with global wood exports principally attributed to the country. Since the report, a briefing paper by Chatham House has demonstrated that incidence of illegal logging has decreased by between 50% to 75%, with estimates of illegal logging in Indonesia as low as 40% as compared with the 70% to 80% estimated by Seneca Creek. Details: Arlington, VA: World Growth, 2011. 29p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed May 14, 2012 at: http://www.worldgrowth.org/assets/files/WG_Illegal_Logging_Report_5_11.pdf Year: 2011 Country: International URL: http://www.worldgrowth.org/assets/files/WG_Illegal_Logging_Report_5_11.pdf Shelf Number: 125254 Keywords: Crimes Against the EnvironmentIllegal LoggingIllegal TimberOffenses Against the Environment |
Author: Elias, Patricia Title: Logging and the Law How the U.S. Lacey Act Helps Reduce Illegal Logging in the Tropics Summary: Illegal logging and the associated trade of illegal wood products is a clandestine industry that threatens forests and economies. It can degrade forest ecosystems and increase vulnerability to complete deforestation. Illegal logging generates trade distortions by depressing world timber prices and reducing the competitive advantage of legal loggers and producers. Furthermore, these practices threaten the reputations of legitimate forestry producers and discourage sustainable management practices. In 2008, Congress passed amendments to the Lacey Act to extend the law’s jurisdiction to illegal plants and plant products, including wood. By closing the U.S. market to illegal wood products, the Lacey Act plays an important role in strengthening economic opportunities for legal and legitimate wood producers—both in the United States and abroad. This law helps lay the groundwork for additional reforms that reduce illegal logging, promote sustainable forestry, improve forest management decisions in local communities, and create long-term development opportunities. The Lacey Act amendments marked the world’s first-ever law prohibiting trade of illegally logged wood products. Supporting the implementation and enforcement of the Lacey Act is critical to promoting an environment of forest conservation, legal logging, and sustainable management worldwide. Details: Cambridge, MA: Union of Concerned Scientists, 2012. 28p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed May 15, 2012 at: http://www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/global_warming/illegal-logging-and-lacey-act.pdf Year: 2012 Country: International URL: http://www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/global_warming/illegal-logging-and-lacey-act.pdf Shelf Number: 125267 Keywords: Crimes Against the EnvironmentIllegal LoggingIllegal Trade |
Author: Trevin, Jorge Title: Forest Law Enforcement and Governance and Forest Practices in Guyana Summary: The Republic of Guyana is the only English speaking country in South America. Located on the Guianas Region of northeastern South America, it comprises about 215,000 km2, with a population of 750,000. Tropical forests cover 18.6 million hectares or about 76 percent of its territory and represent a highly valuable asset. The deforestation rate is one of the lowest in the world, with no significant forest change evidenced for the 2000-2005 period (FAO 2005). Most of these forests have not been affected by extractive uses, and the vast majority of those woodlands that have had some harvest intervention, generally through selective logging methods, retain their productive capacity and other major ecosystem functions. Guyana and Norway have agreed to work toward the establishment of a REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) mechanism. Within this context, the objective of this study is to arrive at an independent assessment of Forests Law Enforcement and Governance and forest practices in Guyana. The importance of this assessment stems from the significance of effective and legitimate governance of forest resources to achieving REDD. In order to reach this objective, several aspects of the broad area of forest governance have to be considered. They include the state of forest policies and legislation, production and export of forest products and government revenue, border and trade issues, legal compliance in the forest sector, management of concessions and protected areas, status of land claims and demarcation of indigenous territories, and the participation of forest dependent populations in the design and implementation of forest policies. The assessment is based on information from existing sources, including governmental sources, NGOs and other relevant stakeholders. Gaps in information are identified, allowing for an evaluation of the robustness of the analysis. Both along the complete document and within individual sections, data and general descriptive aspects are for the most part introduced firstly. The discussion and analysis of issues is generally presented afterward. Details: Bogor Barat, Indonesia: Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), 2009. 43p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed May 15, 2012 at: http://www.regjeringen.no/upload/MD/Vedlegg/Klima/klima_skogprosjektet/Guyana/CIFOR%20report%20final.pdf Year: 2009 Country: Guyana URL: http://www.regjeringen.no/upload/MD/Vedlegg/Klima/klima_skogprosjektet/Guyana/CIFOR%20report%20final.pdf Shelf Number: 125275 Keywords: Environmental ConservationForest ManagementIllegal LoggingOffenses Against the Environment |
Author: White, George Title: Illegal Logging: Cut It Out! The Uk's Role in the Trade in Illegal Timber and Wood Products Summary: Illegal logging exists because enormous profits can be made. These profits are most easily realised in countries with endemic corruption, lax law enforcement and poor social conditions, where there is little incentive to change forestry practice. Many of the countries supplying timber and wood products to the UK have high levels of foreign debt, poor governance systems, high levels of poverty and unsustainable forest management, and are experiencing loss of some of the world’s most biodiverse forests at an alarming rate. These factors – which by no means comprise an exhaustive list – contribute to the illegal and unsustainable trade in timber and wood products. Arguably the problems associated with illegal activities are most acute in developing countries, those countries with emerging economies and in the transitional economies of Russia and eastern Europe. These are areas of the world where weak political institutions and weak regulatory enforcement in the forested regions are often the norm, and where corruption is common. This report attempts to estimate the volume of illegal wood entering the UK and to identify which sectors of the UK market utilise this wood and fibre. It identifies various processes involving the UK government as a purchaser or specifier, as well as national and international governmental processes and market-based mechanisms that are in place to counter illegal logging. It identifies their effectiveness and weaknesses and makes a series of recommendations. Details: Godalming, Surrey, UK: WWF-UK, 2007. 103p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed May 15, 2012 at: http://assets.wwf.org.uk/downloads/logging_full_report01.pdf Year: 2007 Country: United Kingdom URL: http://assets.wwf.org.uk/downloads/logging_full_report01.pdf Shelf Number: 125278 Keywords: Illegal ImportsIllegal LoggingIllegal TradeOffenses Against the Environment |
Author: Global Witness Title: Forest Carbon, Cash & Crime: The Risk of Criminal Engagement in REDD+ Summary: Corruption in the forest sector has until now been overwhelmingly linked to logging, both illegal and legal, which in many countries has led to significant depletion of valuable tropical forests. But today incentive mechanisms such as REDD+, intended to compensate governments, communities or other groups in developing countries for reducing forest loss, are beginning to change the face of corruption in the sector. While corruption and illegality in logging continue to be a significant international problem, the potential for future REDD+ earnings is bringing about new corrupt practices, starting with cases of land grabs. REDD+ is also likely to lead to new forms of corruption not previously seen in the forest sector, such as questionable carbon accounting and manipulation of forest carbon measurements. The recognition of ‘carbon’ as a commodity to be measured and paid for creates a number of new opportunities for corrupt activities, since forest “carbon” is an intangible asset that is difficult to measure and relies on complex calculations that can be manipulated. Alongside the familiar risks of criminal activity encountered with such large financial flows – for example fraud, bribery and tax evasion – REDD+ poses some specific risks. These include increased illegal logging, linked to law enforcement capacities being stretched by the need to police additional forest protection efforts, illegal land grabbing, the theft and misappropriation of REDD+ funds, the manipulation of carbon measurements to exaggerate results and increase payments, and poor regulation of carbon markets. With the right national and international frameworks, plus sufficient funding, REDD+ is an unprecedented opportunity to address climate change, as well as protect natural forest ecosystems and biodiversity and deliver development benefits, especially for forest communities. Governance is key to the effective implementation and delivery of the intended outcomes of REDD+ - from international to grass roots level. A well-designed governance system is also needed to address the substantial risks of corruption and criminal involvement that are posed by REDD+. Significant sums of money are involved: the REDD+ mechanism is expected to require an estimated US$17- 33 billion every year, equivalent to up to a quarter of OECD aid flows in 2010,1 much of which will be pumped into forest-rich developing countries.2 Some of this money is already being paid out for preparation and pilot activities. For the most part, however, these forest-rich countries suffer from weak regulation and governance. More than 80% of countries currently receiving REDD+ funds fall into the bottom half of countries assessed for Control of Corruption by the World Bank. Past attempts to tackle forest loss in these countries have mostly failed, undermined by policy failures, perverse incentives and corruption. Given the large sums of money involved, there is also a substantial risk that criminal elements, including state actors, will undermine REDD+ and prevent it from achieving its overall objectives. So far there is also a serious funding gap. Only US$5 billion has been pledged by rich countries3 and it is unclear where the rest will come from. Welldesigned national REDD+ programmes with proper safeguards and measures to minimise corruption risks will encourage better REDD+ projects and instil confidence in those who provide funding that REDD+ is worth investing in. To address these risks, this paper calls for clear and effective safeguards to ensure transparent financial flows, improvements to governance throughout national REDD+ processes, and for donors to provide financial and technical support to recipient countries to improve governance as preparation for REDD+. Similarly, donors should consider other ways that existing aid programmes can be used to ensure appropriate REDD+ implementation. Immediate and sustained investment in building governance capacity will help ensure that REDD+ funds, once flowing, have a much better chance of reaching where they are needed and achieving genuine results for the climate. Further, law enforcement agencies, both national and international, should be encouraged to contribute their expertise to Details: Holborn, UK: Global Witness, 2001. 24p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed May 16, 2012 at: http://www.salvaleforeste.it/en/reports/file/806.html?start=600 Year: 2001 Country: International URL: http://www.salvaleforeste.it/en/reports/file/806.html?start=600 Shelf Number: 125313 Keywords: CorruptionForest ManagementIllegal LoggingOffenses Against the Environment |
Author: FERN Title: Exporting Destruction: Export Credits, Illegal Logging and Deforestation Summary: Exporting Destruction is the conclusion of research that included fieldwork in China, desk studies, and a new financial review, all commissioned to shine a light on the role that export credit agencies (ECAs) play in financing global deforestation. Through detailed case studies and historical research, FERN has been able to produce a set of policy recommendations that would, if implemented effectively, bring export credits in line with other publicly-funded institutions and reduce their potential for negative social and environmental impacts. The paper suggests that while the primary, if not sole, remit of ECAs is to promote their country’s domestic industries in competitive and risky environments, particularly in poor emerging markets, the huge amounts of money involved mean that they also have an important effect on policies and actions in the countries in which they support projects. To put their size in context, ECAs underwrite around US$100 billion annually in medium and long-term credits and guarantees, compared with, for example, multilateral development banks, which have a combined total of US$60 billion in loans per year. ECA involvement in activities that have fuelled unsustainable, and often illegal, deforestation in a number of countries has been documented since the mid 1990s. Evidence in this paper, gathered from community groups around the world, suggests that a number continue to be centrally involved in the sector. Their significance is primarily the result of their 'door opening' public finance status, as well as their focus on countries that are a high-risk for commercial operators, usually those which also lack the institutional governance to regulate their industries effectively. Direct ECA support for logging or timber trading is minimal because they are not particularly capital-intensive sectors, but significant support from ECAs has been instrumental in aiding the infrastructure and pulp and paper sectors for the last fifteen years, particularly for controversial expansion projects in Indonesia. FERN’s report shows that this support was, and continues to be, ‘blind’, not taking environmental or social issues into account or investigating whether operators’ prospectus documents were based on realistic assessments of the nature or ownership of the forest resource. This lack of ‘ground-truth’ in assessing projects is shown to be one of the core problems of ECAs. Although taxpayers fund them, their remit is often limited to economic considerations, and they are not currently subject to the binding environmental, social, human rights or transparency standards by which other public sector agencies are governed. The case studies clearly show that this has led to increased illegal logging, corruption and the opening of previously isolated forests. Indeed, experience highlighted in the studies suggest that no ECAs have the relevant procedures in place to identify and address the flawed operating and expansion model that much of the pulp and paper sector has followed. What’s more, by aiming for very low-transaction costs, most ECAs have little internal capacity for assessing the environmental or social impacts of the operations the help to finance. This report calls on Governments to urgently address the negative impact that ECA-supported operators have internationally, particularly in sensitive sectors such as forestry, and to develop safeguards that would ensure that the operations of export credit agencies do not serve to undermine international commitments to sustainable development and good governance in some of the poorest countries in the world. Such policies should draw on those already in place in most multilateral banks and some of the largest commercial ones, and be resourced and monitored to an extent which ensures diligent implementation. More specific details on what these policies should look like in the forest sector and how ECAs could be brought into line with two decades of their national governments commitments to tackle illegal logging and unsustainable deforestation can be found in Chapter 7. Details: Moreton in Marsh, UK: FERN, 2008. 41p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed May 16, 2012 at: http://www.illegal-logging.info/uploads/FERNexportingdestruction.pdf Year: 2008 Country: International URL: http://www.illegal-logging.info/uploads/FERNexportingdestruction.pdf Shelf Number: 125314 Keywords: CorruptionForest ManagementIllegal LoggingOffenses Against the Environment |
Author: Environmental Investigation Agency Title: Attention Wal-Mart Shoppers: How Wal-Mart's Shopping Practices Encourage Illegal Logging and Threaten Endangered Species Summary: Despite Wal-Mart’s newfound corporate emphasis on sustainability, undercover investigations in China by the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) have found that Wal-Mart is turning a blind eye to illegal timber sources in its supply chain which threaten some of the world’s last great natural forests. Wal-Mart’s ‘no questions asked’ sourcing policy is having particularly dangerous consequences for the high conservation value forests of the Russian Far East and the endangered species dependent on them, including the world’s largest cat, the Siberian tiger. EIA’s investigators see Wal-Mart’s footprints around the globe, but nowhere more so than in China, which produces 84% of Wal-Mart’s wood products. The Chinese manufacturing sector relies on large quantities of high-risk timber imported from the world’s illegal logging hotspots. In the north, thousands of train cars of wood cross the Russian- Chinese border daily from Russia’s vast Far Eastern forests. Experts estimate that 35-50% of the logging in this region is illegal under Russian law. EIA investigations into Wal-Mart’s links to this highly criminalized trade have revealed the company’s inattention to the legality of its raw materials. During 2007, undercover investigators met with eight Chinese manufacturers that supply Wal-Mart with wood products ranging from baby cribs to toilet seats. All suppliers independently attested to Wal-Mart’s strong influence and their emphasis on price as the dominant consideration for raw material procurement. All of them used wood from the Russian Far East, most exclusively so. Details: Washington, DC: EIA, 2007. 28p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed May 18, 2012 at: http://www.illegal-logging.info/uploads/walmartreport.pdf Year: 2007 Country: Asia URL: http://www.illegal-logging.info/uploads/walmartreport.pdf Shelf Number: 125317 Keywords: Endangered SpeciesIllegal LoggingOffenses Against the EnvironmentOrganized CrimeWildlife Crime |
Author: Wainwright, Richard, ed. Title: Exporting Destruction. Export Credits, Illegal Logging and Deforestation Summary: Exporting Destruction is the conclusion of research that included fieldwork in China, desk studies, and a new financial review, all commissioned to shine a light on the role that export credit agencies (ECAs) play in financing global deforestation. Through detailed case studies and historical research, FERN has been able to produce a set of policy recommendations that would, if implemented effectively, bring export credits in line with other publicly-funded institutions and reduce their potential for negative social and environmental impacts. The paper suggests that while the primary, if not sole, remit of ECAs is to promote their country’s domestic industries in competitive and risky environments, particularly in poor emerging markets, the huge amounts of money involved mean that they also have an important effect on policies and actions in the countries in which they support projects. To put their size in context, ECAs underwrite around US$100 billion annually in medium and long-term credits and guarantees, compared with, for example, multilateral development banks, which have a combined total of US$60 billion in loans per year. ECA involvement in activities that have fuelled unsustainable, and often illegal, deforestation in a number of countries has been documented since the mid 1990s. Evidence in this paper, gathered from community groups around the world, suggests that a number continue to be centrally involved in the sector. Their significance is primarily the result of their 'door opening' public finance status, as well as their focus on countries that are a high-risk for commercial operators, usually those which also lack the institutional governance to regulate their industries effectively. Direct ECA support for logging or timber trading is minimal because they are not particularly capital-intensive sectors, but significant support from ECAs has been instrumental in aiding the infrastructure and pulp and paper sectors for the last fifteen years, particularly for controversial expansion projects in Indonesia. FERN’s report shows that this support was, and continues to be, ‘blind’, not taking environmental or social issues into account or investigating whether operators’ prospectus documents were based on realistic assessments of the nature or ownership of the forest resource. This lack of ‘ground-truth’ in assessing projects is shown to be one of the core problems of ECAs. Although taxpayers fund them, their remit is often limited to economic considerations, and they are not currently subject to the binding environmental, social, human rights or transparency standards by which other public sector agencies are governed. The case studies clearly show that this has led to increased illegal logging, corruption and the opening of previously isolated forests. Indeed, experience highlighted in the studies suggest that no ECAs have the relevant procedures in place to identify and address the flawed operating and expansion model that much of the pulp and paper sector has followed. What's more, by aiming for very low-transaction costs, most ECAs have little internal capacity for assessing the environmental or social impacts of the operations the help to finance. This report calls on Governments to urgently address the negative impact that ECA-supported operators have internationally, particularly in sensitive sectors such as forestry, and to develop safeguards that would ensure that the operations of export credit agencies do not serve to undermine international commitments to sustainable development and good governance in some of the poorest countries in the world. Such policies should draw on those already in place in most multilateral banks and some of the largest commercial ones, and be resourced and monitored to an extent which ensures diligent implementation. More specific details on what these policies should look like in the forest sector and how ECAs could be brought into line with two decades of their national governments commitments to tackle illegal logging and unsustainable deforestation can be found in Chapter 7. Details: Moreto, in Marsh, UK: FERN, 2008. 41p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed July 6, 2012 at: http://www.fern.org/sites/fern.org/files/media/documents/document_4155_4160.http://www.fern.org/sites/fern.org/files/media/documents/document_4155_4160.pdf Year: 2008 Country: Europe URL: http://www.fern.org/sites/fern.org/files/media/documents/document_4155_4160.http://www.fern.org/sites/fern.org/files/media/documents/document_4155_4160.pdf Shelf Number: 125484 Keywords: Crimes Against the EnvironmentDeforestationIllegal Logging |
Author: Lambrechts, Christian Title: Aerial Survey of the Destruction of the Aberdare Range Forests Summary: In 2002, Rhino Ark requested UNEP, Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) and the Kenya Forests Working Group (KFWG) to undertake an aerial survey of the Aberdare Range forests, similar to the survey undertaken on Mt. Kenya in 1999 and on Mt. Kilimanjaro in 2001. The survey responded to increasing public outcry about widespread forest destruction in the Aberdares. Over the past few years, a number of civil society organizations have been reporting on illegal destructive activities in the Aberdare Range forests, in particular on the southern and western slopes. In November 2000, KFWG sent a fact-finding mission to Kieni, Ragia and South Kinangop forests on the south-western slopes. The mission revealed extensive indigenous forest destruction in critical catchment areas, large scale encroachments, as well as rampant charcoal production. Although some few localised actions were taken, the overall situation on the ground did not show any significant improvement. Illegal activities went on unabated in many areas. Since its inception in 1987, Rhino Ark has launched a number of initiatives aimed at conserving the Aberdares, its habitats and wildlife. These initiatives include the construction of 320 kilometres of fence around the Aberdare Range forests to reduce human-wildlife conflict and protect the natural ecosystem from illegal exploitation. To date some 160 kilometres of fence have been erected and country-wide fund-raising activities are under way to secure the necessary funds for the completion of the fence. In this regard, the survey was to provide Rhino Ark’s donors with an accurate appraisal of the situation on the ground and the impact of the fence on the state of conservation of the Aberdares. It is expected that the information generated through the aerial survey will help all stakeholders to identify appropriate intervention measures to address the threats to the Aberdares. The survey report and the maps can also be powerful awareness-raising instruments that, hopefully, will catalyze the required support at local, national and international levels to ensure the conservation of this invaluable natural ecosystem. Details: Nairobi, Kenya: Division of Early Warning and Assessment, United Nations Environment Programme, 2003. 53p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed July 16, 2012 at: http://www.unep.org/expeditions/docs/Aberdares-report-english_Aerial%20survey%202002.pdf Year: 2003 Country: Kenya URL: http://www.unep.org/expeditions/docs/Aberdares-report-english_Aerial%20survey%202002.pdf Shelf Number: 125624 Keywords: ForestsIllegal LoggingNatural Resources (Kenya)Offenses Against the Environment |
Author: Miller, Frank Title: Keep It Legal: Best Practices for Keeping Illegally Harvested Timber Out of Your Supply Chain Summary: This manual has been developed by WWF’s Global Forest & Trade Network (GFTN) for use by organizations wishing to extend a program of responsible purchasing to further address difficulties arising from possible trade in “illegal” forest products. The manual has been developed to add detail to legality issues encountered by companies adopting a responsible purchasing program. The Keep It Legal manual is a living document, so it will be regularly updated using feedback from users to provide new information about what is happening in major exporting countries and in the critical supply regions, developments in supply chain management, and the wider global debate on the prevention of illegal logging. The Keep it Legal Manual is presented in five parts: Introduction—describes the purpose of this manual and its relationship to the GFTN guide to Responsible Purchasing of Forest Products. The illegal logging problem—describes the nature and magnitude of the illegal logging problem and the threat it poses to forests and the people and businesses that depend on them. Developing policies on legal compliance— explains the challenges involved in developing a clear, fair, and realistic policy on legal compliance. Reducing the risk of trading illegal timber— details a systematic approach to identifying and eliminating the risk of illegal wood entering your supply chain. Appendices—various practical tools that you can adapt for use in your company. The principles outlined in this manual are in line with WWF Global Forest & Trade Network (GFTN) participation requirements, and the manual will support GFTN trade participants in meeting those requirements. WWF has produced this manual with the intention that it should become the first point of reference for all parts of the timber supply chain seeking to establish what represents current best practice with respect to buying, processing, and selling legal timber and timber products. It consolidates the efforts of many different parties, including those companies at the forefront of efforts to avoid use of illegally harvested timber. The manual is aimed at any medium-size or large enterprise that purchases forest products, including processors, importers, manufacturers, wholesalers, and retailers. It may also be useful to smaller enterprises. The manual outlines the various ways in which purchasing organizations can demonstrate compliance with best practice and ultimately their own purchasing policies. It combines tried and tested mechanisms and new approaches and definitions, based upon on GFTN’s exetensive experience in the development of responsible purchasing programs. These approaches are designed to make the process of “keeping it legal” easier. Details: Gland, Switzerland: World Wildlife Fund, 2006. 64p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed July 16, 2012 at: assets.panda.org/downloads/keep_it_legal_final_no_fsc.pdf Year: 2006 Country: International URL: Shelf Number: 125625 Keywords: ForestsIllegal LoggingOffenses Against the Environment |
Author: Robinson, Elizabeth J.Z. Title: To Bribe or Not to Bribe: Incentives to Protect Tanzania´s Forest Summary: Where participatory forest management has been introduced into Tanzania, “volunteer” patrollers take responsibility for enforcing access restrictions, often receiving a share of the fine revenue that they collect as an incentive. We explored how this shared revenue and alternative sources of forest products for villagers determine the effort patrollers put into enforcement and whether they choose to take a bribe from illegal harvesters rather than honestly reporting the illegal activity. Using an optimal enforcement model, we show that, without transparency or funds to pay and monitor the volunteers undertaking enforcement, policymakers face tradeoffs between efficiency, enforcement effectiveness, and revenue collection. Details: Tanzania: Environment for Development, 2009. 26p. Source: Internet Resource: Discussion Paper Series::, Efd DP 09-17: Accessed July 19, 2012 at: http://www.efdinitiative.org/research/publications/publications-repository/to-bribe-or-not-to-bribe-incentives-to-protect-tanzanias-forest Year: 2009 Country: Tanzania URL: http://www.efdinitiative.org/research/publications/publications-repository/to-bribe-or-not-to-bribe-incentives-to-protect-tanzanias-forest Shelf Number: 125689 Keywords: Forest ManagementForests (Tanzania)Illegal LoggingOffenses Against the EnvironmentVolunteers in Law Enforcement |
Author: von Pfeil, Evy, ed. Title: FLEGT - Combating illegal logging as a contribution towards sustainable development Summary: Illegal logging and trade in illegally harvested timber constitutes a widespread phenomenon in many developing countries. Illegal logging contributes to the destruction of forests world-wide, and its far-reaching impacts go far beyond the confines of the forest sector. FLEGT is therefore a key field of action of international forest policy. Since the Plan of Implementation was adopted by the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD), held in Johannesburg in 2002, there has been a fundamental global awareness of the urgent need to combat illegal activities in the forest sector. As far back as 1998, the G8 states made a commitment to promote measures to combat illegal logging. Since 2001, the World Bank has been assisting regional processes whereby participating countries undertake to implement FLEG measures. In 2003, the EU adopted its FLEGT Action Plan, cornerstones of which include a licensing scheme for timber and Voluntary Partnership Agreements (VPAs)with timber-producing countries. Both the Foodand Agriculture Organization (FAO)and the International Tropical Timber Organization(ITTO) have incorporated FLEGT measures into their work programmes. Although there is akeen awareness at political level – also among many timber-producing countries – of the need to curb illegal logging and trade in illegal timber products, actual implementation is still difficult and results to date have been limited. The proposals for action to combat illegal activities in the forest sector outlined in this paper should be seen as an intermediate step towards achieving sustainable forest management. Development-policy measures to promote FLEGT aim to support the partners’ own commitment to introducing and implementing reforms relating to good governance, combating corruption and supporting law enforcement. Advisory services to partner countries and regions adopt a multi-level approach that incorporates all instruments of German development cooperation. FLEGT-relevant measures have already been integrated into many ongoing bilateral development cooperation projects and programmes. This strategy provides ideas on how to extend this commitment,taking account of the specific national and regional features of FLEGT policies. Details: Bonn, Germany: Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, 2007. 19p. Source: Topics 180: Internet Resource: Accessed August 21, 2012 at http://www.bmz.de/en/publications/topics/environment/Materialie180.pdf Year: 2007 Country: Germany URL: http://www.bmz.de/en/publications/topics/environment/Materialie180.pdf Shelf Number: 126085 Keywords: Forest ManagementIllegal LoggingOffenses Against the EnvironmentTimber |
Author: United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime Title: Wildlife and Forest Crime Analytic Toolkit Summary: Wildlife and forest offences are a complex phenomenon with many layers and dimensions. Wildlife and forest offences often result from the interplay of a multitude of factors—cultural, economic, social and environmental—and can involve a wide variety of actors. Thus, to achieve an effective response, wildlife and forest offences need to be addressed via a coordinated and multisectoral approach. This complexity makes it challenging for governments and international organizations to identify the strengths and weaknesses of and gaps in existing legislative, administrative, enforcement, judicial and preventive systems. Additionally, the fundamental difference between wildlife and forest offences and other forms of crimes should be acknowledged. Most property crimes, such as robbery, theft, arson and vandalism, are criminalized because they inflict harm on people or man-made property by creating uncertainty, diminishing confidence, and harming commerce and economic growth. All of these reasons apply for criminalizing the same acts against natural resources. However, there is an additional dimension to the fight against wildlife and forest crime; legislation to protect wildlife and forests also aims to ensure the sustainability of natural resource systems. This sets a different dynamic for wildlife and forest law enforcement, which should lead to the analysis of uses and users of wildlife resources taking into consideration the sustainability and promotion of compliance with good resource management policies. This Wildlife and Forest Crime Analytic Toolkit is intended to serve as an initial entry point for national governments, international actors, practitioners and scholars to better understand the complexity of the issue, and to serve as a framework around which a prevention and response strategy can be developed. The Toolkit provides an inventory of measures that can assist in the analysis of the nature and extent of wildlife and forest offences and in deterring and combating these offences. It is also intended to contribute to an understanding of the various factors that drive wildlife and forest offences to integrate the information and experience gained from such analysis into national, regional and international strategies. The Toolkit has been developed based on (a) lessons learned from national and international efforts to curtail illegal trade in wildlife, plants, animal derivatives and plant material, (b) scholarly analyses and the examination of cases, and (c) consultations with key stakeholders and relevant experts. The causes, components and consequences of wildlife and forest offences vary among countries, regions and societies around the world. There is no “one size fits all” solution to this issue. In formulating effective countermeasures, it is important that local patterns of wildlife and forest offences and the concerns of local communities be recognized and integrated into policy and legislation. The Wildlife and Forest Crime Analytic Toolkit is intended to provide a range of options that, in various combinations, will enable each country to assemble an integrated strategy that will be as effective as possible in meeting the country’s own unique needs. The measures set out in this Toolkit have been grouped into five key parts: legislation, enforcement, judiciary and prosecution, drivers and prevention, and data and analysis. The tools are organized thematically to ensure ease of use and to assist users in understanding the key issues confronting the system being analysed. The Toolkit in its current form will be pilot-tested in partnership with three selected national governments and will be revised to ensure that it is a practical, applicable tool. Additional material will be added as future needs are identified. Details: Vienna, UNODC, 2012. 212p. Source: Internet Resource: accessed September 17, 2012 at: http://www.unodc.org/documents/Wildlife/Toolkit.pdf Year: 2012 Country: International URL: http://www.unodc.org/documents/Wildlife/Toolkit.pdf Shelf Number: 126364 Keywords: Illegal LoggingIllegal TradeNatural ResourcesOffenses Against the EnvironmentWildlife Crimes |
Author: Elliott, Lorraine, ed. Title: Transnational Environmental Crime in the Asia-Pacific: A Workshop Report Summary: Transnational environmental crime (TEC) includes a range of activities: illegal logging and timber smuggling, wildlife smuggling, illegal fishing, the black market in Ozone Depleting Substances (ODS), the illegal movement of prohibited or regulated chemicals and hazardous and toxic wastes and, potentially, an illegal market in genetically modified organisms and illicitly obtained genetic material. Globally, the scale of transnational environmental crime has been estimated to be a black market similar in value to that of drugs or arms. The transnational dimension of this broad range of activities arises because the goods or commodities are sourced illegally and then smuggled across borders, or because they are traded in contravention of international conventions such as the Montreal Protocol (on substances that deplete the ozone layer) or CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) or the Basel Convention on the Transboundary Movement of Hazardous Wastes, or because the profits and/or perpetrators move across borders. Some commodities are laundered into the licit economy whereas others remain in the shadow illicit economy. The ‘chain of custody’ crimes associated with environmental smuggling range from small scale opportunistic activity through to systematic and large-scale organized crime that involves money laundering and corruption, parallel trading and the exchange of illegal environmental goods for other forms of illicit commodities. In the Asia Pacific, as the short papers in this workshop report attest, these are serious problems with consequences for environmental degradation and sustainable development, good governance, security, the legitimacy of legal institutions, national economies, markets, civil society and local communities. These are not, of course, simply problems ‘out there’ and we should not fall into the trap of reducing these to ‘developing country’ problems. Developed countries generate demand and provide markets for illegal environmental resources. The profits of illegal environmental goods are sometimes laundered through developed countries, facilitated by criminal groups and otherwise legitimate actors in those countries. Yet while other forms of transnational crime such as drugs smuggling, arms trafficking, people smuggling and terrorism have attracted considerable public and policy attention, TEC has been paid much less attention by academics and policy-makers alike even though it generates similar kinds of policy challenges. There is an extensive body of work within the environmental literature on individual types of illegality but little done on developing a more comprehensive global governance or international relations approach to this category of illegal transnational and global activity.2 The public Forum and round-table Workshop whose results are reported here were intended in part as a corrective to this. Rather than re-establishing the narratives about particular problems, the focus in the papers and in discussions was on policy responses. A number of important issues informed that discussion: • where should intervention be directed – prevention, interdiction, enforcement, punishment? • what do we need to manage these interventions – is this a matter of more resources and effective capacity? Or do we face broader problems of policy incoherence? • what lessons can we learn from existing policy responses in the region? Details: Canberra: Department of International Relations, RSPAS, The Australian National University, 2007. 87p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed September 25, 2012 at: http://ips.cap.anu.edu.au/ir/tec/publications/Transnational_environmental_crime_Asia_Pacific_workshop_report_TEC_Workshop_Report_2007.pdf Year: 2007 Country: Asia URL: http://ips.cap.anu.edu.au/ir/tec/publications/Transnational_environmental_crime_Asia_Pacific_workshop_report_TEC_Workshop_Report_2007.pdf Shelf Number: 126444 Keywords: Hazardous WastesIllegal FishingIllegal LoggingNatural ResourcesOffenses Against the Environment (Asia - Pacific RWildlife Smuggling |
Author: Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) Title: Illegal Trade in Environmentally Sensitive Goods Summary: Illegal trade in environmentally sensitive goods, such as threatened wildlife, timber, hazardous waste, and ozone-depleting substances, has been a long-standing issue in the international trade and environment agenda. The nature of such illegal trade makes it difficult to fully understand its extent and impact on the environment. Developing effective policies to reduce illegal trade requires a clear understanding of what drives this trade and the circumstances under which it thrives. In this report, evidence-based on customs data and information from licensing schemes is used to document the scale of illegal trade, as well as the economic and environmental impacts of such trade. National and international policies have an important role to play in regulating and reducing illegal trade and the report highlights a range of measures that can be taken at both levels. Details: Paris: OECD Publishing, 2012. 147p. Source: Internet Resource: OECD Trade Policy Studies, 2012. Accessed October 4, 2012 at: http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/docserver/download/fulltext/9712051e.pdf?expires=1349355092&id=id&accname=oid006203&checksum=68038CFB2A32D76B27CB3A01C5E7955F Year: 2012 Country: International URL: http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/docserver/download/fulltext/9712051e.pdf?expires=1349355092&id=id&accname=oid006203&checksum=68038CFB2A32D76B27CB3A01C5E7955F Shelf Number: 126554 Keywords: Hazardous WasteIllegal LoggingIllegal Trade (Europe)Offenses Against the EnvironmentWildlife Crime |
Author: Nellemann, Christian, ed. Title: Green Carbon, Black Trade: Illegal Logging, Tax Fraud and Laundering in the Worlds Tropical Forests. A Rapid Response Assessment. Summary: This report – Green Carbon, Black Trade – by UNEP and INTERPOL focuses on illegal logging and its impacts on the lives and livelihoods of often some of the poorest people in the world set aside the environmental damage. It underlines how criminals are combining old fashioned methods such as bribes with high tech methods such as computer hacking of government web sites to obtain transportation and other permits. The report spotlights the increasingly sophisticated tactics being deployed to launder illegal logs through a web of palm oil plantations, road networks and saw mills. Indeed it clearly spells out that illegal logging is not on the decline, rather it is becoming more advanced as cartels become better organized including shifting their illegal activities in order to avoid national or local police efforts. By some estimates, 15 per cent to 30 per cent of the volume of wood traded globally has been obtained illegally. Unless addressed, the criminal actions of the few may endanger not only the development prospects for the many but also some of the creative and catalytic initiatives being introduced to recompense countries and communities for the ecosystem services generated by forests. One of the principal vehicles for catalyzing positive environmental change and sustainable development is the Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation initiative (REDD or REDD+). If REDD+ is to be sustainable over the long term, it requests and requires all partners to fine tune the operations, and to ensure that they meet the highest standards of rigour and that efforts to reduce deforestation in one location are not offset by an increase elsewhere. If REDD+ is to succeed, payments to communities for their conservation efforts need to be higher than the returns from activities that lead to environmental degradation. Illegal logging threatens this payment system if the unlawful monies changing hands are bigger than from REDD+ payments. The World’s forests represent one of the most important pillars in countering climate change and delivering sustainable development. Deforestation, largely of tropical rainforests, is responsible for an estimated 17 per cent of all man-made emissions, and 50 per cent more than that from ships, aviation and land transport combined. Today only one-tenth of primary forest cover remains on the globe. Forests also generate water supplies, biodiversity, pharmaceuticals, recycled nutrients for agriculture and flood prevention, and are central to the transition towards a Green Economy in the context of sustainable development and poverty eradication. Strengthened international collaboration on environmental laws and their enforcement is therefore not an option. It is indeed the only response to combat an organized international threat to natural resources, environmental sustainability and efforts to lift millions of people out of penury. Details: United Nations Environment Programme, GRID Arendal. 2012 Source: Internet Resource: Accessed October 4, 2012 at: Year: 2012 Country: International URL: Shelf Number: 126558 Keywords: Illegal LoggingOffenses Against the EnvironmentOrganized Crime |
Author: Wells, Adrian Title: Public Goods and Private Rights: the Illegal Logging Debate and the Rights of the Poor Summary: This briefing paper applies a rights perspective to understanding legal and institutional reform of the tropical forest sector. The sector is characterised by strongly competing interests, and massive differences in the power of stakeholders to influence the application of the law. The regulatory regime governing the sector often discriminates against the poor. This is of particular concern in the context of donor- and industry-led initiatives to combat illegal logging. Upholding legal frameworks which already fail to accommodate local rights could compound injustices. A rights perspective focuses attention on the channels by which the poor can contest and uphold their claims in the face of national and international interests in the forest sector. Details: London: Overseas Development Institute, 2006. 5p. Source: Forestry Briefing Number 9: Internet Resource: Accessed October 14, 2012 at http://www.odi.org.uk/resources/docs/800.pdf Year: 2006 Country: International URL: http://www.odi.org.uk/resources/docs/800.pdf Shelf Number: 126700 Keywords: Environmental CrimeForest ManagementHuman Rights, Rights of the PoorIllegal LoggingOffenses Against the Environment |
Author: Søreide, Tina Title: Certified Integrity? Forest Certification and Anti-Corruption Summary: Forest certification schemes regulate forest exploitation and trade across many countries. In the absence of a multilateral agreement on limiting deforestation, they provide rules to balance the social, economic and ecological values of forest resources. Expansion of these schemes into tropical countries that display poor governance and high levels of corruption has raised questions about these schemes’ performance in such contexts. Referring to the case of the Forest Stewardship Council – a global forestry certification system – the authors looked at whether forest certification schemes can address corruption issues. While forest certification is not primarily geared towards detecting and preventing corruption, they may have some anti-corruption effects in countries where corruption is sporadic but not systemic. This is due to their role in documenting forest management practices and applying third-party monitoring. Details: Bergen, Norway: U4 Anti-Corruption Resource Centre at the Chr. Michelsen Institute, 2013. 24p. Source: Internet Resource: U4 Issue, January 2013, No. 1: Accessed March 22, 2013: http://www.u4.no/publications/certified-integrity-forest-certification-and-anti-corruption/ Year: 2013 Country: International URL: http://www.u4.no/publications/certified-integrity-forest-certification-and-anti-corruption/ Shelf Number: 128070 Keywords: CorruptionForest CertificationForestry ConservationIllegal LoggingNatural Resources Management |
Author: Yadav, N.P. Title: Forest Law Enforcement as an Underlying Driver of Forest Governance in Nepal Summary: Historically, forest of Nepal is exploited by rulers of the state for revenue generation and political interest. Although strong and protection oriented forest laws with judicial power to district forest officer has been formed but it was not enforced effectively, consequently deforestation and illegal logging continued. Since 1980 the participatory forestry emerged and restoration of forest cover in the hills and the relation of people and department of forest improved. DoF staff changed from policing to service providers. People oriented bylaws and guidelines prepared by the ministry of forest and several donors and NGOs involved in forestry sector for facilitating community based forest management. To some extent the process of community based forest management has brought positive impact considering the different dimension of forestry benefits. However over all forest governance is becoming poor due to weak forest law enforcement at different level. The annual deforestation rate and different form of illegality are increased and also foster corruption. Government mode of forest operation is command and control, hierarchical, bureaucratic and informal rules of the game is often take precedence. The outcome of this system became in favour of politically and economically powerful people. Local interests marginalised, passive forest management due to lack of specific plan, ‘timber men and politicians’ become de facto owners of the resource and state foresters become their agents–professionalism is undermined etc. The legal ownership on Nepal's forest is mainly lies communal and government authority with essence of common property that hinder good governance. The major characteristics of ‘good governance' are such as participatory decision-making process, accountability, transparency, responsive, effective and efficiency, equitable and inclusiveness which are weak in forestry institution because of vested interest of stakeholders. Over all the status of law enforcement for forest protection in Nepal is very weak; and legal instruments for penalties and punishment are largely ineffective. Weak forest law enforcement is an underlying driver of poor forest governance that causes forest degradation and corruption. The government mechanisms have been unable to control forest encroachment, illegal logging and wild-life poaching, which resulted in a substantial loss of forests cover and wild lives. The Quality of forest administration and plan based forest operations is important for good governance. To a great extent, the new concept is emerging to involve many more actors for improving forest governance. In particular there is a realization that plan based, multi-stakeholder processes and joint monitoring are key drivers to improve forest governance. The participation of multi-stakeholders in the process of decision making and implementation of forest operations is elements that support to improve forest governance and reduce corruption and crime in forestry sector. Details: Nepal: Forestry Nepal, 2013. 9p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed March 23, 2013 at: http://www.forestrynepal.org/images/publications/Yadav_2012_forest_governance.pdf Year: 2013 Country: Nepal URL: http://www.forestrynepal.org/images/publications/Yadav_2012_forest_governance.pdf Shelf Number: 128101 Keywords: DeforestationForest ManagementIllegal LoggingWildlife ConservationWildlife Crimes (India)Wildlife Law EnforcementWildlife Management |
Author: Environmental Investigation Agency Title: Clear-Cut Exploitation: How International Investors & REDD+ Donors Profit from Deforestation in West Papua Summary: • Indigenous landowners in Sorong, West Papua province, are being exploited by the Kayu Lapis Indonesia Group (KLI) for plantations development – at great cost to them and their forests. • Documents obtained by EIA/Telapak reveal “land rental” agreements provide Moi landowners with as little as US$ 0.65 per hectare – land projected to be worth US$ 5,000 per hectare once developed. • Timber payments are equally bad: KLI has paid landowners as little as US $2.8 per cubic metre of merbau – wood KLI sells for US$ 875 on export. • Legal norms in permit allocation and timber harvesting have been routinely flouted, with little to no law enforcement by either the national or provincial government. • International investors – including Norway’s Government Pension Fund Global (GPFG) – are profiting from the situation. This highlights a failure to incorporate commodity and investment market reforms into the REDD+ agenda, resulting in the perverse financial incentives of those markets continuing to undermine efforts to reduce deforestation and deliver sustainable development for Indonesia's indigenous peoples. Details: London: EIA, 2012. 9p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed March 28, 2013 at: http://www.eia-international.org/wp-content/uploads/EIA-Clear-Cut-Exploitation-FINAL-v2.pdf Year: 2012 Country: Papua New Guinea URL: http://www.eia-international.org/wp-content/uploads/EIA-Clear-Cut-Exploitation-FINAL-v2.pdf Shelf Number: 128155 Keywords: Deforestation (West Papua)Forest ManagementIllegal LoggingNatural Resources ConservationNatural Resources Exploitation |
Author: Environmental Investigation Agency Title: Checkpoints: How Powerful Interest Groups Continue to Undermine Forest Governance in Laos Summary: In July 2011 the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) released a report entitled Crossroads, revealing how well-connected companies in Vietnam and the Lao PDR (Laos) were profiting from illicit timber trade between the two countries. The report found significant trade in raw logs from Laos to Vietnam, in contravention of the former country’s stated policy of banning the export of unprocessed timber. In March 2012 the Government of Laos (GoL) stated that it would take “serious action” to reduce the export of unprocessed natural resources, including timber, in order to support domestic industries. Yet on the mountainous border with Vietnam, policy continues to diverge with reality. Further recent investigations by EIA show that it is business as usual and that the plunder of Laos’ forests continues unchecked. A handful of powerful firms are still moving logs across the border, aided by murky exemptions from timber export controls apparently granted by the upper echelons of the GoL. In 2012, once again, unprocessed Laos logs flooded into coastal cities in Vietnam to feed its voracious furniture industry. This briefing details the main findings of research and fieldwork conducted by EIA in 2012. Details: London: EIA, 2012. 16p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed March 28, 2013 at: http://www.eia-international.org/checkpoints Year: 2012 Country: Laos URL: http://www.eia-international.org/checkpoints Shelf Number: 128156 Keywords: DeforestationForest Management (Laos)Illegal LoggingNatural Resources ConservationNatural Resources Management |
Author: Banks, Debbie Title: Environmental Crime: A threat to our future Summary: Since its inception in 1984 the Environmental Investigation Agency has been exposing environmental crime around the globe and has sought greater political support for strong enforcement action against these crimes. Yet despite the fact that environmental crime poses a growing threat, it remains a low priority for the international enforcement community. This report shows the scale and impacts of environmental crime and calls for strong political will to tackle it as a matter of urgency. Environmental crimes can be broadly defined as illegal acts which directly harm the environment. They include: illegal trade in wildlife; smuggling of ozonedepleting substances (ODS); illicit trade in hazardous waste; illegal, unregulated, and unreported fishing; and illegal logging and the associated trade in stolen timber. Perceived as ‘victimless’ and low on the priority list, such crimes often fail to prompt the required response from governments and the enforcement community. In reality, the impacts affect all of society. For example, illegal logging contributes to deforestation. It deprives forest communities of vital livelihoods, causes ecological problems like flooding, and is a major contributor to climate change – up to one-fifth of greenhouse gas emissions stem from deforestation. Illicit trade in ODS like the refrigerant chemicals chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), contributes to a thinning ozone layer, which causes human health problems like skin cancer and cataracts. Environmental crime generates tens of billions of dollars in profits for criminal enterprises every year, and it is growing. In part, this is due to the proliferation of international and regional environmental agreements, leading to more controls on a range of commodities. It is also due to mutations in the operations of criminal syndicates, which have been diversifying their operations into new areas like counterfeiting and environmental crime. Environmental crimes by their very nature are trans-boundary and involve cross-border criminal syndicates. A tiger skin or an ivory tusk passes through many hands from the poaching site to the final buyer. A tree felled illegally can travel around the world from the forest via the factory to be sold on the market as a finished wood product. In the era of global free trade, the ease of communication and movement of goods and money facilitate the operations of groups involved in environmental crime. The development of statutory enforcement agencies has struggled to keep pace with such change, and issues such as jurisdiction restrict efforts to foster better cross-border cooperation against crimes like illegal logging. These factors lead to a situation where environmental crimes offer high profits and minimal risk. It is time for the international community to wake-up to the menace of environmental crime and show the necessary political will to tackle the criminal gangs plundering our planet for a quick profit. Details: London: Environmental Investigation Agency, 2008. 28p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed April 9, 2013 at: http://www.unodc.org/documents/NGO/EIA_Ecocrime_report_0908_final_draft_low.pdf Year: 2008 Country: International URL: http://www.unodc.org/documents/NGO/EIA_Ecocrime_report_0908_final_draft_low.pdf Shelf Number: 128333 Keywords: Environmental CrimesHazardous WastesIllegal FishingIllegal LoggingOffenses Against the EnvironmentWildlife Crimes |
Author: Accra Caucus on Forests and Climate Change Title: Realising Rights, Protecting Forests: An Alternative Vision for Reducing Deforestation Summary: The Accra Caucus on Forests and Climate Change is a network of southern and northern NGOs representing around 100 civil society and Indigenous Peoples' organizations from 38 countries, formed at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) meeting in Accra, Ghana in 2008. The Caucus works to place the rights of indigenous and forest communities at the centre of negotiations on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD), and to ensure that efforts to reduce deforestation promote good governance and are not a substitute for emission reductions in industrialised countries. In this report the Caucus proposes an alternative vision for achieving the objective of reducing deforestation, arguing for policies and actions that would tackle the drivers of deforestation, rather than focusing exclusively on carbon. Drawing on case studies from organisations with experience of working with forest communities, the report highlights problems linked to the implementation of REDD and suggests ways in which policies to reduce deforestation can actually work on the ground. Through case studies from selected countries the report highlights three critical components: full and effective participation (Indonesia, Ecuador, Democratic Republic of Congo); secured and equitable land rights (Brazil, Cameroon, Papua New Guinea) and community-based forest management (Tanzania, Nepal). Details: London: Rainforest Foundation UK, 2010. 40p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed April 25, 2013 at: http://www.rainforestfoundationuk.org/Accra_Report_ENG Year: 2010 Country: International URL: http://www.rainforestfoundationuk.org/Accra_Report_ENG Shelf Number: 128501 Keywords: ConservationDeforestationForest ManagementIllegal LoggingNatural Resources |
Author: Brack, Duncan Title: Combating Illegal Logging: Interaction with WTO Rules Summary: •Controlling international trade in illegal timber is an essential part of the effort to reduce illegal logging. Consumer countries are taking a range of measures including the EU's FLEGT licensing scheme and Timber Regulation, the Australian Illegal Logging Prohibition Act, the US Lacey Act, and public procurement policies in several countries. •Since these measures are designed to alter the existing patterns of international trade in timber and timber products, concerns are often raised about their compatibility with World Trade Organization rules. •The outcome of any potential dispute case would rest on the interpretation of various clauses of the GATT and other WTO agreements, but there is no experience to date of WTO dispute cases dealing with even vaguely similar issues. •It is important to be aware of the broad constraints placed by WTO rules in designing such measures for controlling trade in illegal timber, which seem likely to be increasingly used. The more the measure diverges from the core WTO principle of non-discrimination in trade, and the more trade-disruptive it is, the more vulnerable it could be to challenge. •Within these constraints, governments have plenty of flexibility to adopt measures designed to exclude illegal timber from international trade. None of the main measures being pursued at present should experience any conflict with WTO rules. Details: London: Chatham House, 2013. 16p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed May 30, 2013 at: http://www.chathamhouse.org/publications/papers/view/191299 Year: 2013 Country: International URL: http://www.chathamhouse.org/publications/papers/view/191299 Shelf Number: 128849 Keywords: Illegal LoggingIllegal TradeNatural ResourceOffenses Against the Environment |
Author: Turner, James Title: Implications for the New Zealand Wood Products Sector of Trade Distortions due to Illegal Logging A report prepared for the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry Summary: This study determined, for New Zealand, the production, trade and price effects of international trade distortions due to illegal logging. The study considered the effect of illegal logging on both the price and competitiveness of New Zealand wood products in domestic and foreign markets. Two complementary economic models, the Global Forest Products Model (GFPM) and Radiata Pine Market Model (RPMM) were used to view the New Zealand forest sector in its full international context. While the GFPM provides a global perspective, the RPMM provides a richer description of the New Zealand radiata pine forestry and sawmilling sectors. countries in the policies and institutions that govern forest utilisation, and hence the rules that apply in determining whether logs are legally sourced. Differences between government and NGO approaches to assessment explain much of the variation found in estimates of illegal logging. NGO assessments include issues such as logging concession award processes, whether forests are managed “sustainably”, and whether taxes and fees have been levied at a fair or market rate. Governmental organisations, on the other hand, focus on the extent that wood can be traced to an officially sanctioned logging operation. The most comprehensive, and widely quoted, review of illegal logging and trade is Seneca Creek (2004)1, which derived estimates that generally fell between the extremes of the NGO and governmental sources. Recognising the limitations of each source, this present study relied on the range of assessments to derive “low”, “most likely”, and “high” estimates (Table 1). Due to the scope of the review and its widespread recognition Seneca Creek (2004) was influential in our derivation of the “most likely” scenario. Potential for the recently announced increase in the Russian softwood log export tax to have significant repercussions for the global forest sector meant that an additional set of projections included the tax. Details: Wellington, NZ: New Zealand Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, 2007. 192p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed May 30, 2013 at: http://maxa.maf.govt.nz/forestry/illegal-logging/trade-distortion-implications/Final_Report.pdf Year: 2007 Country: International URL: http://maxa.maf.govt.nz/forestry/illegal-logging/trade-distortion-implications/Final_Report.pdf Shelf Number: 128850 Keywords: Economics of CrimeIllegal LoggingNatural ResourcesOffenses Against the Environment |
Author: Poyry Forest Industry Pty Ltd Title: Legal Forest Products Assurance - A Risk Assessment Framework for Assessing the Legality of Timber and Wood Projects Imported into Australia Summary: Poyry Forest Industry Ltd (Pöyry) has been engaged by the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry (DAFF) to review existing methodologies for assessing illegality of imported timber and wood products. Based on this review, Poyry was to develop a more accurate and reliable methodology for quantifying the volume and value of illegally-sourced wood products imported into Australia. This project supports the Australian Government’s commitment to combat illegal logging and associated trade. The methodology review concluded that the current methods lacked reliable data on which to base policy. Problems were found at each stage in the wood supply chain from accurate knowledge of the operating and regulatory environments covering sustainability and “legality” of forest management and timber harvesting, to data tracking the often complex log and subsequent product flows from the forests to primary and secondary manufacturing. Further complicating the situation is that much wood crosses borders via transhipment of logs and timber products from producer countries to secondary manufacturing countries and from there to consumer countries. When coupled with the imprecision in current trade statistics the review concluded that current methods to estimate volumes or values of timber and wood product imports from illegal sources are very unreliable. These findings led Poyry to develop an alternative approach that is based on developing a risk assessment framework based on transparent assessments of governance arrangements within wood supplying countries. Details: Canberra: Australian Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry (DAFF), 2010. 83p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed June 1, 2013 at: http://www.daff.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0003/1871733/Poyry_Report_-_Risk_assessment_framework_for_assessing_legality_of_timber_and_wood_products_imported_into_Australia.pdf Year: 2010 Country: Australia URL: http://www.daff.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0003/1871733/Poyry_Report_-_Risk_assessment_framework_for_assessing_legality_of_timber_and_wood_products_imported_into_Australia.pdf Shelf Number: 128914 Keywords: Illegal ImportsIllegal LoggingRisk AssessmentTimber |
Author: Nellemann, Christian, ed. Title: The Environmental Crime Crisis: Threats to Sustainable Development from Illegal Exploitation and Trade in Wildlife and Forest Resources Summary: Given the alarming pace, level of sophistication, and globalized nature that illegal trade in wildlife has now notoriously achieved, UNEP initiated a Rapid Response Assessment to provide some of the latest data, analysis, and broadest insights into the phenomenon. Tackling illegal wildlife trade demands this examination of the relationship between the environmental resources at stake, their legal and illegal exploitation, the loopholes that exacerbate the situation, the scale and types of crimes committed, and the dynamics of the demand driving the trade. In the international community, there is now growing recognition that the issue of the illegal wildlife trade has reached significant global proportions. Illegal wildlife trade and environmental crime involve a wide range of flora and fauna across all continents, estimated to be worth USD 70-213 billion annually. This compares to a global official development assistance envelope of about 135 billion USD per annum. The illegal trade in natural resources is depriving developing economies of billions of dollars in lost revenues and lost development opportunities, while benefiting a relatively small criminal fraternity. This report focuses on the far-reaching consequences of the environmental crime phenomenon we face today. The situation has worsened to the extent that illegal trade in wildlife's impacts are now acknowledged to go well beyond strictly environmental impacts - by seriously undermining economies and livelihoods, good governance, and the rule of law Even the security and safety of countries and communities is affected: the report highlights how wildlife and forest crime, including charcoal, provides potentially significant threat finance to militias and terrorist groups. Already recognized as a grave issue in DRC and Somalia by the UN Security Council, the assessment reveals that the scale and role of wildlife and forest crime in threat finance calls for much wider policy attention, well beyond those regions. Details: Arendal, NO; Nairobi: GRID-Arendal, 2014. 106p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed June 30, 2014 at: http://www.grida.no/publications/rr/crime/ Year: 2014 Country: International URL: http://www.grida.no/publications/rr/crime/ Shelf Number: 132569 Keywords: Environmental CrimeForestsIllegal LoggingIllegal TradeNatural ResourcesOrganized CrimeWildlife Crime |
Author: Greenpeace Title: Licence to Launder: How Herakles Farms' Illegal Timber Trade Threatens Cameroon's Forests and VPA Summary: The oil palm plantation being developed by Herakles Farms in the southwest region of Cameroon - an area of great biodiversity surrounded by five protected areas - illustrates what happens when irresponsible companies are not held accountable to local laws and processes. The companies activities pose a serious threat to forested areas and the communities who rely upon the forest for their livelihoods. Herakles Farms was originally trying to acquire more than 70,000 hectares of forested land in the region in 2009. Its local subsidiary, SG Sustainable Oils Cameroon (SGSOC), began clearing forest despite the fact the project did not have a land lease signed by the president as required by Cameroon law. Greenpeace and other local and international NGOs have continued to exposed Herakles Farms' illegal operations and the threats its irresponsible project poses to local livelihoods, environment and global climate. In this report, Greenpeace reveals how the company is now colluding with the Cameroonian government to commercialise the timber - much of which was illegally felled - from its project, despite previously categorically stating that it had no intention to do so. This new development demonstrates the persistent illegalities at the heart of the Herakles Farms project, indicative of a wider problem in many land deals and the logging sector in Africa. If allowed to persist, it will also seriously undermine Cameroon's Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA) with the EU to stop illegal logging. Finally, it sends the message that, if companies are allowed to behave as they wish, contravening national laws and ignoring the rights of local communities, then the forests and people of Africa will have no protection. Details: Amsterdam: Greenpeace, 2014. 15p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed July 14, 2014 at: http://www.greenpeace.org/international/Global/international/publications/forests/2014/Licence-to-Launder.pdf Year: 2014 Country: Cameroon URL: http://www.greenpeace.org/international/Global/international/publications/forests/2014/Licence-to-Launder.pdf Shelf Number: 129600 Keywords: DeforestationForestsIllegal LoggingIllegal TradeOffenses Against the Environment |
Author: United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) Title: Criminal Justice Response to wildlife and forest crime in Lao PDR Summary: Laos in a landlocked country of about 5.7 million people made up of 49 broad ethnic groups. Approximately eighty per cent of the population is located in rural areas and many depend on agriculture and natural resources for survival. The country is bordered by China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand and Myanmar. It is governed in the framework of a single socialist political party, the Lao People's Revolutionary Party (LPPR). Laos is a land rich in biological diversity and home to unique and rare species of flora and fauna. Many of these species are listed under Appendices I, II and III of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES). These flora species include high value timber species such as Aquilaria crassna and Aquilaria baillonii commonly known as Argarwood (Appendix I) and Dalbergia cochinchinensis commonly known as Siamese Rosewood (Appendix III) and rare orchids such as the Paphiopedilum appletonianum commonly known as Appleton's Paphiopedilum (Appendix I). Some of the better known CITES listed fauna species found in Laos include the Tiger (Appendix I), Leopard (Appendix I), Clouded Leopard (Appendix I), Elephant (Appendix I), Sun Bear (Appendix I), Asiatic Black Bear (Appendix I), Pangolin (Appendix II) and several turtles including the Indochinese Box Turtle (Appendix I). Despite their protection under CITES and National Laws, Lao forests have undergone extensive commercial logging over the last 30 years with forest cover dropping from 75% in 1979 to 40% in 2009. In 2014 a government initiated planting program has increased forest cover to just over 50% but the country has a long way to go to reach its goal of 65% cover by 2015 and 70% by 2020. There is growing evidence that transnational organised crime groups are contributing to a significant degree to forest exploitation and the Lao government has come under harsh criticism for its failure to control the illegal logging of its forests. Many of Laos' fauna species have fared no better and continue to be subjected to illegal trafficking to feed markets in neighbouring China and Vietnam. The objective of this study therefore is to determine what role the criminal justice system in Laos is playing in the struggle against the illegal trade in timber and wildlife. It is based on a field visit to Laos, a review of the available primary and secondary data, interviews with key interlocutors and a roundtable meeting of senior officers from the key government departments, IGO's and NGO's held in Vientiane in September 2014. During the meeting in September the current version of the report was circulated to all participants both in Lao language and in English to solicit comments and feedback. The presentations of the senior officers at the September meeting were eventually incorporated into what has become the final version of the report. Interviews were mainly conducted with key players of the criminal justice systems such as prosecutors, police, customs and environment/forestry officials involved in law enforcement. Details: New York: UNODC, 2014. 34p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed October 30, 2014 at: https://www.unodc.org/documents/southeastasiaandpacific//2014/10/trade-timber/Criminal_Justice_Responses_to_the_Illegal_Trade_in_Timber_in_South_East_Asia_v7.pdf Year: 2014 Country: Laos URL: https://www.unodc.org/documents/southeastasiaandpacific//2014/10/trade-timber/Criminal_Justice_Responses_to_the_Illegal_Trade_in_Timber_in_South_East_Asia_v7.pdf Shelf Number: 133831 Keywords: Forest ManagementIllegal LoggingIllegal TradeOrganized CrimeWildlife ConservationWildlife Crimes (Laos)Wildlife Law EnforcementWildlife Trafficking |
Author: Pearce, Fred Title: Protecting Forests, Respecting Rights: Options for EU Action on deforestation and forest degradation Summary: This report examines the EU's "Deforestation Footprint" - its role in global deforestation. It looks at important action the EU has taken, through the Forest Law Enforcement Governance and Trade (FLEGT) Action Plan to improve how forests are owned and managed in timber-exporting countries and to prevent imports of illegal tropical timber entering EU borders. Details: Moreton in Marsh, UK: Fern, 2015. 24p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed March 30, 2015 at: http://www.fern.org/sites/fern.org/files/Protecting%20Forests%20Respecting%20Rights.pdf Year: 2015 Country: Europe URL: http://www.fern.org/sites/fern.org/files/Protecting%20Forests%20Respecting%20Rights.pdf Shelf Number: 135077 Keywords: ConservationDeforestation (Europe)ForestsIllegal LoggingNatural Resources |
Author: Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) Title: Permitting Crime: How palm oil expansion drives illegal logging in Indonesia Summary: The clear-cutting of forests to make way for oil palm plantations is driving a wave of illegal logging in Indonesia, fundamentally undermining efforts to bring much-needed reform to the nation's forestry and timber sectors. A new report released today by the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), Permitting Crime: How palm oil expansion drives illegal logging in Indonesia, reveals how a widespread culture of corruption and poor law enforcement is generating a flood of illicit timber as plantations surge into frontier forests. In-depth case studies of blatant violations of licensing procedures and other laws in Central Kalimantan - a hotspot for forest crime - detailed in the report include: - outright violations of plantation licensing, timber and environmental regulations by firms clear-cutting forests in some of Indonesia's richest tracts of rainforest; - clear links between a series of palm oil concessions, a corrupt regent and one of the highest-profile Indonesian political graft cases of recent years; - attempts by a palm oil firm to pay US$45,000 to police to bury an investigation into its illegal operations; - local governments selling-out customary communities and facilitating the transfer of millions of dollars of their resources to private firms. The report explains how almost all palm plantations nationwide are willfully evading Indonesia's Timber Legality Verification System (Sistem Verifikasi Legalitas Kayu, or SVLK), a mandatory law implemented in September 2010 as a cornerstone of efforts to ensure only legal timber is produced in the country. Details: Washington, DC; London: EIA, 2014. 28p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed April 16, 2015 at: http://eia-international.org/wp-content/uploads/Permitting-Crime.pdf Year: 2014 Country: Indonesia URL: http://eia-international.org/wp-content/uploads/Permitting-Crime.pdf Shelf Number: 135244 Keywords: ConservationForestsIllegal LoggingOffenses Against the Environment (Indonesia)Palm Oil |
Author: World Growth Title: Cutting Down the Poor: How UK and EU aid is killing jobs in developing countries, wasting EU taxpayer funds and breaking international trade rules Summary: The government of the United Kingdom and the European Union have introduced measures against illegal logging with their trading partners that are currently costing approximately L22.4 million annually. By the EU-s own estimates these measures are likely to be ineffective and will: - cause job losses among the rural poor in developing countries, - have little impact on illegal logging; - have virtually no impact on deforestation, if any. The measures are also likely to put the EU in breach of international trade laws. Timber exporters to the EU should consider trade retaliation. EU taxpayers should demand an inquiry. Illegal logging first emerged as a campaign issue in 1998. The illegal timber trade was linked to global concerns over deforestation. Action against illegal logging in developing countries was supported by Western industries that were facing increased competition from timber and paper producers, particularly in China. It was also supported by environmental campaign groups that made unsubstantiated claims about the levels of illegal logging taking place globally. However, there has been very little ground-based research on levels of illegal logging in many countries. Details: Arlington, VA: World Growth, 2013. 21p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed May 4, 2015 at: http://worldgrowth.org/site/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/WG_FLEGT_2013_revision_formatted.pdf Year: 2013 Country: Indonesia URL: http://worldgrowth.org/site/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/WG_FLEGT_2013_revision_formatted.pdf Shelf Number: 135507 Keywords: DeforestationForestsIllegal LoggingOffenses Against the Environment |
Author: Hoare, Alison Title: Tackling Illegal Logging and the Related Trade: What Progress and Where Next? Summary: This report is the culmination of the multi-year 'Indicators of Illegal Logging' project, in which Chatham House has sought to monitor and understand what progress is being made in global efforts to improve forest governance and address illegal logging. The first assessment, published in 2010, presented findings from 12 countries. For the second and current assessment, which is the subject of this Chatham House report, another seven countries have been added, with individual reports on all 19 countries published in 2014-15. The countries were selected on the basis of their relative importance in the world's forest sector. The nine producer countries account for about 10 per cent of global exports of wood-based products (in roundwood equivalent [RWE] volume), while the 10 processing and consumer countries account for approximately half of all global imports of wood-based products. Details: London: The Royal Institute of International Affairs, 2015. 79p. Source: Internet Resource: Chatham House Report: Accessed August 3, 2015 at: http://www.chathamhouse.org/sites/files/chathamhouse/field/field_document/20150715IllegalLoggingHoare.pdf Year: 2015 Country: International URL: http://www.chathamhouse.org/sites/files/chathamhouse/field/field_document/20150715IllegalLoggingHoare.pdf Shelf Number: 136280 Keywords: ForestsIllegal LoggingIllegal TradeNatural ResourceOffenses Against the Environment |
Author: United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) Title: Criminal Justice Response to Wildlife and Forest Crime in Cambodia: A Rapid Assessment Summary: The Kingdom of Cambodia is a land rich in biological diversity, home to unique and rare species of flora and fauna. It is the most ethnically homogenous country in South East-Asia with 94% of its 15.5 million population made up of Ethnic Khmer. It is bordered by Vietnam, Thailand and Lao PDR and it is a royal monarchy governed by the Cambodian People's Party. The Cambodian government and people have made tremendous advances rebuilding the social infrastructure that was so devastated by decades of war. This growth has been fuelled by international aid and the exploitation of their natural resources, both flora and fauna. In particular the Cambodian forests have undergone extensive commercial logging over the last 30 years with forest cover dropping from 72% in 1973 to 46% in 2013. The percentage of timber products in 2011 was an estimated production volume of 50,000m3 of sawn-timber minus 25,000m3 of reported export timber, which clearly indicates that the domestic market consumes about 50% of the total production. Companies exporting wood products must obtain an export license usually valid for one year based on the sales contract. The export systems adopted in Cambodia, also, include the inspection of products that can be ultimately traced to the exporter and production mill, through export documentation such as PC-IMEX, export permits and export licenses. This exploitation has resulted in the extinction of some species and the reduction in others to such a degree as to make any trade in them illegal. Several flora and fauna species indigenous to Cambodia are now afforded protection under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES). These species include high value timber species such as Dalbergia cochinchinensis commonly known as Siamese Rosewood (Appendix II) and fauna species such as the Tiger (Appendix I), Leopard (Appendix I), Clouded Leopard (Appendix I) Elephant (Appendix I), Sun Bear (Appendix I), Banteng (Appendix I), Pangolin (Appendix II) and the iconic Irrawaddy Dolphin (Appendix I). Despite protection under CITES, national laws, Royal Decrees and Prime Ministerial Sub Decrees there is growing evidence that transnational organised crime groups are continuing to target high value timber species in Cambodia and adjoining countries, particularly Thailand. Illegal logging and timber smuggling are a high reward but risky criminal activity which have resulted in armed confrontations, casualties and several deaths among rangers and smugglers. It is not only Cambodia's forests that have been exploited. Many of Cambodia's fauna species have also been targeted and continue to be subjected to illegal trafficking to feed markets in China and Vietnam. Recent seizures point to transnational organised crime groups targeting Cambodia as a transit point for ivory and rhino horn from Africa. The objective of this study therefore is to determine what role the criminal justice system in Cambodia plays in combating the illegal trade in timber and wildlife. In order to coherently achieve this goal, this report relayed primarily on qualitative research methods applying an inductive interpretivist approach, by adopting a series of methods of data generation. This information, empirical and statistical, has been obtained through a variety of sources which include both primary - in the form of structured interviewing techniques - and secondary sources, i.e. publications, articles, government documents. Although a variety of sources, and consequently conclusions and recommendations, will be presented at the end of this study, this report aspires to analyse the role of the criminal justice system in combating the illegal trade in timber and wildlife with a view to engage the Government of Cambodia to improve its performance. There has been careful consideration in the selection of the studied documents with regards to the origins in order to obtain a diverse range of material and at the same maintain a constructive dialogue with the Government. Ultimately, one must also acknowledge that establishing a methodology with the aim of assessing the criminal justice system in Cambodia is problematic within itself and a process susceptible of bias as influenced by numerous assumptions. The political commitment to use criminal justice resources to target the illegal exploitation and trade in timber and wildlife crime is one of the starting points for this country analysis. Criminal justice systems deal with multiple crimes and face considerable public and political pressure on a range of issues. Prioritising interventions is in practice the mechanism that criminal justice actors use to meet large demands with limited resources. The issue of political will is of great relevance too given on-going accusations of wide spread corruption and the protection of wildlife and timber smuggling by those, including political leaders and senior officials, who profit from it. For the purposes of this report "Wildlife and Forest Crime" refers to the taking, trading (supplying, selling or trafficking), importing, exporting, processing, possessing, obtaining and consumption of wild fauna and flora, including timber and other forest products in contravention of national or international law. This study has analysed the framework of responses to crime as defined by national laws. Details: Vienna: UNODC, 2015. 38p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed August 3, 2015 at: https://www.unodc.org/southeastasiaandpacific/en/regional-programme/toc/environmental-crime.html Year: 2015 Country: Cambodia URL: https://www.unodc.org/southeastasiaandpacific/en/regional-programme/toc/environmental-crime.html Shelf Number: 136295 Keywords: ForestsIllegal LoggingNatural ResourcesOffenses Against the EnvironmentOrganized CrimeWildlife CrimeWildlife Trafficking |
Author: United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) Title: Criminal Justice Responses to the Illegal Trade in Timber in Vietnam Summary: A third of South East Asia is covered by forests and Asia as a whole accounts for 18 per cent of total global forested areas. This substantial resource has attracted considerable attention from national and international institutions, civil society and analysts, all concerned by the rate at which the forest is legally and illegally felled. Most discussions have focused on these threats from an ecological standpoint while, until recently, less attention has being given to assessing this depletion as a result of criminal activity. There is however growing evidence that sophisticated criminal operations are contributing to a significant degree to forest exploitation. As more laws and regulatory frameworks are applied to manage the remaining forests in a sustainable way, and in the context of the on-going demand for timber, this is a challenge which is likely to grow rather than diminish. The objective of this study therefore is to determine what role criminal justice system in Viet Nam is playing in the struggle against the illegal trade in timber. It is based on a series of field visits to the country, a review of the available primary and secondary data, as well as interviews with key interlocutors. Interviews were mainly conducted with key players of the criminal justice system such as prosecutors, police, customs and environment/forestry officials involved in law enforcement. Whenever possible interviews were conducted at the level of officers in charge of investigations. In parallel, interviews were conducted with representatives of International Organizations and Civil Society. The results of the study were presented to the Government of Viet Nam during the workshop Good Governance and the threats of Transnational Organized Crime in the forestry sector, organized by UNODC in Hanoi on 14 October 2013. This report is primarily concerned with the illicit exploitation of timber within forest areas and its movement and then trafficking across borders for profit. These activities often exist in the grey area between clandestine and legitimate business activities. For the purposes of this report then the broad term "illegal timber trade" will be used to refer to the illicit movements (often transboundary) of illegal and quasi-legal timber and wood products. When used in the report, the term "forest crime" refers to a broader set of criminal activities against flora and fauna in forest areas. In this formulation, the illegal trade in timber is a subset of forest crime. For the purpose of this study no specific analysis has been conducted to identify a common and internationally acceptable notion of "illegal timber". This study has simply analyzed the framework of responses to crime as defined by national laws. The political commitment to use criminal justice resources to target the illegal exploitation and trade in timber is one of the starting points of the country analysis. The criminal justice system deals with multiple crimes and face considerable public and political pressure on a range of issues. Prioritising interventions is in practice the mechanism that criminal justice actors use to meet large demands with limited resources. The issue of political will is of great relevance too given on-going accusations of level corruption and the protection of illicit logging by those, including political leaders and senior officials, who profit from it. While criminal justice systems are designed in theory to respond to all crimes, the purpose of this report is to map out as far as possible the processes in which forest crimes are detected, investigated and prosecuted - and by whom. The latter question is critical: the crime of timber exploitation and trafficking falls in the purview of multiple departments and effective coordination between them is crucial for success. Examining the different inter-linkages between the agencies involved, the report aims at stimulating a wider debate as to how the system may be assisted by external actors. The recommendations of the report are aimed at national policy makers, but also at generating a wider discussion as to how criminal justice interventions could play a more effective role in curbing the illegal exploitation and trafficking of timber. The opening section of the report introduces briefly the extent of the illicit timber trade in South East Asia and some of the challenges that have been associated with controlling it. It then provides a short overview of the key issues and mechanisms through which the criminal justice system could play a more important role in the response to the illicit timber trade. The main body of the report is constituted by the country study. This is followed by a series of concluding recommendations. Details: Vienna: UNODC, 2013. 44p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed August 3, 2015 at: http://www.unodc.org/documents/southeastasiaandpacific//Publications/wildlife/CJS_Response_-_VIETNAM_01_13_Dec_201.pdf Year: 2013 Country: Vietnam URL: http://www.unodc.org/documents/southeastasiaandpacific//Publications/wildlife/CJS_Response_-_VIETNAM_01_13_Dec_201.pdf Shelf Number: 136297 Keywords: ForestsIllegal LoggingIllegal TradeOffenses Against the EnvironmentOrganized Crime |
Author: Marijnissen, Chantal Title: Facing Reality: How to halt the import of illegal timber in the EU Summary: By mid-2004, the European Commission is due to report back to the Council of the European Union with its proposals for implementing the EU Action Plan on Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) that it released in May 2003. FERN, Greenpeace and WWF welcome the Plan and aim, with this report, to provide further recommendations to EU policy makers that will assist their efforts to ensure its successful implementation. Given the stage of development of the FLEGT Action Plan, this report will focus primarily on criminal aspects of the timber industry. However, it is important to remember that much legal logging is also highly destructive - and that ultimately it is the issue of forest sustainability that needs to be addressed. As the environmental NGO community has repeatedly shown, the impacts of illegal logging on wildlife and human welfare are devastating. Illegal logging contributes to deforestation and loss of biodiversity; fuels civil wars and threatens international security through bribery, organised crime and human rights abuses; cuts tax revenue of producer countries; destabilises international markets and undermines both legitimate business and responsible forest management. As a major buyer and importer of illegal forest products, and with European timber companies heavily implicated in this trade, the European Union has the duty as well as the power to curtail criminal activities linked to it. We believe that, to be successful, the FLEGT process cannot be restricted to voluntary mechanisms. Illegal logging has reached an unprecedented high level, proving that voluntary measures, together with industry self-regulation, have been insufficient to stop illegal logging. Therefore, although we welcome the planned EU regulation for a voluntary licensing scheme and the development of voluntary partnership agreements, we believe that the EU must develop a regulation to outlaw the import of illegally sourced timber and forest products. This regulation must be implemented at the same time as the regulation for the voluntary licensing scheme and should allow EU enforcement officials to seize illegally sourced forest products and to prosecute those that trade in them. We also ask the European Union to build political support within producer countries for the voluntary partnership agreements proposed by the FLEGT Action Plan. The negotiations of these agreements should bring together all stakeholders in producer and consumer countries in developing solutions and promoting responsible forest management. Details: Brussels: FERN, 2004. 38p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed August 19, 2015 at: http://www.fern.org/sites/fern.org/files/pubs/reports/facing_reality.pdf Year: 2004 Country: Europe URL: http://www.fern.org/sites/fern.org/files/pubs/reports/facing_reality.pdf Shelf Number: 136456 Keywords: DeforestationForest ManagementForestsIllegal LoggingIllegal ProductsOffences Against the Environment |
Author: Saunders, Jade Title: EUTR CITES and money laundering: A case study on the challenges to coordinated enforcement in tackling illegal logging Summary: This paper considers three EU policy mechanisms which have the potential to reduce incentives for illegal exploitation of forest resources in producer countries: the EU Timber Regulation (EUTR), CITES and anti-money laundering legislation. Looking at four EU countries (the Czech Republic, Italy, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom) and two producer countries (Ghana and Indonesia) it describes sanctions regimes and enforcement efforts, and identifies opportunities for improved cooperation by national and EU agencies. While the available data is limited, the paper finds that enforcement has been reasonably successful given the early stage of implementation. There are some synergies between EUTR and CITES, whereas anti-money laundering legislation is not generally relied on to address environmental crimes. The paper finds significant variance between enforcement systems in the EU member states, and concludes that European Commission leadership is essential to establishing the consistency necessary for effective enforcement in the EU market. With regard to the issue of environmental crime generally, the paper concludes that in the case studies, 'criminalization' of environmentally harmful activities has primarily been guided by the nature of the sanctions considered necessary to address the problem in question. Details: London: Chatham House, 2015. 47p. Source: Internet Resource: A study for the EFFACE project. Accessed August 21, 2015 at: http://efface.eu/sites/default/files/EFFACE_EUTR%20CITES%20and%20money%20laundering%20A%20case%20study%20on%20the%20challenges%20to%20coordinated%20enforcement%20in%20tacking%20illegal%20logging.pdf Year: 2015 Country: Europe URL: http://efface.eu/sites/default/files/EFFACE_EUTR%20CITES%20and%20money%20laundering%20A%20case%20study%20on%20the%20challenges%20to%20coordinated%20enforcement%20in%20tacking%20illegal%20logging.pdf Shelf Number: 136522 Keywords: ForestsIllegal LoggingMoney LaunderingOffenses Against the EnvironmentOrganized Crime |
Author: Downs, Fiona Title: Rule of law and environmental justice in the forests: The challenge of 'strong law enforcement' in corrupt conditions Summary: Widespread illegal forest activities have contributed to deforestation, forest degradation, economic losses to nations and injustices for forest communities in many countries. Promoting rule of law, particularly through 'strengthening law enforcement', is an important part of improving forest management and ensuring justice for forest dependent communities. This includes strengthening police and the courts to better detect and punish illegal forest activities. However, available evidence has shown that strong law enforcement activities often fail to address broader systems of illegal activities and can lead to further injustices. Corruption is one reason for these failures and is the focus of this U4 Issue Paper, which draws lessons from Cameroon and Indonesia. Efforts to strengthen law enforcement in the forests need to consider how corruption may interfere with successful detection and suppression of illegal activities. If they are to be successful, programmes promoting forest law enforcement in corrupt contexts also need to be sensitive to how they are implemented, with particular focus on the rights of forest dependent communities. Details: Bergen: Chr. Michelsen Institute, Anti-Corruption Resource Centre, 2013. 32 p. Source: Internet Resource: U4 Issues, 2013, no. 6: Accessed August 24, 2015 at: http://www.u4.no/publications/rule-of-law-and-environmental-justice-in-the-forests-the-challenge-of-strong-law-enforcement-in-corrupt-conditions/ Year: 2013 Country: International URL: http://www.u4.no/publications/rule-of-law-and-environmental-justice-in-the-forests-the-challenge-of-strong-law-enforcement-in-corrupt-conditions/ Shelf Number: 136562 Keywords: CorruptionForest Law EnforcementForestsIllegal LoggingOffenses Against the Environment |
Author: Environmental Investigation Agency Title: Organised Chaos: The illicit overland timber trade between Myanmar and China Summary: The conviction and subsequent pardon of 155 Chinese nationals in July for illegal logging in Myanmar threw a spotlight on how massive volumes of timber stolen from the county's precious frontier forests have been flowing unhindered into China for decades. The murky trade is worth hundreds of millions of dollars every year, making it one of the single largest bilateral overland flows of illegal timber in the world. The Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) today releases a new report following extensive undercover investigations into the trade in China and Myanmar, exposing the key actors and systemic corruption which drive and facilitate it. Organised Chaos: The illicit overland timber trade between Myanmar and China documents how in Kachin State all parties profit, from shady Chinese businesses paying in gold bars for the rights to log entire mountains to the official corruption which allows the timber to pass through various checkpoints. Kachin and Yunnan Province in China are at the heart of trade but stolen timber is increasingly being sourced from deeper within Myanmar to feed factories in south and east China. The bulk of the timber moving across the border is now high value species of rosewood and teak. Talks between Myanmar and China are due to take place in Nay Pyi Taw, Myanmar, on September 24 and EIA calls on both countries to take urgent effective action against the massive illicit timber trade. Faith Doherty, EIA Forest Campaign Team Leader, said: "At first glance, this cross-border trade looks to be both chaotic and complex, with most of the stolen timber trafficked through Myanmar's conflict-torn Kachin State, but the reality beneath the apparent anarchy is an intricate and structured supply chain within which different players have defined functions and collude to ensure the logs keep flowing." The trade appeared to have peaked in 2005 when one million cubic metres of logs crossed the border but, following a brief hiatus when Chinese authorities clamped down, the scale is once again nearing peak levels. This trade contravenes Myanmar regulations prohibiting overland export of wood and the country's log export ban introduced in April 2014. At stake are some of the most ecologically important remaining forests in South-East Asia. EIA's evidence shows that as intensive logging exhausts forests in the border area, Chinese-run operations are encroaching deeper into Myanmar. Doherty added: "Both Myanmar and China need to take urgent and effective action to stem the torrent of illicit timber flowing across their joint border or watch conflict, violence and forest destruction continue to escalate." Details: London: EIA, 2015. 24p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed September 18, 2015 at: https://drive.google.com/viewerng/viewer?url=https://eia-international.org/wp-content/uploads/EIA-Organised-Chaos-FINAL-lr1.pdf Year: 2015 Country: Asia URL: https://drive.google.com/viewerng/viewer?url=https://eia-international.org/wp-content/uploads/EIA-Organised-Chaos-FINAL-lr1.pdf Shelf Number: 136814 Keywords: ForestsIllegal LoggingIllicit TradeOffenses Against the EnvironmentTimber |
Author: Sundstrom, Aksel Title: Understanding Illegality and Corruption in Forest Management: A Literature Review Summary: This review synthesizes the literature studying illegality and government corruption in forest mangement. After discussing the theoretical connections between different types of corruption and illegal forest-related activities it describes the major trends in previous studies, examining cross-national patterns as well as local in-depth studies. Both theory and available empirical findings pro-vide a straightforward suggestion: Bribery is indeed a "door opener" for illegal activities to take place in forest management. It then discusses the implications for conservation, focusing first on international protection schemes such as the REDD+ and second on efforts to reduce illegality and bribery in forest management. Key aspects to consider in the discussion on how to design monitoring institutions of forest regulations are how to involve actors without the incentive to engage in bribery and how to make use of new technologies that may publicize illegal behavior in distant localities. The review concludes by discussing avenues for future research. Details: Goteborg: University of Gothenburg, QOG The Quality of Government Institute, 2016. 39p. Source: Internet Resource: Working Paper Series 2016:1: Accessed February 2, 2016 at: http://qog.pol.gu.se/digitalAssets/1558/1558576_2016_1_sundstrom.pdf Year: 2016 Country: United States URL: http://qog.pol.gu.se/digitalAssets/1558/1558576_2016_1_sundstrom.pdf Shelf Number: 137736 Keywords: BriberyCorruptionDeforestationsForest ManagementForestsIllegal LoggingOffenses Against the Environment |
Author: Ferguson, Alan Title: Final Evaluation of the Cardamon Mountains Protected Forest and Wildlife Sanctuaries Project Summary: The Cardamom Mountains Protected Forest and Wildlife Sanctuaries Project in southwest Cambodia comprises two sub-projects: - Central Cardamom Protected Forest (CCPF) project, funded by United Nations Foundation (UNF) and Conservation International (CI) and implemented by CI and the Forestry Administration from July 2001 to September 2004; and - Cardamom Mountain Wildlife Sanctuaries (CMWS) project in Phnom Aural and Phnom Samkos sanctuaries, funded by UNF, GEF and Flora and Fauna International (FFI) and implemented by FFI and Ministry of Environment from April 2003 to April 2007. The CMWS Project had five major planned Outcomes for the wildlife sanctuaries: - Improved planning, management and regulatory frameworks - Improved governmental operational capacity - Communities engaged in the protection, management and sustainable use of natural resources - Secured international recognition and increased national and local awareness - Established a long-term financing mechanism The Final Evaluation was undertaken from February 19 - March 16, 2007. It focused on the CMWS, with only general review of the CCPF. The evaluation involved individual and group interviews, an initial workshop to discuss project design issues, and a larger wrap-up meeting to discuss preliminary findings. In total, 95 people were consulted. The study method was guided by the evaluation Terms of Reference and included identifying Indicators, preparing Evaluation Questions to guide interviews and meetings, and undertaking participatory discussions. The challenging startup conditions for this project should be duly noted: the project area is a former stronghold of the Khmer Rouge, settlements of indigenous people and ex-Khmer Rouge families, the wildlife sanctuary designation was unknown, traditional use of forest resources was commonplace, the area is large and difficult to monitor, and both corruption and lack of respect for the law were widespread in government and the military due to the poor salaries and lack of institutional modernization. These baseline conditions presented major impediments to introducing conservation. The two-project concept of the CCPF and CMWS has involved separate sub-projects that have different clients, approaches, methods and databases The project was structured in accordance with the mandate and boundaries of the wildlife sanctuaries under DNCP-MoE jurisdiction, and those of the Central Cardamom Protected Forest under FA jurisdiction. The original idea of synchronizing the DNCP/MoE - FFI and FA-CI projects was constrained due to differences in start-up dates, and the limited overall coordination of the projects. The different time frames adversely affected results and potential synergies. A brief review of follow-up to the CMWS Mid Term Review concluded that the project has undertaken reasonable action to address most of the MTR recommendations. The lack of action on a project Steering Committee and institutional coordination are the major outstanding issues. Details: Phnom Penh, Cambodia: UNDP Cambodia, 2007. 116p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed April 28, 2016 at: https://erc.undp.org Year: 2007 Country: Cambodia URL: https://erc.undp.org Shelf Number: 138841 Keywords: ForestsIllegal LoggingOffenses Against the EnvironmentWildlife ConservationWildlife CrimeWildlife Law Enforcement |
Author: Global Witness Title: Blood Timber: How Europe Held Fund War in the Central African Republic Summary: In 2013, the Central African Republic was plunged into a conflict that has cost over 5,000 lives and displaced more than a million people. When the insurgent group Seleka seized power in a bloody coup d'etat, Seleka rebels were dispatched to the country's rainforests. Here they struck lucrative deals with logging companies that helped bankroll a fierce campaign of violence against the country's population. Our new investigation, Blood Timber, reveals how these logging companies have paid millions of euros into the hands of rebels guilty of mass murder, kidnappings, rapes and the forced recruitment of child soldiers. Global Witness is calling on the EU and its member states to cut all trade and aid links to CAR's logging industry, which continues to be a source of instability as the African country struggles to restore peace. Europe is complicit on three counts: - Trade: European companies are trading with CAR logging companies, which in 2013 alone paid over 3.4 million euros to rebels so that they could continue logging illegally, at scale and for significant profit. - Illegal imports: Europe is the premier destination for CAR wood, meaning EU member states are failing in their legal obligations to keep illicit timber off European markets. - Donor aid: France has paid millions of euros in development aid to CAR's logging companies, based on the flawed assumption that CAR's logging industry contributes to local development. The EU is also pursuing a timber trade agreement with CAR that further benefits its logging industry. The logging companies under investigation - IFB from France, SEFCA from Lebanon, and Vicwood from China - preside over an area of CAR rainforest over two hundred times the size of Paris, and together account for 99% of timber exports from the country. Global Witness investigations found that all three made frequent payments to Seleka rebels - as bribes, to pass roadblocks, for armed escort, and for the protection of their logging sites, including a single transaction of nearly 381,000 euros by SEFCA to the new Seleka government right after the coup. Details: London: Global Witness, 2015. 64p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed May 5, 2016 at: https://www.greenpeace.de/sites/www.greenpeace.de/files/publications/blood-timber-global-witness-20150715.pdf Year: 2015 Country: Central African Republic URL: https://www.greenpeace.de/sites/www.greenpeace.de/files/publications/blood-timber-global-witness-20150715.pdf Shelf Number: 138951 Keywords: DeforestationIllegal LoggingOffenses Against the Environment |
Author: Nijman, Vincent Title: In Full Swing: Assessment of Trade in Orangutans and Gibbons on Java and Bali, Indonesia Summary: This report presents an assessment of the trade in seven species of gibbon and two species of orang-utan on the islands of Java and Bali. Java and Bali are the economic, industrial and political centres of the Republic of Indonesia. Both islands are densely populated, with an average population density of around 900 people / km2, and although small in area compared to many other islands in the republic, half of the nation's human population resides on Java and Bali. Several species of gibbon in Indonesia, for instance Kloss' Gibbon Hylobates klossi of the Mentawai Islands or the Javan Gibbon H. moloch, are threatened by habitat loss, hunting and capturing, as are both the Sumatran Orang-utan Pongo abelii and Bornean Orang-utan P. pygmaeus. Since Indonesia's transition from the autocracy of Soeharto to a democracy, illegal logging has accelerated and in large parts of the country, forest is being lost at an alarming rate. This puts the survival of those species that fully depend on forest at risk, including all species of gibbon and both species of orang-utan. Trade in these species, and the associated loss of individuals in the process of capturing and trade, may exacerbate these risks. On Java, and to a lesser extent Bali, protected species are widely kept as pets, and, despite being legally protected since 1931, gibbons and orang-utans are no exceptions. Given the precarious situation of gibbons and orang-utans in Indonesia, and the economic importance of Java and Bali, it was considered imperative to gain a greater insight into the severity of the trade in these primates, as well as how the Indonesian conservation authorities and local Non- Governmental Organizations (NGOs), try to curb this trade. To this end, data was collected from a variety of sources: bird markets (where despite the name, a large range of wildlife species other than birds are traded, including gibbons and orang-utans); from the regional offices for the conservation of natural resources (data on confiscations, prosecutions, and pets that are registered); wildlife rescue centres, rehabilitation centres and zoological gardens (as the facilitator for confiscated and donated gibbons and orang-utans); and local NGOs (as monitors of the trade). In all, data was collected on 559 individuals from at least nine species (249 Hylobates gibbons, 142 Siamangs Symphalangus syndactylus and 168 orang-utans). Details: Selangor, Malaysia: TRAFFIC Southeast Asia, 2005. 58p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed June 8, 2016 at: http://wildlifetraderesearch.org/files/r9_nijman_infullswing_traffic_2005.pdf Year: 2005 Country: Indonesia URL: http://wildlifetraderesearch.org/files/r9_nijman_infullswing_traffic_2005.pdf Shelf Number: 139319 Keywords: Illegal LoggingOrangutansWildlife ConservationWildlife CrimeWildlife Trade |
Author: World Wildlife Fund Title: Illegal Logging and its Impact in the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve Summary: 1. Illegal logging is the main conservation problem in the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve. This report presents the direct and indirect evidence of illegal logging from 2001 to the beginning of 2004. 2. The report is based on the following evidence: (i) a change analysis of the forest cover in the central core zone (that has a total of 9,671 ha) of the Reserve through aerial photographs obtained in 2001 and 2003, (ii) field samplings of 12 properties in 2003, and (iii) the deforestation analysis in two areas of the buffer zone from 2001 to 2003. The report also discusses: sites where the impact of logging was especially evident in the buffer zone; data obtained during 21 aerial flights in 2003 and 2004; and 42 letters and complaints made primarily by the agrarian communities requesting support from the authorities to solve the issue of illegal logging. Additionally, reference is made to 23 inspections carried out by the Michoacan Delegation of the Federal Attorney General's Officer for Environment Protection (PROFEPA), between 2002 to 2004 in five properties; the construction of 43 trenches by the communities to stop illegal logging trucks; and of the location of 61 sawmills documented in the region. 3. The circumstances surrounding the illegal logging in five properties in the state of Michoacan are analyzed in detail: the ejido of Francisco Serrato, the Federal Property, and the indigenous communities of San Francisco Curungueo, Francisco Serrato and Crescencio Morales. 4. The available data on logging in the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere shows that between 2001 and 2003 at least 370 hectares have been deforested in the buffer zone (Francisco Serrato and Emiliano Zapata ejidos) and 140 hectares have suffered from serious forest degradation in the core zone. However the number of hectares logged does not reflect the seriousness of the problem. Considering the various types of evidences studied, a total of 28 communities have suffered from illegal logging during the last three years. Twenty three of these communities are located in the core zone (an area where logging is prohibited according to the 2000 Presidential Decree) and the remaining five communities are located on the buffer zone). On the other hand, it is not necessary to loose all the trees to affect the overwintering sites of the Monarch butterfly, since the removal of only a few trees may substantially alter the microclimatic conditions required for their survival. 5. The case studies presented here show local efforts to combat the illegal logging, including the letters of complaint sent to the to the authorities and obstructions created to stop the trucks of the illegal loggers. Communities have repeatedly requested the permanent presence of the army to fight this problem which affects their forests. 6. Despite this, the response from the authorities has been sporadic and not of the necessary magnitude to stop this environmental crime. The law enforcement operations carried out by the authorities in April and May 2004 were important, however, these operations must be permanent in order to ensure the effective protection of the protected area. 7. Recommendations to stop the illegal logging include : (i) permanent presence of the army (as requested by the leaders of the agrarian communities), (ii) the obstruction of entrances to the core zone of the protected area to block the access of the illegal loggers, (iii) the periodical inspections of the Reserve and sawmills of the region, and (iv) the implementation of immediate communication mechanisms, so that the communities may inform the authorities of logging activities effectively . Details: Washington, DC: World Wildlife Fund, 2004. 37p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed July 1, 2016 at: http://www.eco-index.org/search/pdfs/363report_3.pdf Year: 2004 Country: Mexico URL: http://www.eco-index.org/search/pdfs/363report_3.pdf Shelf Number: 139542 Keywords: DeforestationForestsIllegal Logging |
Author: European Commission Title: Evaluation of the EU FLEGT Action Plan (Forest Law Enforcement Governance and Trade) 2004-2014 Summary: In July 2014 the European Commission started an evaluation of the first 11 years of implementation (2003-2014) of the EU FLEGT Action Plan. The evaluation was based on a wide-ranging consultation process that included an independent evaluation undertaken by an external consultant, surveys, single and multi-stakeholder workshops, targeted interviews, as well as unsolicited inputs from stakeholders. The evaluation process will be concluded shortly with the release of a Commission's Staff Working Document. The evaluation had three main objectives: To assess and document progress, achievements, shortcomings and gaps To assess and analyse changes in the global context To draw lessons learnt and formulate recommendations that could guide future EU efforts on forest law enforcement, governance and trade The evaluation covered 2003-2014, the first 11 years of implementation of the EU FLEGT Action Plan. It included in its scope all actions undertaken by EU institutions, EU Member States and partner countries, including efforts of non-state actors and international organisations. It covered the EU FLEGT Action Plan's seven action areas and their interrelationships. The evaluation report comprises two volumes: Volume 1 is the main report, Volume 2 provides supporting documentation. Details: Brussels: The Commission, 2016. 185p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed July 21, 2016 at: https://ec.europa.eu/europeaid/evaluation-eu-flegt-action-plan-forest-law-enforcement-governance-and-trade-2004-2014_en Year: 2016 Country: Europe URL: https://ec.europa.eu/europeaid/evaluation-eu-flegt-action-plan-forest-law-enforcement-governance-and-trade-2004-2014_en Shelf Number: 139588 Keywords: ForestsIllegal Logging |
Author: Anh, Cao Ngoc Title: Timber Trafficking and its Impacts on Human Security in Vietnam Summary: As with other forms of green crime, timber trafficking is frequently overlooked by traditional criminology. This research is an exploratory investigation into the problem of timber trafficking in Vietnam, which aims to obtain a detailed understanding of the typology of, victimisation from, and key factors driving this crime. To achieve this aim, 41 semi-structured interviews with seven different cohorts (environmental police, investigative police, forest protection officers, commune authorities, forest-based inhabitants, timber traders, and green NGO staff) were conducted. Over one hundred pages of official documents (criminal case records, operational reports, and conference papers), and more than two hundred relevant newspapers were collected and analysed to enhance and triangulate the primary data. This research reveals a multifaceted typology of timber trafficking in Vietnam, comprising five different components: harvesting, transporting, trading, supporting, and processing. Each of these components is further constituted by distinctive, parallel forms of illicit operation. There are, for example, three parallel forms of illegal timber harvesting, termed small-scale, medium-scale and large-scale (SSITH, MSITH and LSITH). While having certain overlaps, in general SSITH, MSITH and LSITH are fundamentally distinctive not only in terms of the volumes of illicit timber they produce and the methods of illegally felling trees they employ, as typically identified in the previous studies, but more importantly in terms of the harvesters' attributes, their motivations, and the sophistication and security implications of the criminal operations. It is thus argued that the typology of illegal timber harvesting in this research challenges the typical classification in the existing literature, and offers an alternative way of understanding more comprehensively the dynamic of illegal logging. Regarding the victimisation from timber trafficking, due to the employment of a broad conceptual framework of human security, it is revealed that timber trafficking has substantial harmful impacts on all seven elements of human security: economic, food, health, environmental, personal, community, and political. These impacts are closely interconnected, but vary between different groups of victims. These findings culminate in the proposal that there are three main typical characteristics of green victimisation: suffering hierarchy, victim-offender overlap, and multidimensionality. Additionally, the employment of a human security paradigm in this research leads to another proposal that it is highly achievable and productive to integrate perspectives from the field of security studies into the discipline of green criminology, for the purpose of systematically examining green victimisation. Finally, this research offers five solutions to control timber trafficking in the context of Vietnam, by refining the current policy framework of forest governance and improving the efficiency of law enforcement. Details: Newcastle, UK: University of Northumbria at Newcastle, 2016. 310p. Source: Internet Resource: Dissertation: Accessed August 6, 2016 at: http://nrl.northumbria.ac.uk/27316/ Year: 2016 Country: Vietnam URL: http://nrl.northumbria.ac.uk/27316/ Shelf Number: 140025 Keywords: ForestsGreen CriminologyIllegal LoggingOffenses Against the EnvironmentTrafficking in Timber |
Author: Forest Trends Title: European Trade Flows and Risk Summary: Illegal logging, as defined in the EU Timber Regulation (EUTR), is the harvesting of timber in contravention of the laws and regulations of the country of harvest. Illegal logging is a global epidemic with significant negative economic, environmental and social impacts. Recent studies indicate that illegal logging accounts for 50-90 percent of the volume of all timber production in key producer tropical countries in the Amazon Basin, Central Africa, and Southeast Asia, and 15-30 per cent globally. In economic terms illegal logging results in lost revenues from taxes and other duties that could be used by producer countries for sustainable development purposes and other benefits. In environmental terms illegal logging is associated with deforestation, water pollution, spread of disease, climate change and a loss of biodiversity due to habitat destruction. In social terms illegal logging can be linked to conflicts over land and other resources, the disempowerment of local and indigenous communities, the loss of lives and livelihoods, human rights violations, corruption, and armed conflicts. Illegal logging also undermines international security, supports organized crime and money laundering activities, and leads to unfair competition in the marketplace that negatively impacts the sincere efforts of responsible operators in Europe and other regions of the world to comply with the law. Details: Washington, DC: Forest Friends, 2013. 28p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed September 17, 2016 at: http://forest-trends.org/documents/files/doc_4085.pdf Year: 2013 Country: Europe URL: http://forest-trends.org/documents/files/doc_4085.pdf Shelf Number: 140329 Keywords: DeforestationForestsIllegal LoggingMoney LaunderingNatural ResourcesOffenses Against the EnvironmentOrganized Crime |
Author: Friends of the Earth Netherlands Title: Cana Bois: plundering protected areas in Cameroon for the European market Summary: The logging company Cana Bois has been plundering protected forest areas in Cameroon for the European timber market. This case has been researched and published in a 'log file' by Friends of the Earth Netherlands and France in June 2009. First some general information. The EU still accounts for 16 - 19% of global illegal timber imports. Illegal logging is one of the main causes of deforestation and forest degradation worldwide. Cameroon is no exception to this rule. Both the Cameronese government and European markets have taken first steps to prevent illegal logging and related trade. Within the framework of the EU FLEGT action plan, a voluntary partnership agreement is under way as well as legislation to prevent illegal timber trade. EU Member states and Cameroon have taken efforts to promote voluntary certification for sustainable forest management. However, progress is slow and illegal and destructive logging is still rife in many timber producing countries around the world. This logfile shows how unscrupulous companies continue to plunder protected areas in Cameroon for the European market with total impunity. This report describes the observations from Friends of the Earth research missions in the forest management unit of Cana Bois, nearly 34.000 hectares large and located in the Central Province of Cameroon. In the North, this forest management unit is bordered by another logging area and in the south and east by a forest reserve. In 2007, Cana Bois was given permission to log a strictly defined area of 2500 hectares within the forest management unit. During our missions we held interviews with the local population and ventured inside the forest management units and neighbouring forest reserve to record infractions. It appeared that Cana Bois had been logging outside its strictly defined area into the areas destined for next year's logging activities and outside the official boundaries deep into the forest reserve. We estimate that logging roads and paths in the forest reserve have a distance of over 150 kilometers. Cana Bois deliberately crossed a river to enter the forest reserve. Along the logging roads we found numerous abandoned logs, stumps and log parks. The timber from these illegal logging operations has been sold with the official marks from the forest management unit. This legalisation to facilitate transport and export is done by local forest control posts with hammer marks, even though they know that the timber is not coming from the forest management unit. The local population has sent a letter to the Independent Observer, Resource Extraction Monitoring, in Cameroon, asking for help and requesting a mission to establish the total impact of the infractions. This mission was prevented time after time by Cameronese government officials. Unhampered, Cana Bois has started logging operations again in 2009, showing that illegality continues to be profitable in the Cameronese logging sector. These illegal logging practices have severe impacts on the forest reserve. Amongst others, they result in forest degradation, loss of economic value of the forest, because commercially interesting species have been harvested, and they have negative impacts on the livelihoods of local people. The plundered forest is part of the Atlantic Equatorial Coastal Forests ecoregion which has exceptionally high levels of species richness and endemism. Alarmingly, Friends of the Earth has found numerous traces of poaching in the forest reserve. The roads opened up for logging make it easier for poachers and vehicles to get the meat out to nearby markets. In the harbour in Doula Friends of the Earth found piles of sawn wood from Cana Bois with destination Spain, the Netherlands and France. Cana Bois has been looting the Cameronese forests for the European market. Several companies in Cameroon have chosen the path of sustainable forest management and have invested in certification. Their business is being undermined by unscrupulous companies like Cana Bois. This flagrant case of illegal logging and related trade shows that European member states and the EU have a huge responsibility to combat illegal logging and related trade. Friends of the Earth therefore calls upon the EU ministers to step up the pace and decide on a strengthened legislative proposal to stop illegal timber trade during the Agriculture Council in June 2009. It is extremely important for the effectivity of the legislation that trade in illegal timber becomes an offence, that the scope of the applicable legislation is broadened, all timber products are included and the due diligence obligations extended to all operators placing timber and timber products on the EU market. Only with effective and strong legislation to combat illegal timber trade will the EU reduce its social and environmental footprint and will companies like Cana Bois lose their profitable illegal business. Details: Amsterdam: Friends of the Earth, 2009. 8p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed September 17, 2016 at: https://milieudefensie.nl/publicaties/rapporten/cana-bois-plundering-protected-areas-in-cameroon-for-the-european-market Year: 2009 Country: Cameroon URL: https://milieudefensie.nl/publicaties/rapporten/cana-bois-plundering-protected-areas-in-cameroon-for-the-european-market Shelf Number: 147946 Keywords: DeforestationEnvironmental CrimesForestsIllegal LoggingNatural ResourceOffenses Against the Environment |
Author: Forest Trends Title: Combating Illegal Logging in Asia: A Review of Progress and the Role of the Asia Forest Partnership 2002-2012 Summary: Forests in Asia play a critical role in providing a variety of services that millions of people depend upon for their livelihoods and social stability. They also contain most of the Asia-Pacific region's terrestrial biodiversity. By the turn of the Millennium, the forests of the region, particularly in the tropics, were acknowledged to be in crisis. Deforestation and forest degradation were rising to unprecedented rates, often as a direct result of illegal activities. There was also a dawning recognition that illegal logging was not only an environment threat, but was also contributing to conflict, corruption, and disrespect for the rule of law. It was against this backdrop that the Asia Forest Partnership (AFP) was established in 2002 at the Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD). AFP was established as a multi-stakeholder alliance to promote sustainable management of forests in the Asia-Pacific region. In practice, AFP's greatest strength turned out to be promoting dialogue and cooperation to combat illegal logging, and that is the topic upon which the Partnership largely focused. A decade of regional dialogues and other activities followed, drawing in thousands of participants, catalyzing countless partnerships on the ground, and making a significant contribution to changing the nature of dialogue and action on illegal logging. When AFP first began, governments, logging companies and environmental activists rarely sat down at one table for frank discussions on the illegal logging problem. Today, such dialogue is the norm and is a regular feature of meetings of hitherto government-only bodies such as the International Tropical Timber Organization (ITTO), the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum (APEC), and the FAO Asia-Pacific Forestry Commission. Ten years ago, illegal logging was often characterized as a domestic law enforcement problem that was the responsibility of those countries to deal with, while those countries, companies, and consumers who processed timber and ultimately bought forest products, looked the other way with respect to the legality of the raw material. Today, consumer markets like the United States, the European Union, and Australia all have timber legality legislation in place, Indonesia has implemented its own Timber Legality Assurance System, and countries with major timber-processing and export industries, such as China and Vietnam, are working to put their own legality verification systems in place. At AFP's outset, environmental non-governmental organizations (NGOs) were very active in alerting the world to the extent and impacts of illegal logging, but had not found productive ways to engage with timber companies to change their management and trade practices. During the course of the ensuing decade, NGO-backed programs like the Global Forest and Trade Network (GFTN), the Responsible Asia Forestry and Trade initiative (RAFT), and the Forest Legality Alliance (FLA) have developed extensive cooperative programs with timber producers, processors, and consumers and have also played an important role in devising and disseminating practical tools to encourage legal trade in forest products. AFP cannot, of course, take sole credit for these considerable positive achievements of the past decade. AFP has, however, played an important and catalytic role. Perhaps most importantly, the multi-stakeholder approach to illegal logging that AFP pioneered has now become the "new normal" in addressing illegal logging throughout the region. This multi-stakeholder approach is now accepted and institutionalized in formal intergovernmental organizations like APEC and ITTO, trade arrangements like the EU Voluntary Partnership Agreements, and in various best practice codes of conduct adopted by the private sector. As the AFP now draws to a close, those that helped establish it and those who have been active members of the partnership have much to be proud of. The AFP set a standard from which other initiatives and partnerships can learn in the future. Details: Washington, DC: Forest Trends, 2013. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed September 17, 2016 at: http://www.forest-trends.org/documents/files/doc_3529.pdf Year: 2013 Country: Asia URL: http://www.forest-trends.org/documents/files/doc_3529.pdf Shelf Number: 140341 Keywords: DeforestationEnvironmental Crimes Forests Illegal Logging Natural Resource Offenses Against the Environment |
Author: Hewitt, Daphne Title: Identifying Illegality in Timber from Forest Conversion: A Review of Legality Definitions Summary: FLEGT Voluntary Partnership Agreements (VPAs) aim to verify and license legal timber for export to the EU in order to create a 'market access' incentive for legal operators and countries that wish to improve forest law enforcement and governance standards. Licensing is based on a Legality Assurance System (LAS), which is underpinned by a national Legality Definition. Beginning a credible domestic stakeholder process to identify appropriate laws and detailed verifiers for compliance are necessary pre-requisites to formal bilateral negotiations with the EU. VPAs were primarily conceived of with selective logging in production forests in mind, but recent data suggests that conversion timber (timber produced when land is cleared for other uses) is increasingly important in tropical production, and in some countries may represent a significant majority of wood production. In addition, agricultural conversion is now acknowledged as the most significant cause of deforestation and is closely associated with land/tenure conflicts with local communities. Assessing the legality of conversion timber requires that compliance with both the process of permit allocation and all relevant management requirements be examined. On this basis, in the countries reviewed in detail by Forest Trends, a significant majority of the conversion timber produced appears to be illegal. This paper therefore reviews the Legality Definitions of the six counties engaged in VPA implementation, with a view to determining the potential that they offer for identifying illegality in wood sourced from conversion of forest to non-forest uses. Details: Washington, DC: Forest Trends, 2013. 29p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed September 17, 2016 at: http://www.forest-trends.org/documents/files/doc_4150.pdf Year: 2013 Country: International URL: http://www.forest-trends.org/documents/files/doc_4150.pdf Shelf Number: 140342 Keywords: DeforestationEnvironmental Crimes Forests Illegal Logging Natural Resource Offenses Against the Environment |
Author: Woods, Kevin Title: Baseline Study 5, Thailand: Overview of Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade Summary: Thailand diverges from neighboring regional Mekong countries, with a decade or more experience of actively pursuing policies to combat domestic illegal logging and internal transportation. The 1989 logging ban, and the rise of grassroots social movements organizing around large-scale plantations and community displacement, has meant that Thai forestry institutions have needed to become more responsive to environmental and social concerns. Forest cover decline in Thailand has generally been stabilized in the last few decades, and forests are even increasing in extent in some areas. Decentralization and community-based natural resource management is now a mainstream policy theme in the country, although tangible implementation has been uneven. In general, Thai state institutions have been responsive to local stakeholders and forest sector enterprises, in terms of developing a dynamic and effective policy framework based on a long-term vision that links forests, communities, conservation and economic development. These are welcome developments - the question is whether the reforms will be implemented equitably and effectively. Details: Washington, DC: Forest Trends, 2011. 66p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed September 20, 2016 at: http://www.forest-trends.org/documents/files/doc_3180.pdf Year: 2011 Country: Thailand URL: http://www.forest-trends.org/documents/files/doc_3180.pdf Shelf Number: 145608 Keywords: Forest Law EnforcementForestsIllegal LoggingNatural ResourcesOffenses Against the Environment |
Author: Brack, Duncan Title: Ending Global Deforestation: Policy Options for Consumer Countries Summary: Over the last decade, governments in timber-producing and timber-consuming countries have implemented a range of policies and measures aimed at improving forest governance and reducing illegal logging. One important category of measures has been attempts to exclude illegal (and sometimes unsustainable) timber products from international trade through the use of regulatory measures such as public procurement policy, licensing systems, and legal and company due diligence requirements. Yet illegal logging and the international trade in illegal timber is not the most important cause of deforestation. Clearance of forests (legal or illegal) for agriculture, often for export, is far more significant. The purpose of this report is to examine the potential applicability of the consumer-country measures used to exclude illegal timber to illegal or unsustainable agricultural products associated with deforestation: specifically, palm oil, soy, beef and leather and cocoa. The study primarily considers options open to the European Union (which is the main global importer of these commodities), but in principle they are open to other consumer-country governments too. Details: London: Chatham House; Washington, DC: Forest Trends, 2013. 89p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed September 20, 2016 at: https://www.chathamhouse.org/sites/files/chathamhouse/public/Research/Energy,%20Environment%20and%20Development/0913pr_deforestation.pdf Year: 2013 Country: International URL: https://www.chathamhouse.org/sites/files/chathamhouse/public/Research/Energy,%20Environment%20and%20Development/0913pr_deforestation.pdf Shelf Number: 145605 Keywords: DeforestationForestsIllegal LoggingIllegal ProductsNatural ResourcesOffenses Against the Environment |
Author: Wakker, Eric Title: Indonesia: Illegalities in Forest Clearance for Large-Scale Commercial Plantations Summary: This is the second in a series of case studies examining the nature, scale and extent of illegalities and irregularities in the process of forest clearance for large-scale agricultural estates and ranchlands, and the scale of the trade in commodities grown or reared on land illegally cleared of forests. Each country assessment examines the state of knowledge on the topic, and the recent history of relevant sectoral activity in each country, profiles key companies, outlines the legal and regulatory environment, and summarizes available evidence of illegalities and irregularities. This study focuses on oil palm and pulp and paper plantations, generally seen as the main drivers of deforestation over the past ten to twenty years. The past fifteen years have seen increased global public and political acknowledgement of the environmental, social and economic costs of illegal logging, but this discourse has largely focused on tree harvesting under selective logging forestry and associated timber trade. This study represents a first step towards broadening our understanding of the nature, scale and extent of illegalities and irregularities in deforestation for oil palm and tree plantation expansion in Indonesia. Details: Washington, DC: Forest Trends, 2014. 63p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed September 20, 2016 at: http://www.forest-trends.org/documents/files/doc_4528.pdf Year: 2014 Country: Indonesia URL: http://www.forest-trends.org/documents/files/doc_4528.pdf Shelf Number: 145606 Keywords: DeforestationForestsIllegal LoggingOffenses Against the Environment |
Author: Woods, Kevin Title: Baseline Study 4, Myanmar Overview of Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade Summary: Myanmar remains one of the world's only countries with no prohibitions on log exports. The country provides much coveted teak and other hardwood logs to the region and beyond. Sawn wood, and to a lesser extent finished wood products, contribute a relatively small amount to Myanmar's total exports of wood products. As in the majority of Mekong countries, one of the most significant trends affecting forest lands in Myanmar relates to the considerable, and often times informal, foreign direct investments (FDI) in agribusiness plantations such as rubber, oil palm, timber plantation, cashew nut and other horticultural crops. FD are also being made in other resource sector developments, including hydropower and mineral extraction. These types of developments often require the clearing of natural forest areas and has led to land disputes with local communities. Details: Washington, DC: Forest Trends, 2011. 59p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed September 20, 2016 at: http://www.forest-trends.org/documents/files/doc_3159.pdf Year: 2011 Country: Burma URL: http://www.forest-trends.org/documents/files/doc_3159.pdf Shelf Number: 145609 Keywords: Forest Law Enforcement Forests Illegal Logging Natural Resources Offenses Against the Environment |
Author: Barney, Keith Title: Baseline Study 2, Lao PDR: Overview of Forest Governance, Markets and Trade Summary: Over the past decade in Lao PDR, new regulations and policies related to logging and timber exports have aimed to conserve existing natural forests and promote a shift towards participatory, sustainable forest management. Still, the main challenge will be to implement these reforms effectively. In addition, over the past five to six years, considerable foreign direct investment has moved into Laos' forest-land sector, in the form of agribusiness plantations and infrastructure development. While a welcome development from a financial perspective, this situation has promoted natural forest conversion and is challenged by a number of regulatory uncertainties. This report finds that: 1) timber sales account for roughly 12% of overall government revenue; 2) Laos' forest product export markets are dominated by Vietnam and Thailand, and Laos' main export markets in turn are significant re-exporters of manufactured forest products, to markets which increasingly require legal verification such as the USA and the European Union; 3) community land tenure and forest zoning processes need to be clarified and implemented adequately in order to safeguard local livelihoods and environmental services. Details: Washington, DC: Forest Trends, 2011. 66p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed September 21, 2016 at: http://forestindustries.eu/sites/default/files/userfiles/1file/baseline_study_laos_report_en.pdf Year: 2011 Country: Laos URL: http://forestindustries.eu/sites/default/files/userfiles/1file/baseline_study_laos_report_en.pdf Shelf Number: 145615 Keywords: Deforestation Environmental Crimes Forests Illegal Logging Natural Resource Offenses Against the Environment |
Author: Forest Trends Title: Logging, Legality, and Livelihoods in Papua New Guinea: Sythesis of Official Assessments of the Large-Scale Logging Industry Volume I Summary: Between 2000 and 2005, in response to a widely held view that forest management in Papua New Guinea was not providing long-term benefits to the country or its citizens, and to assess the implementation and effectiveness of the new governance regime introduced in the PNG Forestry Act of 1991, the Papua New Guinea government commissioned five separate reviews of the administration and practice of the logging industry. This report, Volume I in a three volume series, summarizes the key findings of the five reviews to present a clear and precise picture of the legal status, environmental sustainability and social impacts of current large-scale logging operations in PNG. We follow this synthesis of the existing studies with our own recommendations for steps that would move PNG toward legal and sustainable logging, provide satisfactory livelihood opportunities for forest dependent communities, and promote sustainable economic development for the nation as a whole. Details: Washington, DC: Forest Trends, 2006. 70p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed September 22, 2016 at: http://www.forest-trends.org/publication_details.php?publicationID=105 Year: 2006 Country: Papua New Guinea URL: http://www.forest-trends.org/publication_details.php?publicationID=105 Shelf Number: 145626 Keywords: DeforestationsForest Management Forests Illegal Logging Offenses Against the Environment |
Author: Forest Trends Title: Logging, Legality, and Livelihoods in Papua New Guinea: Sythesis of Official Assessments of the Large-Scale Logging Industry Volume II Summary: Between 2000 and 2005, the Papua New Guinea government commissioned five separate reviews of the administration and practice of the logging industry: - Review of Forest Harvesting Projects Being Developed Towards a Timber Permit of Timber Authority (2000-01); - Review of the Forest Revenue System (2001-02); - Independent Review of Disputed Timber Permits and Permit Extensions (2003); - Review of Current Logging Projects (2004-05); and - Compliance Audits (2004-05) In addition, a sixth report from an Ombudsman Commission investigation into the allocation of one concession (Kamula Doso) was published in July 2002. The five Reviews were conducted under Terms of Reference agreed between the Government of Papua New Guinea and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (the 'World Bank'), by teams of experts that included lawyers, foresters, economists and environmental and social scientists. The review teams were given unique access to official records, logging sites and company documents and were able to conduct wide-ranging interviews with industry participants, landowners and government officials. The findings of the five government-initiated Reviews were presented in sixty-three individual reports that together provide a unique assessment of Papua New Guineas forest administration system and the sustainability of current and future large-scale logging operations. They provide a thorough examination of the whole timber harvesting process from initial project development through permit allocation to the actual logging operations and their long term impacts. The Reviews considered a range of different criteria for assessing the status of timber harvesting operations and analyzed their impact from the perspective of all the key stakeholders. Of the five Reviews, only some of the reports were made publicly available through the PNG Prime Minister's website. Copies of the other documents produced were circulated amongst government departments, industry and civil society organizations in PNG and subsequently distributed internationally. The Ombudsman Commission report was tabled in Parliament and can be viewed in the Parliamentary library In this Report (Volume II), we bring together all the reports from the five Reviews and the Ombudsman Commission investigation and present a complete summary of their findings. Maps and imagery in this publication were sourced from the UPNG Remote Sensing Centre via www.rsc.upng.ac.pg (and were not part of the Review Reports). Updates on any follow-up actions on the recommendations in the Review Reports have been added based on publicly available information as of January 31, 2006 (and were not part of the Review Reports). Details: Washington, DC: Forest Trends, 2006. 88p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed September 22, 2016 at: http://www.forest-trends.org/documents/files/doc_161.pdf Year: 2006 Country: Papua New Guinea URL: http://www.forest-trends.org/documents/files/doc_161.pdf Shelf Number: 146045 Keywords: DeforestationForest Management Forests Illegal Logging Offenses Against the Environment |
Author: United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) Title: Transnational Organized Crime in the Pacific: A Threat Assessment Summary: This report presents major threats posed by transnational organized crime in the Pacific region, mainly focusing on the Pacific Island Countries and Territories (PICTs). Based on consultations with the Pacific Island Forum Secretariat (PIFS) and information obtained from desk reviews conducted by UNODC, this report focuses on four major types of transnational organized crime affecting the Pacific region: - Drug and precursor trafficking; - Trafficking in persons & smuggling of migrants; - Environmental crimes (fishery crime and other wildlife trafficking & illegal logging and timber trafficking); and - Small arms trafficking. In addition to the major four types of transnational crime, the report also includes some information on the trafficking of counterfeit goods, including fraudulent medicines, and cybercrime to shed light on emerging threats in the region. The four major illicit flows discussed in the report are different sorts of illicit activities, yet they all pose immense challenges to the region. There are strong indications that the PICTs are increasingly targeted by transnational organized crime groups due to their susceptibility to illicit flows driven by several factors. These include (a) the geographical location of the PICTs situated between major sources and destinations of illicit commodities; (b) extensive and porous jurisdictional boundaries; and (c) differences in governance and heterogeneity in general law enforcement capacity across numerous PICTs and the region in general. These complexities also underscore the inherent difficulties in detecting, monitoring, preventing and responding to transnational organized crimes in the region. In this context, transnational criminal activities continue to increase throughout the Pacific and have detrimental impacts on communities, sustainable economic development and regional security. At a regional level and across all transnational organized crime types discussed in this report, a fundamental problem is the significant gaps in data and information related to transnational crime among the PICTs. This is a major hindrance in developing effective and evidence-based responses to transnational organized crime. Details: Bangkok: UNODC, 2016. 130p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed September 30, 2016 at: http://www.unodc.org/documents/southeastasiaandpacific/Publications/2016/2016.09.16_TOCTA_Pacific_web.pdf Year: 2016 Country: Asia URL: http://www.unodc.org/documents/southeastasiaandpacific/Publications/2016/2016.09.16_TOCTA_Pacific_web.pdf Shelf Number: 140518 Keywords: Counterfeit GoodsDrug TraffickingEnvironmental CrimesHuman SmugglingHuman TraffickingIllegal FishingIllegal LoggingOrganized CrimeWildlife CrimeWildlife Trafficking |
Author: Assuncao, Juliano Title: DETERring Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon: Environmental Monitoring and Law Enforcement Summary: The Amazon is the world's largest rainforest. In Brazil, the forest originally occupied over four million km2 an area equivalent to almost half of continental Europe. Amazon deforestation rates escalated in the early 2000s, peaking at over 27,000 km2 in 2004, but fell sharply to about 5,000 km2 in 2011 (INPE [2012]). Empirical evidence presented in a previous CPI/PUC-Rio study suggests that changes in Brazilian conservation policies helped address the challenge of protecting this immense area and significantly contributed to the recent deforestation slowdown. In this study, we take a step further and answer the question: Which specific policy efforts contributed most to the reduction in Amazon deforestation? Our analysis reveals that the implementation of the Real Time System for Detection of Deforestation (DETER), a satellite-based system that enables frequent and quick identification of deforestation hot spots, greatly enhanced monitoring and targeting capacity, making it easier for law enforcers to act upon areas with illegal deforestation activity. This improvement in monitoring and law enforcement was the main driver of the 2000s deforestation slowdown. We estimate that DETER-based environmental monitoring and law enforcement policies prevented the clearing of over 59,500 km2 of Amazon forest area from 2007 through 2011. Deforestation observed during this period totaled 41,500 km2 59% less than in the absence of the policy change. We also find that the policy change had no impact on agricultural production. Details: s.l.: Climate Policy Initiative, 2013. 36p; executive summary. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed December 13, 2016 at: https://climatepolicyinitiative.org/publication/deterring-deforestation-in-the-brazilian-amazon-environmental-monitoring-and-law-enforcement/ Year: 2013 Country: Brazil URL: https://climatepolicyinitiative.org/publication/deterring-deforestation-in-the-brazilian-amazon-environmental-monitoring-and-law-enforcement/ Shelf Number: 144911 Keywords: ConservationDeforestationEnvironmental Law EnforcementForestsIllegal LoggingOffenses Against the Environment |
Author: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations Title: Traceability: A Management Tool for Enterprises and Governments Summary: Traceability: A management tool for enterprises and governments outlines the vital factors to be taken into account when designing a successful traceability system, and explains the importance of made-to-measure systems in different contexts. The report also illustrates the added benefits of traceability for governments, businesses and community forests – not just as a means of meeting legal requirements but also as a business management tool that can have an impact on yields, working conditions and production efficiency. Concrete case studies from five African countries supported by FAO's FLEGT Programme are presented in the publication: The publication is the first in a technical series building on FAO FLEGT Programme experience of projects in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Details: Rome: FAO, 2016. 68p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed December 14, 2016 at: http://www.fao.org/documents/card/en/c/83dcd903-46ce-4612-859c-460e883e5e59/ Year: 2016 Country: Africa URL: http://www.fao.org/documents/card/en/c/83dcd903-46ce-4612-859c-460e883e5e59/ Shelf Number: 10446 Keywords: Forest Management Forests Illegal Logging |
Author: Kleinschmit, Daniela Title: Illegal logging and related timber trade: dimensions, drivers, impacts and responses Summary: This report entitled "Illegal Logging and Related Timber Trade: Dimensions, Drivers, Impacts and Responses" presents the results of the fifth global scientific assessment undertaken by the GFEP initiative. The report set out to gain deeper understanding of the meaning of illegal logging and related timber trade, its scale, drivers and consequences. It provides a structured synthesis of available scientific and expert knowledge on illegal logging and associated timber trade while adding to existing studies and reports by sharing new insights, including a criminology perspective and new information about timber and timber product trade flows as well as exploring future policy options and governance responses. This assessment report and the accompanying policy brief provide an authoritative source of information for policymakers and stakeholders involved in the fight against illegal logging and associated timber trade, in order to support effective action in tackling this pressing global problem. Details: Vienna: International Union of Forest Research Organizations (IUFRO), 2016. 148p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed IUFRO World Series Volume 35: Accessed December 20, 2016 at: http://www.illegal-logging.info/sites/files/chlogging/IUFRO_illegallogging.pdf Year: 2016 Country: International URL: http://www.illegal-logging.info/sites/files/chlogging/IUFRO_illegallogging.pdf Shelf Number: 146000 Keywords: ForestsIllegal LoggingIllegal TradeOffenses Against the Environment |
Author: Treanor, Naomi Basik Title: China's Hongmu Consumption Boom: Analysis of the Chinese Rosewood Trade and Links to Illegal Activity in Tropical Forested Countries Summary: Over the past decade, Chinese demand for classic furniture made from slow-growing hardwood species collectively known as hongmu, encompassing rosewood species and others such as Padauk, has soared. The majority of furniture is both manufactured and consumed within China, as indicated by the trade balance reflecting high levels of log and sawnwood imports and lower levels of roundwood equivalent (RWE) furniture exports. China's rosewood log and sawnwood imports, on an unprecedented rise since 2010, hit an all-time high in 2014, while exports of rosewood products have declined severely. Unfortunately, much of the world's valuable rosewoods are being depleted at an alarming rate, with the global trade in rosewood suffering from high rates of illegal harvesting, transport, and trade. These illegal practices have exacerbated the destruction of complex ecosystems in some of the world’s most biodiverse forests and in many cases have negatively impacted the livelihoods of forest-dependent people who rely on hongmu as a source of fuel and medicine. China is in a unique position to take a leadership role to ensure that only legally and sustainably sourced rosewood enters the country, given the large role that Chinese traders,2 manufacturers, retailers, and consumers play in the global harvesting and trade of rosewood. The Chinese government has already put in place a system of rules and regulations for product quality assurance for the import and processing of rosewood that is enforced by a wide number of government agencies (Box 1), but does not address issues related to sustainable or legal harvesting, transportation, or import of hongmu species. This system could serve as the foundation for more direct action to ensure legality and sustainability. This paper analyzes recent trends in Chinese rosewood trade, using import data from China Customs from 2000 to 2014. It then synthesizes existing literature highlighting widespread violations of national laws and regulations in source countries that are occurring in the harvesting and trade of rosewood, particularly in key countries in Africa and Asia. It concludes with policy recommendations for Chinese policy-makers and other actors, which would foster the trade in legal hongmu species, mainly through use of existing mechanisms and guidelines, but also by increasing coordination with Hong Kong and ensuring better enforcement of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). Details: Washington, DC: Forest Trends, 2015. 48p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed December 23, 2016 at: http://www.forest-trends.org/documents/files/doc_5057.pdf Year: 2015 Country: China URL: http://www.forest-trends.org/documents/files/doc_5057.pdf Shelf Number: 146423 Keywords: Forest ProductsForestsIllegal LoggingIllegal TradeOffenses Against the EnvironmentRosewood |
Author: Satyal, Poshendra Title: Assessing Civil Society Participation in REDD+ and FLEGT: Case Study Analysis of Cameroon, Ghana, Liberia and the Republic of Congo Summary: he report presents findings from an assessment study on the quality of participation of civil society actors in REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) and FLEGT VPA (Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade – Voluntary Partnership Agreement) processes in four countries in Africa: Cameroon, Ghana, Liberia and the Republic of Congo. The study was part of an EU funded project, coordinated by Fern on "Tackling Deforestation through Linking FLEGT and REDD+" for which the quality of participation in REDD+ and FLEGT was outlined as an indicator to assess one of the project’s objectives (i.e. key REDD+ safeguards are respected in practice). The focus of the assessment study on civil society participation is at national policy making level in FLEGT and REDD+ processes. Building on key literature on participation and research on civil society participation in REDD+ and FLEGT, a questionnaire tool was developed and applied in practical case studies in the four countries. The analysis is drawn from the interviews based on the questionnaire tool; some in-depth interviews and secondary research in these countries. Details: Norwich, UK: The School of International Development, 2017. 46p. Source: Internet Resource: DEV Reports and Policy Papers: Accessed January 25, 2017 at: http://pfbc-cbfp.org/news_en/items/Report-FLEGT.html Year: 2017 Country: Africa URL: http://pfbc-cbfp.org/news_en/items/Report-FLEGT.html Shelf Number: 145572 Keywords: DeforestationForest Law EnforcementForest ManagementForestsIllegal LoggingNatural Resources |
Author: Korwin, Sebastian Title: REDD+ and Corruption Risks for Africa's Forests: Case Studies from Cameroon, Ghana, Zambia and Zimbabwe Summary: The link between corruption and deforestation and forest degradation has been almost universally recognised. Today, corruption continues to threaten new climate initiatives like Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+). This report provides the summarised findings of corruption risk assessments (CRAs) in four African countries: Cameroon, Ghana, Zambia and Zimbabwe. In each CRA, stakeholders, who include representatives from governments, academia, the judiciary, nongovernmental organisations (NGOs), the media, international organisations and private sector, were selected to participate based on their experience in the forest sector. Details: Berlin: Transparency International, 2016. 58p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed February 22, 2017 at: https://www.transparency.org/whatwedo/publication/redd_and_corruption_risks_for_africas_forests_case_studies_from_cameroon_gh Year: 2016 Country: Africa URL: Shelf Number: 141178 Keywords: CorruptionDeforestationEnvironmental CrimesForestsIllegal LoggingOffenses Against the Environment |
Author: Ratsimbazafy, Cynthia Title: Timber Island: The Rosewood and Ebony Trade of Madagascar Summary: Madagascar's precious timber, represented by the genera of Dalbergia (rosewood and palisander) and Diospyros (ebony), are species of hardwood that have become much sought after in the last few decades for the manufacture of musical instruments in Europe and the US and for the manufacture of furniture in Asia. Starting in late 2008 and early 2009, the moist forests, home to the greatest wealth in species of precious timber have been subject to unprecedented high levels of logging, with hundreds of thousands of trees cut down in protected areas despite their protected status. Data collected from documents, stakeholder consultations and field surveys has shown that between March 2010 and March 2015 at least 350 430 timber trees (mainly rosewood) have been cut down annually in protected areas, and at least 1 million logs (152 437 t) have been illegally exported from Madagascar. Various factors serve to explain the anarchy in the management of precious timber, namely: • Inconsistency between authorization and prohibition of regulations concerning logging of precious timber, • Alleged collusion of certain State authorities in the illegal trade, • A deficiency of legislative control of forest operations in general, and those related to precious timber in particular, • Failure to impose punitive penalties on well-‐known traffickers, and • The ineffective implementation of local development plans to manage activities of stakeholders living around the protected areas. In order to limit this unprecedented degradation, the government enacted Decree no. 2010-‐141 of 30 March 2010 prohibiting the cutting, transport and export of precious wood. To reinforce this measure and as a Party to CITES, Madagascar requested the listing of precious timber species in Appendix III in 2011 and then in Appendix II in March 2013. This inclusion specifically concerns round log, sawn timber and veneer sheets. The listing of Madagascar's indigenous precious timber in CITES Appendix II requires that controls be put in place to ensure that trade is not detrimental to the species concerned and that permits are issued for any authorized international trade (export). The application for an export permit must therefore be preceded by the issuing of a non-‐detriment finding (NDF); such a finding should not be issued without having appropriate and adequate information on the status of populations in the wild, quantitative logging data, trade history and associated management systems. Details: Cambridge, UK: TRAFFIC, 2016. 144p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed February 22, 2017 at: http://www.traffic.org/home/2017/2/14/new-study-finds-timber-harvesting-in-madagascar-out-of-contr.html Year: 2016 Country: Madagascar URL: http://www.traffic.org/home/2017/2/14/new-study-finds-timber-harvesting-in-madagascar-out-of-contr.html Shelf Number: 141182 Keywords: Crimes Against the EnvironmentDeforestationEnvironmental CrimesForestsIllegal Logging |
Author: Macqueen, Duncan Title: Boosting governance in Mozambique's forests: Options for more sustainable forestry among Chinese timber traders and Mozambican partners Summary: Mozambique is Africa's largest exporter of timber to China. Yet multiple published concerns over the sustainability and legality of that timber trade assert the rapid commercial depletion of future timber stocks, the marginalisation of local forest communities, and the loss of revenue to government estimated at US$146 million between 2007 and 2013 alone. This report takes a step back to explore what options exist for incentives to improve the forest practice of Chinese timber traders and concession holders and their Mozambican partners. Drawing on research in the forest sector, it identifies six potential areas of concern for those operators. It then outlines for each area possible incentives that might be developed to improve forest practice. The set of 18 incentive types may not be exhaustive, but the questionnaire survey of government, civil society and private sector actors did not reveal further major sources of incentive. Table 1 summarises our initial understanding about these areas of concern for operators and possible incentive types to improve their practice. Each incentive type is ranked in terms of its perceived potential for beneficial impact by 26 Mozambique forest experts (five private-sector experts, seven NGO forest experts, five government forest authority staff, and nine forest experts from research or teaching institutions). Many of these incentive types are generic, in the sense that they are applicable as much to Mozambican operators as to Chinese operators. But there are also some China - specific opportunities. These relate to the characteristics, preferred timber specifications and reputational sensitivities of the Chinese timber market, to emerging Chinese policies based on guidelines and a timber legality verification system, and to the organisational dynamics of Chinese traders and concession holders in Mozambique. In short, there are ways in which a useful China-Mozambique engagement could incentivise change above and beyond what might be possible by working with Mozambican operators alone. A summary of the multiple different incentive categories is presented below in Table 1. The pie charts summarise a sequential numerical ranking made by the 26 Mozambique forest experts described above. For each expert, their first six ranked options were afforded the status of high priority, the second six ranked options of medium priority, and the final six ranked options of low priority. The aggregate number of times an option was ranked high, medium or low priority forms the basis for the pie chart. In addition, the top six ranked options overall are highlighted in yellow with a description of their numerical ranking. Details: London: International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), 2017. 98p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed May 2, 2017 at: http://pubs.iied.org/pdfs/17601IIED.pdf Year: 2017 Country: Mozambique URL: http://pubs.iied.org/pdfs/17601IIED.pdf Shelf Number: 145243 Keywords: ForestsIllegal LoggingNatural ResourcesOffenses Against the Environment |
Author: Felbab-Brown, Vanda Title: Myanmar Maneuvers: How to Break Political-Criminal Alliances in Contexts of Transition Summary: The Myanmar case study analyzes the complex interactions between illegal economies - conflict and peace. Particular emphasis is placed on understanding the effects of illegal economies on Myanmar's political transitions since the early 1990s, including the current period, up through the first year of the administration of Aung San Suu Kyi. Described is the evolution of illegal economies in drugs, logging, wildlife trafficking, and gems and minerals as well as land grabbing and crony capitalism, showing how they shaped and were shaped by various political transitions. Also examined was the impact of geopolitics and the regional environment, particularly the role of China, both in shaping domestic political developments in Myanmar and dynamics within illicit economies. For decades, Burma has been one of the world's epicenters of opiate and methamphetamine production. Cultivation of poppy and production of opium have coincided with five decades of complex and fragmented civil war and counterinsurgency policies. An early 1990s laissez-faire policy of allowing the insurgencies in designated semi-autonomous regions to trade any products - including drugs, timber, jade, and wildlife - enabled conflict to subside. The incorporation of key drug traffickers and their assets into the state structures significantly strengthened the state and the military regime. The Burmese junta negotiated ceasefires with the insurgencies, and underpinned the agreements by giving the insurgent groups economic stakes in resource exploitation and illegal economies. Under pressure, including from China, opium poppy cultivation was suppressed in the late 1990s and early 2000s, even as unregulated and often illegal trade in timber, jade, and wildlife continued. Although local populations suffered major economic deprivation, the ceasefires lasted. The armed ethnic groups, however, did not lose their source of revenues, compensating for the diminished heroin business by switching to methamphetamines and, with the participation of Chinese businesses, augmenting the legal and illegal extraction of other resources, such as timber and gems. Since the middle of the 2000s, however, the ceasefires have started to break down, and violent conflict has escalated. As of this writing in February 2017, it is probably at its most intense at any time since the early 1990s. Among the reasons is the effort of the previous Myanmar government and military since 2008 as well as powerful Bamar and Chinese businessmen and powerbrokers (many linked to the military and military business conglomerates) to restructure the 1990s economic underpinnings of the ceasefires so their economic profits increase. Business conglomerates linked to the Tatmadaw, such as Myanmar Economic Holdings Limited (MEHL), came to enjoy special access to the significant gem mines and other resource economies and trade more broadly, serving crucial political survival interests of the military. Control of the jade economy became a key enrichment and strategic priority for the junta. The military also sought to guarantee a steady pension for former Tatmadaw officials and soldiers and thus keep them from potentially rebelling. The MEHL and other military-linked economic conglomerates and cronies hence were accorded monopolies on the import of various consumer goods. Meanwhile, however, illegal and unregulated resource economies, including the drug trade, logging, mining, and wildlife trafficking, have thrived and devastate Burma's ecosystems, even as the plunder-underpinned peace has slid into war again. In 2011, the Myanmar military embarked on political and economic liberalization that, though a miscalculation of the military, culminated in the election of the Aung Sang Suu Kyi government in November 2015. However, the military has retained significant formal and informal power. Indeed, despite the military's electoral miscalculation, the entire transition had been at the discretion of the junta. Illicit economies played an integral part of the transition process, being a crucial element of the golden parachute that the junta awarded itself. Moreover, with its continuing lock on constitutional power, the military regime also guaranteed itself a sufficient budget. Any reforms that took place, including those directed at illicit economies, such as the embrace of greater transparency measures in mining, greater enforcement in logging, and the significant weakening the power of the cronies, were still at the direction of the military. Reforms and actions against illicit economies and organized crime that would not be advantageous to the military's institutional power or enrichment of key individuals have not taken place and could be subverted or vetoed by the key powerbrokers of the military. Similarly, the selective suppression of organized crime and aspects of the illicit economies has served crucial political and strategic objectives of the military. Nonetheless, under President Thein Sein, significant economic liberalization was in fact undertaken, with a surprising willingness to change economic arrangements with privileged economic actors. As a result of growing economic competition, the footprint of the military conglomerates and crony companies in the formal economy was reduced. Thein Sein also launched an anti-corruption drive, limited in its reach and determination mainly to the civil service, but nonetheless not insignificant. A comprehensive new land law was passed, and some stolen land was returned to local populations as a result of civil society mobilization. Details: Tokyo: United Nations University, 2017. 35p. Source: Internet Resource: Crime-Conflict Nexus Series: No 9: Accessed June 19, 2017 at: https://i.unu.edu/media/cpr.unu.edu/attachment/2445/Myanmar-Maneuvers-How-to-Break-Political-Criminal-Alliances-in-Contexts-of-Transition.pdf Year: 2017 Country: Burma URL: https://i.unu.edu/media/cpr.unu.edu/attachment/2445/Myanmar-Maneuvers-How-to-Break-Political-Criminal-Alliances-in-Contexts-of-Transition.pdf Shelf Number: 146260 Keywords: Crime-Conflict NexusIllegal DrugsIllegal LoggingResource ExploitationTrafficking in MineralsTrafficking in WildlifeWildlife CrimesWildlife Trafficking |
Author: Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) Title: Repeat Offender: Vietnam's Persistent Trade in Illegal Timber Summary: Despite growing global attention to the problem of illegal logging over the past 15 years, Vietnam continues to rely on imports of illicit timber to supply its burgeoning wood processing sector, especially from the neighbouring countries of Laos and Cambodia. Since 2007, EIA has repeatedly documented flows of illegal logs across the land border between Laos and Vietnam, and more recently from Cambodia. Vietnam has made strenuous efforts to increase its own forest cover, including strict controls on the logging of natural forests. In 2016, a total ban on logging natural forests was announced. By 2015, the country's forest cover had increased to 14.7 million hectares (44.6 per cent of total land area), compared with nine million hectares in 1990. At the same time, the Vietnamese Government has promoted the rapid expansion of an export-oriented wood processing sector, which has become the sixth largest in the world. In 2017, the country's exports of wood products are predicted to be worth $8 billion, compared with $7.3 billion in 2016. Vietnam's wood processing industry is heavily reliant on imports for the supply of raw materials, principally round logs and sawn timber. Imports have been growing at about 10 per cent a year, reaching 4.79 million m3 in 2015. While timber imports come from over 100 countries, the biggest source region is Asia, especially Laos and Cambodia. Overall, Vietnam relies of imports for at least 80 per cent of the raw materials consumed by its factories. Analysis of Vietnam's imports by source country indicates that in 2013, 18 per cent were judged to have a high risk of illegality. It is neighbouring countries which have borne the brunt of this illicit trade. Until 2015, Laos - which has a log export ban - was the largest single supplier of timber to Vietnam by value. Due to stronger political will in the country to curb illegal logging, it has now been supplanted by Cambodia, another neighbouring country which bans the export of raw timber. In 2015, Vietnam imported timber worth $386 million from Cambodia, a 52 per cent increase on the previous year, and $360 million from Laos. Combined, the two countries provided Vietnam with illicit timber worth almost three quarters of a billion dollars in a single year. This shift in sourcing has been driven solely by supply-side measures. Rather than improve its regulatory controls over imports of illicit timber, Vietnam has actually introduced measures to ease the flow of timber from Cambodia, once again showing flagrant disregard for the forest laws of its neighbouring countries. Details: London: EIA, 2017. 20p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed June 21, 2017 at: https://eia-international.org/wp-content/uploads/Repeat-Offender.pdf Year: 2017 Country: Vietnam URL: https://eia-international.org/wp-content/uploads/Repeat-Offender.pdf Shelf Number: 146336 Keywords: Deforestation Environmental Crime Forests Illegal Logging Illegal Trade Offenses Against the Environment |
Author: Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) Title: First Class Crisis: China's Criminal and Unsustainable Intervention in Mozambique's Miombo Forests Summary: This report updates a January 2013 EIA report on forest crime in Mozambique - First Class Connections. It details research, investigations and analysis conducted by EIA between mid-2013 and 2014 which found that: - Over the past seven years an average of 81 percent of all logging in Mozambique was illegal. In 2013, a staggering 93 per cent of logging in the country was illegal - The shocking scale of illegality is largely driven by booming timber exports, with 76 per cent of timber exported from Mozambique worldwide in 2013 being illegally cut in excess of reported harvests - The vast majority of exports (93 per cent on average between 2007 and 2013) were shipped to China. In 2013, when Mozambique became China's biggest African supplier of logs by value, 46 per cent of China's 516,296 cubic metres (m3) of timber imports from Mozambique were also smuggled out of the country, maintaining a pattern and scale of crime by Chinese companies already documented by EIA in 2012 - This illegal logging and timber smuggling has driven harvesting volumes way beyond sustainable levels, despite claims by Mozambican officials to the contrary, raising serious concerns about the Government's ability to credibly manage the country's forest resources - EIA analysis shows that an excessive focus on just a handful of commercial timber species - for both export and domestic markets - raises the likelihood that commercial stocks will be largely depleted over the next 15 years - All of this crime and environmental mismanagement has robbed Mozambique's rural poor and wider population of US$146 million in lost exploration and export tax revenues since 2007 - Despite some evidence of law enforcement by the Mozambican Government, and the promotion by the Chinese Government of voluntary guidelines on legal forestry activities for Chinese businesses, corruption and ineffective governance in both Mozambique and China's business sector are a structural impediment to resolving the crisis - Multiple Chinese-owned timber companies already exposed by EIA and others continue to smuggle illegal Mozambican timber to China. Without a sea-change in how Mozambique's Government and law enforcement community do their jobs, with corruption an ongoing problem, and with no enforceable laws on illegal timber imports in China, Mozambique's forests and forest economy face a bleak future. The degree to which poor rural communities will bear the burden of Mozambique's ongoing illegal logging crisis - in what is now the second least developed nation on Earth - is a critical development and governance challenge that needs immediate and credible action by all concerned parties. Details: London: EIA, 2014. 17p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed September 29, 2017 at: https://eia-international.org/wp-content/uploads/First-Class-Crisis-English-FINAL.pdf Year: 2014 Country: Mozambique URL: https://eia-international.org/wp-content/uploads/First-Class-Crisis-English-FINAL.pdf Shelf Number: 147502 Keywords: Environmental CrimesForestsIllegal LoggingNatural ResourcesOffenses Against the EnvironmentSmuggling |
Author: Global Witness Title: Buyers in Good Faith: How Timber Exporters are Complicit in Plundering Peru's Amazon Summary: A new report into an emblematic case of timber trafficking in Peru highlights the corruption and fraud that continue to sabotage attempts to crack down on a trade that is devastating the Amazon region. The report, released on November 9 by investigative watchdog group Global Witness, tells the story of the most high-profile anti-timber trafficking operation in Peruvian history: the November 2015 attempted seizure of illegal timber from the ship Yacu Kallpa as it was anchored in the Amazon River near the city of Iquitos. On the morning the Yacu Kallpa was set to depart on a journey that would have eventually taken it to Houston, Texas, a public prosecutor boarded the ship and attempted to seize 15 percent of its cargo - 1,200 square meters of wood that investigators had proven was of illegal origin. The boat eventually departed after a day of murky interventions and legal wrangling that ended with the ship's captain promising the prosecutor to return with the 15 percent after dropping off the rest of the cargo, according to an account of events in an investigation by Wired. However, investigators continued their work, visiting the locations cited in the wood's certificates of origin to verify its extraction. The Yacu Kallpa was eventually detained in Mexico and its cargo seized. By the time they had finished their verification, investigators had established that 96 percent of the cargo - more than 9,500 square meters - was "not of legal origin." Details: London: Global Witness, 2017. 16p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed November 20, 2017 at: http://globalinitiative.net/timber-peru/ Year: 2017 Country: Peru URL: http://globalinitiative.net/timber-peru/ Shelf Number: 148273 Keywords: ForestsIllegal LoggingNatural ResourcesTimberTrafficking in Timber |
Author: Urrunaga, Julia Title: Moment of Truth: Promise or Peril for the Amazon as Peru Confronts its Illegal Timber Trade Summary: EIA's new report describes important advances since 2012 in Peru's fight against illegal logging, timber laundering, and its associated international trade - as well as the backlash against these new approaches. The evidence of persistent illegal logging, systemic corruption, laundering, and illegal timber in Peru's exports remains overwhelming. While the U.S. has begun to crack down on illegal Peruvian timber, major importing countries like China and Mexico are turning a blind eye. Human rights violations, long-term economic impacts, and damage to biodiversity and the global climate are all embedded in the Peruvian forest sector's current operating model. At the same time, Peru's institutions have shown that they have the tools to conduct effective enforcement and create more transparent procedures and systems. This is a Moment of Truth. Can Peru accept and act on the truths revealed by its own enforcement actions? Or will it now eliminate the rules and inspections that are necessary for tracing timber back to verified, legal origins? The report focuses on three pieces: A multi-year enforcement effort called Operation Amazonas that in 2015 focused on the shipping vessel Yacu Kallpa, the largest export trade stream of timber from the northern Peruvian Amazon. Upon investigation, enforcement agencies discovered that an average of 91.3% -- and as high as 96% -- of the timber this ship carried was from illegal sources, leading to detentions and seizures in Peru, the Dominican Republic, Mexico, and the U.S. Protests, backlash and high-level pushback in response to these efforts to enforce the law and introduce greater transparency to the system. The timber industry, its primary regulatory authority (the National Forest and Wildlife Service, Serfor), and other government entities in Peru have denied or minimized the problem and attempted to weaken enforcement institutions. They have also reduced data collection and changed official requirements to make it almost impossible to trace timber and verify legal origin, in contravention of Peru's own laws and commitments. A new analysis of hundreds of pages of official documents that reveal systematic exports of illegal and high-risk timber from Peru's main port of Callao during 2015, by dozens of companies and to 18 countries. It is impossible to replicate this analysis for 2016 or 2017, since the Peruvian forest authority has decided to stop compiling the necessary data. Details: Washington, DC: Environmental Investigation Agency, 2018. 80p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed February 28, 2018 at: https://content.eia-global.org/posts/documents/000/000/694/original/MomentofTruth.pdf?1518546054 Year: 2018 Country: Peru URL: https://content.eia-global.org/posts/documents/000/000/694/original/MomentofTruth.pdf?1518546054 Shelf Number: 149277 Keywords: Environmental CrimesForestsIllegal LoggingIllegal TradeOffenses Against the Environment |
Author: Smirnov, Denis Title: Assessment of Scope of Illegal Logging in Laos and Associated Trans-Boundary Timber Trade Summary: Main findings - The Government of Laos lacks reliable information on issued logging licenses (quotas), the officially registered volume of timber harvested, and export of wooden products. For example, Lao wood exports to China and Vietnam from 2012-2014 as reported by importing countries exceeded total annual logging quotas many-fold and officially registered volume of timber by an order of magnitude. The total value of Lao wood products as reported by importing countries exceeds the value of exported wood products by analysis of data from Lao state customs statistics many-fold, and a disparity between these two data sets increases further. In 2013 the official export value was only 8% of the total value of Lao timber imported as reported by destination countries. - According to the data from importing countries the export value of Lao wood products has been growing exponentially from the end of 2000s. From 2009 to 2014 it increased more than 8 times (by 70% between 2013 and 2014) and reached US$1.7 billion. In 2014, China and Vietnam were responsible for 96% of Lao wood export in value terms (63 and 33%, respectively). Moreover export to China increased by 140% on 2013 levels. This growth in value of Lao timber exports to China and Vietnam is caused by a simultaneous increase in exported timber volume and increase in the value of exported product units due to the greater proportion of valuable tree species in Lao exports. - The ban on export of logs and sawn timber imposed by the Government of Laos from 1999- 2002 with the aim to encourage development of deep processing of timber in the country is either not enforced or circumvented due to numerous permissions issued in "exceptional cases". The share of unprocessed and sawn wood in total exports from Laos in monetary terms almost always exceeded 90% in a period between 2000 and 2014, hitting 95% in 2011-2013 and nearly 98% in 2014. From the mid-2000s the share of logs in exports has been increasing steadily and reached 56% in 2014 while in 2002 accounted for only 14% (furthermore export value of logs doubled in 2014 compared to 2013). - The comparison of official data on volumes of issued quotas and the officially registered volume of timber harvested in Laos' four southern provinces of Sekong, Saravan, Champassak and Attapeu ("CarBi monitoring area") in the 2011-2012 logging season, with data on export of wood products from this area, has found that >50% of timber products exported were from undocumented sources. In monetary equivalent the value of excessive timber could exceed the Lao budget income from timber sales planned for the 2013-2014 fiscal year threefold. - Not less than 50% (most likely more than 60%) of wood products exported in the 2010-2011 logging season from Sekong were from undocumented sources. - The sheer volume of undocumented timber involved suggests that its extraction and transportation was conducted by large companies who had been permitted to legally assemble and operate a very high number of heavy equipment inside the extraction areas and to and from the country's borders. Such large fleets of heavy equipment are usually only assembled to convert forest lands for plantations, roads, transmission lines, reservoirs, mining, or geologic prospecting. - Following the above assumption we found the timing of these huge volumes of undocumented timber to be following a dramatic increase in Chinese and Vietnamese investments in mining, agriculture, forestry and hydropower in Laos. The majority of the associated projects' concessions were located in forested areas and accordingly contemplates the possibility of logging quotas acquisition. - We investigated the above correlation by comparing logging quotas issued for land clearance of one mining and one road construction project in the provinces of Saravan and Sekong with actual timber extraction. Analysis of relevant official documents, field surveys of logging sites and log depots, and interpretation of high resolution satellite images have been applied. We found 100% of timber extracted under the road construction project and 99% of the timber from the mining project to be illegal. Legal violations included: a. Extraction outside of concession boundaries. In the case of mining 76% of detected new logging sites were located beyond the concession borders while in the case of road construction all logging was found beyond the zone allocated for construction (in one case 40 km away from the closest point of the road). b. Logging comes in the form of extraction of only the best quality trees of target species with the highest volume. Species composition and grades of actually harvested timber drastically differed from what was permitted under quotas. Accordingly composition and volume of harvested timber had nothing to do with the results of pre-felling survey. c. Pre-felling survey of timber designated for logging is either not carried out or done only technically (formally) for the sake of appearance. In the case of mining it was completed only for 40% of the concession already after the commencement of the logging and was not used practically. There is every indication that the pre-felling survey for the road construction concession was not undertaken on the ground and documents include fictitious data. d. There was extraction of species not permitted to be cut (including prohibited for logging) and export of species in which harvest was not documented (including rosewood species). e. Extraction of higher volumes than permitted. In the case of road construction, the volume of exported timber (as it was reported to Vietnamese customs) exceeded over the entire officially documented harvest more than threefold. f. There was underreporting of the quality of harvested timber by selling Lao authorities and undervaluation of timber by Lao timber exporter, supposedly in order to understate royalties and taxes to Lao state. In the road construction case, the average volume of logs as reported by the importer at Vietnamese customs was 1.7-2.6 times higher than in log lists and sale-purchase contracts for the same species in Laos. Prices of exported timber as reported by the importer to Vietnamese customs was 2.9-4.2 higher than contract prices indicated in documents by the Lao exporter for same species on the Lao side. - The findings of these case studies and observations of other logging quotas allow us to suggest that in reality the use of permits for harvesting "conversion" timber during realization of development projects de-facto became a way to legitimate large-scale high grading in all types of forests (including conservation and protection forests). - The discrepancy between officially registered supply of raw materials to wood processing factories and their processing capacity is striking and obvious. Official logging quotas in the provinces of Saravan and Sekong can only fill 25% of installed wood processing capacity at best. The remaining capacity is likely filled with illegal timber. - The activity of state forest inspection (and most likely other Lao state law enforcement agencies responsible for fighting illegal logging) does not have any significant impact on the dynamics and scope of illegal logging as they do not inspect logging operations under logging quotas for conversion timber (neither logging sites nor logging volumes) and further turnover of this timber (transportation, processing, export). In the four southern Laos provinces they confiscated only about 3-5% of the estimated illegal timber volume in 2011- 2012. But even this confiscated timber originated from small operations and the large-scale commercial operations by big companies remained untouched. - The high dependence of China and critical dependence of Vietnam on timber supply from Laos makes it is unlikely that the governments of these countries are ready to take steps to control import legality. It is evident that such actions would reduce dramatically the volume and quality of timber from Laos together with the profit of timber traders and wood processing companies which enjoy excess profits from purchasing raw material for underestimated prices. An indication is the elegant wording suggested by the Vietnamese government for its draft legality definition for its negotiations of a FLEGT Voluntary Partnership Agreement with the EU. It does not require importers to provide assurance that imported timber was legally harvested in the country of harvest, but rather that it was legally imported to Vietnam according to Vietnamese laws. - The situation with timber harvesting in Laos is evolving under a worst-case scenario exactly opposite to what was envisaged by Forest Strategy to the Year 2020 of the Lao PDR (endorsed by Decree No. 229/PM on 9 of August 2005): transition to sourcing timber from plantations and production forests on the basis of scientifically estimated annual allowable cut, processing of almost all harvested timber at Lao factories to final and semi-final products. Contrary to the government's good intentions developments under the actual scenario will undoubtedly lead to the sheer depletion of commercial timber stocks in its natural forests - on the same path that Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia have already taken. - Were the Lao government serious to change the status quo and avoid a worst-case scenario it would have to take immediate actions to assure that logging quotas for conversion timber meet fundamental legal requirements. The efforts must be focused on most critical points where urgent interventions are required and progress can be measured: a) Allow logging only within authorized borders. b) Provide unambiguous maps with crystal clear borders of all concessions where timber harvesting is permitted. c) Demarcate all boundaries before the beginning of logging. d) Conduct rigorous pre-felling surveys. e) Create and make available for all interested parties a database with key information about all permitted logging before the beginning of logging. f) Make field control over logging operations under quotas for conversion timber a priority for forest inspection staff. g) Use high and very high resolution satellite images as additional independent sources of information. h) Establish an independent monitoring body comprising representatives of the relevant government agencies, CSOs and INGOs with unrestricted access to all logging areas. i) Operate all forest inspection check points 24/7 and inspect timber transports en route. Not only search and detain carriers of small shipments of valuable timber but systematically register all timber shipments with information on type of product, volume and species composition regardless of the availability of "legally issued permits". j) Register timber turnover at all key points of the chain to match raw wood input with product output. Investigate mismatches thoroughly. k) Maintain account of timber supply to log landings throughout the whole logging season and regularly check accuracy of log lists maintenance. l) Regularly inspect wood processing factories to verify stocks of wood products presented in the factory against raw wood supply from documented sources. Test conversion factor of raw material to processed wood. m) Completely forbid bartering logging permits for investment in public projects. Details: London: World Wildlife Fund, 2015. 106p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed May 23, 2018 at: https://wildleaks.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/CarBi-assessment-of-scope2.pdf Year: 2015 Country: Laos URL: https://wildleaks.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/CarBi-assessment-of-scope2.pdf Shelf Number: 150346 Keywords: DeforestationEnvironmental CrimesForestsIllegal LoggingIllegal TradeNatural ResourcesOffenses Against the Environment |
Author: NEPCon Title: Timber Legality Risk Assessment: Laos Summary: This report contains an evaluation of the risk of illegality in Laos for five categories and 21 sub-categories of law. We found: - Specified risk for 16 sub-categories. - No legal requirements for 5 sub-categories. The Timber Risk Score for Laos is 0 out of 100. The key legality risks identified in this report concern legal rights to harvest, taxes and fees, timber harvesting activities, third parties rights and trade and transport. For Legal rights to harvest, the is a risk of: - Conflict over land tenure, and a lack of business registration specifically for plantations (Sub-category 1.1) - Forest concessions being granted in violation of regulations (1.2) - Annual Logging Quotas being based on inadequate inventories and requests from districts, prepared in the office without conducting actual field surveys, leading to approvals for logging not reflecting the resources available on the ground (1.3). - Corruption, lack of certification and stamping procedures for harvesting permits and other documents, resulting in harvesting outside areas approved by the government, clearance of greater areas than areas granted for projects, and permits issued despite lack of documentation (1.4). For Taxes and Fees, there is a risk of: - Inconsistent application of taxes and fees at the provincial level (1.5) - Risk of high corruption levels regarding payment of tax, the high amount of illegal logging indicates that issues might be present in relation to tax payment (1.5) - Risk that smallholders lack business registration, and don't pay taxes (1.5) For Timber Harvesting Activities, there is risk of: - Risk that the implementation of harvesting regulation is lacking, a logging plan is often seen as a quota giving the right to cut a certain volume, and harvesting practice driven by needs to supply the sawmills with their desired wood (1.8) - Risk of legal requirements covering protected tree species being ignored and protected species being harvested without authorization document (1.9) - Risk of non-compliance with health and safety rules, logging crews do not have safety equipment or protective gear, and live under very basic conditions (1.11) - Risk that workers do not have a contract or do not receive their salary (1.12) Third Parties' Rights: Regarding Customary rights (1.13) there is a risk of conflicts on tenure rights, the government maintains a highly centralized system of forest governance with inadequate recognition of customary tenure rights, communal lands are not compensated for when re-allocated to a company For Trade and Transport, there is a risk of: - A lack of, or falsification of the registration of harvested logs (1.16) - Risk of timber being transported without required documents (1.17) - Risk of violation of the ban on export of logs and timber (1.17) This Timber Legality Risk Assessment for Laos provides an analysis of the risk of sourcing timber from areas of illegal harvesting and transport. NEPCon has been working on risk assessments for timber legality, in partnership with a number of organizations, since 2007. Details: Copenhagen: NETCon, 2017. 143p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed May 24, 2018 at: https://www.nepcon.org/sites/default/files/library/2017-06/NEPCon-TIMBER-Laos-Risk-Assessment-EN-V1.pdf Year: 2017 Country: Laos URL: https://www.nepcon.org/sites/default/files/library/2017-06/NEPCon-TIMBER-Laos-Risk-Assessment-EN-V1.pdf Shelf Number: 150354 Keywords: Environmental CrimesForestsIllegal LoggingNatural ResourcesOffenses Against the EnvironmentRisk Assessment |
Author: Transparency International Title: Analysing Corruption in the Forestry Sector Summary: Corruption - the abuse of entrusted power for private gain - undermines good governance and the rule of law. Corruption in forestry further degrades the environment, threatens rural communities and robs the public of billions of dollars each year. Transparency International (TI) is committed to a society where corruption-free forest governance and sustainable management enable increased economic development, poverty reduction and environmental protection. To help achieve this objective, TI's Forest Governance Integrity (FGI) Programme monitors the existing anti-corruption instruments that bring about the greatest improvement in the forestry sector and in good governance overall. Each country's forestry sector is unique, as are each country's anti-corruption mechanisms - its laws and the initiatives led by government, the private sector and civil society. Therefore, in order to best use their human and financial resources, civil society organisations (CSOs) must prioritise which corrupt practices to monitor. Otherwise, the temptation is to try to monitor all corrupt practices, or at least those associated with current programmes. Given the limited resources most CSOs have this would be a logistical impossibility, but perhaps more important, it is vital that activists are critically selective in choosing targets that will provide the most effective impact in the long run. This manual outlines a generic methodology for prioritising the corrupt practices that pose the greatest risk to governance - i.e. those practices that are the most likely to occur and have the greatest impact. Interviews with key experts, supplemented by publicly available data, inform the rapid risk assessment, the results of which are validated through stakeholder consultation. Based on this priority setting, it will be possible to assess more thoroughly the corrupt practices that pose the highest risk. In a second step, expert analysis and stakeholder consultation then help identify the existing anti-corruption instruments that most efficiently tackle these priority practices. These anticorruption instruments then serve as the focus for TI's forestry programme - including its monitoring, outreach and advocacy. A greater understanding of corrupt practices in the forestry sector should help focus the public and decision-makers on generating the political will needed to tackle criminal activity associated with the forestry sector - activity which in many countries drastically reduces revenues that could be used for economic development. Details: Berlin: Forest Governance Integrity Programme, Transparency International, 2010. 102p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed May 24, 2018 at: https://www.transparency.org/whatwedo/publication/analysing_corruption_in_the_forestry_sector_a_manual Year: 2010 Country: Asia URL: https://www.transparency.org/whatwedo/publication/analysing_corruption_in_the_forestry_sector_a_manual Shelf Number: 150359 Keywords: Forest Law EnforcementForestsIllegal LoggingNatural ResourcePolitical CorruptionRisk Assessment |
Author: Global Witness Title: A Major Liability: Illegal Logging in Papua New Guinea Threatens China's Timber Sector and Global Reputation Summary: In 2016, PNG provided 29% of China's tropical log imports, making it the country's single largest supplier. But our investigation reveals how a large number of logging operations in Papua New Guinea (PNG) violate the law despite holding government-issued permits. China is the world's largest consumer and manufacturer of wood and wood products. Yet it has no regulation to keep illegal timber from entering its borders. The risk of illegal timber from countries like PNG flooding China's markets has the potential to damage its reputation and major trade relationships as buyers in the U.S. and EU, which ban illegal timber imports, take action to protect themselves. This trade has profound implications for PNG as well. 70% of the country is covered by forest ecosystems that are home to some of the world's rarest plants and animals. The forest is also central to the cultural traditions and livelihoods of PNG's eight million people. By continuing to import tropical timber from PNG on such a scale, China is driving the destruction of a vulnerable and ancient forest. In A Major Liability, we draw on satellite imagery to show hundreds of apparent violations of the country's Forestry Act in major logging operations - all of which hold government permits and all of which continue to export timber. Details: London: Global Witness, 2018. 19p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed September 7, 2018 at https://www.globalwitness.org/en/campaigns/forests/major-liability-illegal-logging-papua-new-guinea-threatens-chinas-timber-sector-and-global-reputation/ Year: 2018 Country: Asia URL: https://www.globalwitness.org/en/campaigns/forests/major-liability-illegal-logging-papua-new-guinea-threatens-chinas-timber-sector-and-global-reputation/ Shelf Number: 151431 Keywords: Deforestation Environmental CrimeForests Illegal LoggingIllegal Trade Natural ResourcesOffenses Against the Environment Timber Industry |
Author: Mousseau, Frederic Title: The Great Timber Heist Continued: Tax Evasion and Illegal Logging in Papua New Guinea Summary: This report makes public new evidence of financial misreporting and tax evasion in the logging industry in Papua New Guinea (PNG). Following the Oakland Institute's 2016 report, which alleged that financial misreporting by foreign firms resulted in nonpayment of hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes, the new report reveals drastic worsening of this pattern in recent years. According to the financial records, the 16 studied subsidiaries of PNG's largest log exporter, the Malaysian Rimbunan Hijau (RH) Group, have doubled their financial losses in just six years while increasing their exports of tropical timber by over 40 percent. The new report also analyses the effect of the progressive tax rate on log exports introduced in 2017 by the PNG government to address concerns around tax evasion. PNG's Minister of Forests and the forest industry have argued that this new tax has brought the industry to "the brink of disaster," resulting in "vanishing" tax revenue for the country. However, the Oakland Institute's latest report clearly refutes these claims showing that the tax increase has generated additional fiscal revenue while contributing to an overall drop in exports in 2017. The increase in log exports in recent years by PNG is largely the result of illegally-granted Special Agriculture and Business Leases (SABLs), which added 5.5 million hectares of land to the ten million hectares already under active logging concession. Despite the 2014 government's promise that all illegal deals would be canceled, to date no decisive action has been taken to stop illegal logging or return land to the people. Details: Oakland, CA: The Oakland Institute, 2018. 18p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed September 12, 2018 at: https://www.oaklandinstitute.org/sites/oaklandinstitute.org/files/great_timber_heist_cont.pdf Year: 2018 Country: Papua New Guinea URL: https://www.oaklandinstitute.org/great-timber-heist-continued-papua-new-guinea Shelf Number: 151492 Keywords: Environmental CrimesForestsIllegal LoggingTax Evasion |
Author: Global Witness Title: Rocky Road: How Legal Failings and Vested Interests Behind Peru's Purus Highway Threaten the Amazon and its People Summary: The Peruvian Amazon contains the fourth largest area of tropical forest on Earth and is one of a handful of regions where over 50 percent of forest cover is still undisturbed. Peru has seen impressive economic growth in the last decade, with GDP increasing on average six percent a year, as it follows a commodities led development path. The boom in resource exploitation has put Peru's environmental and social laws under the spotlight. One of the biggest threats to the Peruvian Amazon and indigenous peoples' territories comes from impacts associated with major infrastructure projects. According to one estimate, 91 percent of Peru's current 68 million hectares (ha) of tropical forest will be degraded or deforested within 30 years if all current plans for infrastructure and resource use across the country go ahead. Global Witness investigated one of these proposed infrastructure projects: a highway that would stretch approximately 270 km between Puerto Esperanza and Inapari in the Amazon regions of Ucayali and Madre de Dios. The highway would cut through the Alto Purus National Park (the largest in Peru), the Purus Community Reserve and the Madre de Dios Territorial Reserve, violating Peru's laws on protected areas in the process. Similar projects like the recently completed Southern Interoceanic Highway have facilitated the expansion of logging and gold mining, causing widespread environmental and social harm. The area most affected by the plans is the isolated province of Purus in Ucayali Department. Purus harbours the richest area of mahogany left in Peru and perhaps the whole continent. It is also home to some of the last indigenous groups living 'in voluntary isolation' who have chosen not to have contact with the outside world. A parliamentary bill, no.1035/2011-CR (referred to in this document as 'the highway bill'), has been passed for debate in Peru's congress to declare the highway project 'of national interest priority' in an effort by its promoters to secure official approval and state funds for its construction. The controversial plan has divided local and national opinion, and has drawn criticism that it is riding roughshod over environmental laws and the rights of indigenous peoples. This report examines a range of factors that Global Witness believes may be unduly influencing the decision-making around the highway project, including alleged corruption and possible conflicts of interest. Details: London: Global Witness, 2013. 20p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed November 8, 2018 at: https://www.illegal-logging.info/content/rocky-road-how-legal-failings-and-vested-interests-behind-perus-purus-highway-threaten Year: 2013 Country: Peru URL: https://www.illegal-logging.info/sites/files/chlogging/uploads/GWAmazon2013.pdf Shelf Number: 153346 Keywords: CorruptionEnvironmental crimeIllegal logging |
Author: Global Witness Title: Illegal Logging in the Rio Platano Biosphere: A Farce in Three Acts Summary: Honduras, a country rich in natural resources and cultural diversity, struggles against poverty and environmental degradation: it is the third poorest country in Latin America and the second poorest in Central America. Poverty is much more acute in a rural context, so forested areas largely coincide with the poorest ones. The country is well suited to forestry practices, and 41.5 percent of its territory is currently covered with forests. However, decades of agricultural colonisation and the expansion of cattle ranching have resulted in extensive deforestation and related environmental degradation, most notably the deterioration of water resources and soil erosion. In a country that is prone to hurricanes and flooding, environmental degradation worsens the impact of these natural disasters. Severe governance failure in the Honduran forest sector is threatening the country's largest protected area, the UNESCO-accredited Man and the Biosphere Reserve of Rio Platano (hereafter the Rio Platano Biosphere), and the people living in and around it. Corruption at the highest level and a complete lack of accountability have led to environmental destruction and undermined the rights of local people and their efforts towards sustainable forestry. This report makes the case for greater national and international efforts to strengthen forest governance and the rule of law. It is based on Global Witness' on-the-ground research, interviews with key actors and a review of existing official documents and other sources of information. It aims to: (i) document, expose and analyse this case, (ii) identify lessons that can be learned in Honduras and elsewhere and (iii) present a series of recommendations for the various parties involved, in particular the Institute of Forest Conservation and Development (ICF), which is the new Honduran forest authority created by the Forest Law approved on 13 September 2007. The Rio Platano Biosphere has a long history of illegal logging. This report, however, focuses on one particular case: the legalisation of so-called 'abandoned' timber in 2006-2007, and its links to state mismanagement. It illustrates how illegal logging is often not only tolerated, but also promoted, by the authorities in charge. As this report will describe in more detail: - In his inauguration speech on 27 January 2006, President Zelaya committed to eradicating illegal logging in the country, but just a few months later the Honduran forest authority at the time (AFECOHDEFOR) implemented a policy that achieved the opposite: it approved regulatory procedures to effectively legalise illegally-logged mahogany, and did so contravening the law and without any consultation or independent oversight. The implementation of these resolutions spurred a race to illegally log the Rio Platano Biosphere. - The policy was part of a carefully designed plan to launder illegal timber from the most important protected area in the country. - Two months later, the regulatory procedures were suspended as a result of pressure from civil society and an investigation carried out by the Special Environmental Public Prosecutor (FEMA). However, there remained a strong determination to legalise this timber and a new, more sophisticated plan, was rolled out. This included the establishment of contracts with local cooperatives and the subsequent auction of the timber so that the people who financed the illegal logging were able to buy that same timber, now apparently legal. - As a result, as much as 8,000 cubic metres of mahogany were illegally felled. More than 14.7 million lempiras (approximately USD$780,000) of public funds were indirectly delivered to well-known illegal timber traffickers. - Cooperatives at a local level suffered greatly from this experience. Illegal logging of mahogany decreased the value of their forests and jeopardised the opportunity to develop viable community forestry initiatives. Vested interests manipulated some of these organisations to launder illegal timber and in so doing undermined their credibility. The case presented here had dramatic consequences in the Honduran context. However, it should also be looked at within a broader context. What this report documents will unquestionably resonate in other areas around the world experiencing similar issues. What characterises such cases is the disparity between political rhetoric and the vested interests driving the actions of government institutions. Such poor governance goes unchecked in part due to the lack of a transparent and participatory process in the management of the forest resources. At a time when forests have taken centre stage in climate change negotiations, the need to tackle illegal logging and associated deforestation and degradation is more pressing than ever. Deforestation accounts for around 20 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions and addressing this problem is seen by many as the most cost effective way of reducing these harmful emissions. A post-Kyoto agreement could help to ensure that forests are left standing so that they can be used sustainably by the people living in and around them. Good governance in Honduras and elsewhere is an essential prerequisite for the protection and sustainable use of forests. This, coupled with addressing the drivers of deforestation and empowering forest dependent communities, should be the focus of any forest and climate strategy. Sustainable forest management could play a significant role in supporting the livelihoods of local populations and fighting poverty, while at the same time maintaining the ecological value of forests. Details: Washington, DC: Global Witness, 2009. 40p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed November 8, 2018 at: file:///C:/Users/AuthUser/Downloads/illegal_logging_in_rio_platano_final_en_low_res.pdf Year: 2009 Country: Honduras URL: file:///C:/Users/AuthUser/Downloads/illegal_logging_in_rio_platano_final_en_low_res.pdf Shelf Number: 153347 Keywords: Abandoned TimberCorruptionEnvironmental CrimeForest GovernanceGood GovernanceIllegal LoggingIllegal Timber TraffickersMahogonyRule of lawTimber smugglingTimber theft |
Author: Ceesay, Hassoum Title: Razing Africa: Combatting Criminal Consortia in the Logging Sector Summary: Organised-crime syndicates often with connections to Chinese markets have been consolidating illegal timber exploitation in various African countries on an unprecedented and accelerating scale. This report, the result of ENACT research, analyses the layers of criminality that have come to define the logging supply chain, from extraction of rare species through to the sale of high-value timber in international markets. The report reveals how transnational organised crime allies with corrupt actors at the highest levels of states to profit from this lucrative and environmentally destructive illicit trade. ENACT research recommends for a policy-orientated investigation on organised crime in the forestry sector to be prioritized, advocating strongly for approaches targeted at disrupting these criminal consortia. Details: ENACT Programme, 2018. 32p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed November 25, 2018 at: https://enactafrica.org/research/research-papers/razing-africa-combatting-criminal-consortia-in-the-logging-sector Year: 2018 Country: Africa URL: https://enact-africa.s3.amazonaws.com/site/uploads/2018-09-20-research-paper-06-logging.pdf Shelf Number: 153026 Keywords: Asian MarketsEnvironmental CrimeForestry SectorIllegal LoggingIllegal Wildlife TradeIllicit TradeInternational MarketsLoggingOrganized CrimeSupply ChainTimber HarvestingTimber Theft Transnational Organized CrimeWildlife Crime |
Author: Reitano, Tuesday Title: Mind the Moratorium: Ending Criminality and Corruption in Africa's Logging Sector Summary: Logging moratoria - or bans on the felling, transportation and export of forest and wood products - have been widely used in Africa as a means of preventing the degradation of natural forests, often with considerable support from the international community. However, their impact has almost universally fallen far short of expectations. Violations range from the questionable issuance of exceptions and the sale of concessions despite there being a ban in place, to continued illicit and artisanal logging. Evidence suggests that moratoria are increasingly being used to allow influential political and business elites to consolidate control over the logging sector in their own favour, rather than for their stated development objectives. This brief argues that it is time for a sharp reconsideration of the value of moratoria as a tool for forest governance in Africa. Details: ENACT Programme, 2018. 15p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed November 25, 2018 at: https://enactafrica.org/research/policy-briefs/mind-the-moratorium-ending-criminality-and-corruption-in-africas-logging-sector Year: 2018 Country: Africa URL: https://enact-africa.s3.amazonaws.com/site/uploads/15-10-18-logging-policy-beirf.pdf Shelf Number: 153025 Keywords: CorruptionEnvironmental CrimeForest GovernanceForest ProductsForestry SectorIllegal LoggingIllicit TradeLogging MoratoriaTimber HarvestingTimber Theft |