Dr Charles ‘Chip’ Barber, Director of the Nature Crime Alliance, has authored a new report published by World Resources Institute (WRI).

‘People, Planet, Justice: Understanding and Countering Nature Crime’ provides analysis on how these crimes work; their convergences with other forms of serious organized crime including financial crimes and human rights violations; and offers recommendations to support the global response to this challenge.

Based on three years of research, 150 expert interviews, and hundreds of studies, the report covers five major types of nature crime and lays out:

• Analysis of how these nature crimes operate and connect to other organized crimes like financial crime, corruption, narcotics and human rights abuses.

• Insights into how natural resources are largely taken from developing countries and the ocean while profits often flow to developed nations and elites.

• Solutions to disrupt these crimes — from stronger laws and enforcement to empowering Indigenous Peoples and local communities, and harnessing new technologies.

Read the report here

Barber also wrote a WRI Insights article that outlines five key approaches that can bolster the global response to nature crime, which distills some of the key takeaways from the report.

The Nature Crime Alliance Secretariat has continued to support efforts to raise political will to fight nature crime, engaging with a range of governments, donors and industry experts.

Lynn Schlingemann, Senior Associate Financial Crime and Corruption, Nature Crime Alliance, spoke on a panel at the event, ‘Environmental Crime: Five years for the EU to turn the tide!’, held at the European Parliament on 26 March. Lynn discussed ways for better leveraging public and private sector efforts to prevent environmental crime and promote sustainable economies.

The event was organised by UNODC, TRAFFIC, WWF and the Spanish Guardia Civil, and was hosted by key European policymakers Sirpa Pietikäinen (Finland), Marie Toussaint (France) and Michal Wiezik (Slovakia).

The session highlighted the urgency of tackling environmental crime, the sophisticated criminal networks behind it, and necessary actions for stakeholders. Discussions covered the EU’s policy, trade, security, and financial responses, emphasising the effective implementation of the Environmental Crime Directive, the prioritisation of environmental crime in EMPACT, and funding opportunities under the next EU budget.

Villars Summit

Schlingemann also participated in the Villars Summit in March, and joined a workshop on the illegal wildlife trade convened by the Royal Foundation and Villars Institute. The private workshop brought together 30 participants including leading experts, policymakers, and practitioners, from governments, donors, NGOs, academia, and think-tanks. 

Schlingemann presented on ways for better addressing financial crimes related to environmental crimes, highlighting key takeaways from the Private Sector Dialogues on disruption of financial crimes related to crimes that affect the environment. She also focused on challenges associated with detecting financial flows linked to the illegal wildlife trade and the needs for developing tailored approaches. 

The Nature Crime Alliance Secretariat participated in a major summit aimed at furthering knowledge on environmental crime and related money laundering.

Lynn Schlingemann, Senior Associate, Financial Crime and Corruption, Nature Crime Alliance, chaired the conference: ‘Clean Earth, Clean Money: Unmasking Environmental Crimes and Money Laundering’, which was organised by the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) of Latvia in a partnership with the FIU of Iceland.

Schlingemann also supported the FIUs in preparing for the session, providing insights on speakers and programming – part of the Nature Crime Alliance’s mission to raise awareness of this critical issue.

The conference, which took place in Riga across 24 and 25 March, explored financial crimes linked to a range of offences including illegal deforestation, mining, fisheries, waste, and pollution crimes. Key regulatory frameworks relevant for the EU, such as the Environmental Crime Directive and EU Deforestation Regulation, were also discussed.

More than 180 participants from European FIU’s, local law enforcement, supervisory bodies, industry experts, and public and private sector representatives participated in the conference, alongside government representatives from Liechtenstein, Germany, Malta, Albania, Romania, Norway, Croatia, UK, US, Azerbaijan, Estonia, Monaco, Poland, Luxembourg, Vietnam, Kenya, Spain, India and Ghana.

Schlingemann commented: “Environmental crimes harm wildlife, poison ecosystems, and fuel the climate crisis. They also deprive countries of revenues, and fund cartels, militias and terrorist groups, threatening peace and security around the world. The illegal plundering of natural resources often takes place with impunity, with billions laundered annually through corporate crimes, undermining legal businesses.

“Through this unique conference, the Financial Intelligence Units of Latvia and Iceland are paving the way for multi-sector collaboration by bringing together law enforcement authorities and experts from the public and private sectors to explore ways to dismantle these crimes.”

Find out more about the Nature Crime Alliance’s work on financial crimes linked to nature crime.

Forest monitoring technologies and the value of information networks were central to a recent Indigenous Peoples knowledge exchange, organised by the Nature Crime Alliance Secretariat. 

More than 20 representatives from 11 Indigenous Peoples organisations joined the session, aimed at supporting and empowering frontline defenders. It was convened as part of the Nature Crime Alliance’s Working Group for Indigenous People and Frontline Defenders (WGIPFD), organised in partnership with Indigenous Peoples’ Rights International (IPRI).

The session, on 12 March, provided an introduction to satellite monitoring technologies, with Ruth Nogueron, World Resources Institute, giving an overview of the Global Forest Watch (GFW) platform.

Harnessing knowledge

Betty Rubio, a community leader from the Loreto region of Peru, also shared her community’s experience in using GFW, as well as the wider importance of harnessing knowledge from different areas of Indigenous communities.

Participants from South America, Africa and Southeast Asia joined the session, which also demonstrated the value of partnerships in protecting territories by providing support between communities.

Giovanni Reyes, a Sagada-born Kankanaey Igorot from the Cordillera Region, of Northern Luzon, Philippines, emphasised the importance of consulting Indigenous elders, whose leadership has been instrumental in shaping and protecting many of the planet’s key biodiversity areas.

“It is important that our participation as Indigenous Peoples, laid out in terms of our decision-making  processes and through our traditional governance system, be respected and upheld. Only when vital roles of  Indigenous Peoples are fully acknowledged can global targets to reverse biodiversity loss and climate crisis successfully begin.”

The session was the latest in a series of knowledge exchanges facilitated by the Alliance’s working group, with future sessions planned on Indigenous journalism and improving relations with law enforcement, given Indigenous Peoples’ invaluable role in sharing local knowledge and intelligence.

Bolstering capacity

Tsveti Bandakova, Programme Manager for the Nature Crime Alliance Secretariat, said: “These sessions are aimed at bolstering the capacity of Indigenous Peoples and frontline defenders to ensure they have the tools and knowledge to protect their territories effectively, and to minimize risks to their communities.

“A key theme that emerged in this session was the importance of community-to-community knowledge sharing, and tying Indigenous knowledge with modern technologies, and this is something we aim to explore further in the working group.”

The WGIPFD was launched in 2024, and is organised in partnership with IPRI. Jo Ann, a Kankana-ey from Benguet, Philippines, the Coordinator of the WGIPFD commented: “The recognition of Indigenous Peoples’ leadership and wisdom in monitoring and reporting violations, abuses and nature crimes in our own lands and territories is an enabling factor to protect our forests, our lands and waters, our cultures – all these underpin our identity and well-being.”

Find out more about the Nature Crime Alliance Working Group for Indigenous Peoples and Frontline Defenders

The critical role of civil society, Indigenous Peoples, and journalism in supporting law enforcement efforts to counter wildlife crime was highlighted during a briefing of government representatives in New York this week.

Ruth Nogueron, Senior Associate, World Resources Institute, represented the Nature Crime Alliance in the meeting, ‘From Policy to Practice – Bridging Multilateral Action with Ground-Level Impact in the Fight Against Illicit Wildlife Trafficking’, convened by the Group of Friends on Combatting Illicit Wildlife Trafficking.

Co-chaired by Germany and Gabon, with coordination by Wildlife Justice Commission (WJC), the session brought together wildlife crime experts to share insights with policymakers focusing on this issue at the UN.

In her briefing, Nogueron highlighted how local communities are invaluable in the gathering of field intelligence, and emphasized how wildlife crime is interlinked with other crimes, requiring engagement with financial intelligence units (FIUs) and prosecution authorities. She also shared a case study demonstrating the value of investigative journalism in tackling these crimes.

Ruth’s recommendations to delegates included:

• Empowering Indigenous People and local communities as key contributors to field intelligence. The Nature Crime Alliance is working with Indigenous Peoples’ Rights International (IPRI) on this issue.
• Utlilising civil society organisations to help bridge gaps between communities, enforcement, and policy professionals.
• Enhancing cross-sector crime convergence approaches.
• Strengthen investigative journalism to expose trafficking networks.
• Addressing the critical yet overlooked role of wildlife rescue centers.

Other Nature Crime Alliance participants in the briefing included Ghislain Ondias Okouma, Permanent Representative of Gabon to the UN; Olivia Swaak-Goldman, Executive Director, WJC (which organised the meeting in partnership with the German government); and John Scanlon, Chair, Global Initiative to End Wildlife Crime. INTERPOL was also represented, with Operation Thunder – the major law enforcement success against international wildlife crime, which saw coordination across 138 countries and regions – being cited.  

The Antarctic and Southern Ocean Coalition (ASOC) has joined the Nature Crime Alliance to further its work on illegal fishing and wildlife trafficking.

ASOC plays a key role in the continued protection of vulnerable ecosystems in Antarctica and the Southern Ocean by providing a unified voice for Antarctic conservation. Founded in 1978 to advocate for environmental regulations at the highest levels of governance, it maintains that commitment today as the only environmental NGO with observer status to the Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting and meetings of the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR), which has responsibility for fisheries management in the Southern Ocean.

By becoming a member of the Alliance, ASOC joins a global, multi-sector network that raises political will, mobilises financial commitment, and bolsters operational capacity to fight nature crime. ASOC will gain access to an aligned network with which to foster new collaborations in support of its mission to inform and motivate global leaders to protect the crucial ecosystems of Antarctica and the Southern Ocean.  

Claire Christian, Executive Director of ASOC, commented: “The Nature Crime Alliance offers the opportunity to expand our network and collaborate with likeminded organisations on the safeguarding of precious ecosystems. Through the Alliance, we hope to build stronger partnerships and bolster efforts to prevent nature crimes in the Antarctic and Southern Ocean.”

ASOC joins other Ocean-focused members in the Alliance, including Fisheries Transparency Initiative, FishWise, and Sustainable Fisheries Partnership, and will have the chance to engage in member working groups, including those focused on illegal fisheries and transparency tools. 

Dr Charles Barber, Director of the Nature Crime Alliance, said: “ASOC’s achievements in centering conservation and biodiversity within Antarctic governance make it a valuable addition to the Alliance. We are looking forward to supporting ASOC in its mission and fostering collaboration with other Alliance members.”

As 2024 draws to a close, we reflect on our activities with Alliance members throughout the year to increase political will, mobilise financial commitment, and bolster operational capacity to fight nature crime.

Building our global, multi-sector network

Interest in joining the Alliance continued throughout 2024, with new members including a range of governments, international organisations, and CSOs.

Members to join in 2024 included Ghana, Malawi, Peru, the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), the UN Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute (UNICRI), ASOC, FishWise, IFAW, International Lawyers Project, Lilongwe Wildlife Trust, National Whistleblower Center, Outlaw Ocean, Wildlife Investigators Training Alliance, and WWF. View all members here.

Through the Alliance, we are creating new opportunities for engagement and cooperation, especially between actors in different sectors who have not previously collaborated.

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“The Alliance, under WRI’s leadership and coordination, gives us a really impactful platform of organisations that are already aligned for fighting environmental crimes. This includes organisations that we haven’t previously worked with.”

– Braddock Spear, Sustainable Fisheries Partnership

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Driving engagement, furthering knowledge

The Alliance continued to support members’ efforts to fight nature crime through various initiatives, from information sharing opportunities to the development of new tools and resources.

Regional Private Sector Dialogues launched

Alongside supporting UNODC and INTERPOL in the ongoing Global Private Sector Dialogues on disrupting financial crimes linked to crimes that affect the environment, the Alliance Secretariat was also instrumental in launching new Regional Private Sector Dialogues in 2024 to sharpen the geographic focus of these efforts. The first Regional Southern Africa Private Sector Dialogue convened in Cape Town in January, while the first Asia-Pacific iteration took place in Singapore in December. These sessions bring together financial institutions alongside law enforcement entities, financial intelligence units, and civil society to share insights aimed at improving the detection and disruption of financial crime linked to environmental crime. 

Supporting government responses to illegal mining 

The Alliance Secretariat briefed government officials during a session at the UN Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC) Implementation Review Group meeting in Vienna. The session, chaired by Peru and France, convened experts from civil society to share insights on environmental crime and its convergences with other forms of serious organised crime to better inform government representatives working on the UNCAC and the UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (UNTOC). The Wildlife Justice Commission, a founding member of the Nature Crime Alliance, also participated in the session, alongside the UNCAC Coalition and Transparency International. 

New tools to support action against nature crime

Over the year the Alliance Secretariat has been working on enhancing its dot-connecting capabilities by developing a range of specialised tools designed to streamline collaboration and information sharing among stakeholders involved in combating nature crime. These resources were conceptualised together with members to address specific needs outlined during consultations. Tools which will be coming online in early 2025 include a new knowledge database, a library of tools and technologies, and a wildlife crime expert list. These resources will be hosted on the Alliance website. 

Bringing our members together

The Secretariat has continued to provide a platform for Alliance members to share insights from their work via our ongoing series of webinars. Organisations featured in 2024 included Amazon Conservation Association, IFAW, the National Whistleblower Center, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), World Forest ID, and World Resources Institute. The webinars aim to share knowledge and information between members and spark ideas for potential collaboration. View all 2024 webinars here. 

Alliance working groups continue

The Alliance has also brought actors together through its various working groups with the aim of developing new approaches to tackling nature crime across different contexts. The Illegal Fisheries and Transparency Tools working group has made progress in supporting electronic monitoring, as highlighted in our feature article with SFP. 

Elsewhere, the Secretariat has worked with Indigenous Peoples’ Rights International to convene the Indigenous Peoples and Frontline Defenders working group, which has met throughout 2024. An initial outcome from the working group includes a forthcoming report based on Indigenous Peoples’ perspectives on combatting nature crime. The analysis includes a range of case studies from illegal logging in the Amazon to land grabbing in Tanzania. 

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Elevating nature crime in the international agenda

The Alliance Secretariat held two workshops on nature crime during IUCN’s US Regional Conservation Forum in August to raise awareness of this critical issue and explore ways for IUCN to approach this challenge ahead of its World Conservation Congress in 2025. “We had an engaging discussion on elevating the issue of nature crime within IUCN’s agenda for the upcoming years,” Elodie Perrat, Senior Government Engagement Manager for the Alliance, commented. “We’re eager to see the impact our collaborative efforts will have on advancing this crucial topic.”

The Alliance continued to raise awareness of the challenges of nature crime, as well as amplifying solutions, during key international fora in 2024. This included a major side event at UNEA6 in Nairobi featuring members including Norway, the US, Ghana, Malawi, UNEP, TRAFFIC, Basel Institute on Governance, and UNODC. Secretariat experts also spoke on nature crime during several sessions at the International Anti-Corruption Conference and the Forest Governance and Policy Conference, and supported an environmental crime focused event at the UNTOC COP in Vienna. The Alliance Secretariat also amplified member activities and other nature crime sessions during COP16, including a post-conference roundup. 

The importance of global, multi-sector cooperation in tackling nature crime, and the value of the Nature Crime Alliance, was also highlighted by Dialogue Earth in August. 

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Thank you to our network

The Alliance Secretariat is extremely grateful to our members and partners who have supported and collaborated with us in 2024 as we work together towards eradicating nature crime.

We wish you all a positive and fruitful 2025. 

The Nature Crime Alliance’s efforts to bolster the private sector’s capacity to identify and disrupt illicit financial flows linked to crimes against the environment took a new step this month with the first Asia-Pacific Regional Private Sector Dialogue, which convened in Singapore, on 3-4 December.  

The meeting, organised by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) supported by the Nature Crime Alliance, INTERPOL and United for Wildlife, brought together anti-money laundering/countering the financing of terrorism government authorities, the private sector, and civil society organisations from across the Asia Pacific region, with the goal of strengthening efforts to tackle financial crimes linked to environmental crimes. The regional Dialogue, which will continue in 2025, allows participants to develop and share their understanding of risks and mitigation measures relating to the financing of crimes that affect the environment, mainly focusing on illegal deforestation and the illicit extraction of minerals the in Asia Pacific. 

The event, held at the INTERPOL Global Complex for Innovation in Singapore, was split into three roundtable sessions, each focused on addressing a different problem set, including the use of financial intelligence to identify crimes that affect the environment, internal policies and governance to address these crimes, and the role of financial institutions in combating these crimes  and promoting sustainable practices.  

The Dialogue was co-chaired by John Edward Conway, Executive Secretary of the Wolfsberg Group and Laode M. Syarif, Executive Director of Kemitraan and former Commissioner of the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK), Indonesia.  

Dr Madan Oberoi, Executive Director of Technology and Innovation, INTERPOL, provided welcoming remarks, stating: “Governments, private sector, and civil societies must ensure that financial systems support stability, not exploitation. This means aligning banking with national priorities to fight financial crimes that harm the environment, demanding transparency in businesses, and supporting stronger regulations that follow global environmental standards.” 

The keynote address was delivered by Raja Kumar, Senior Advisor (International), Ministry of Home Affairs, Singapore, and former President of the Financial Action Task Force (2022-2024).

More than 90% of participants said that the Dialogue had given them a better understanding of the investigative and technical capabilities that banks and civil society organisations are deploying to disrupt the threat of financial crimes related to environmental crimes, while 92% stated that the Dialogue had enabled them and/or their institution to identify new risk indicators, red flags and  suspicious transactions related to environmental crimes.  

For more information, contact Lynn Schlingemann, Senior Associate, Financial Crime and Corruption, Nature Crime Alliance Secretariat: lynn.schlingemann@wri.org 

The transnational and organised nature of environmental crimes, which often include financial offences and corruption, has made the issue a priority for the global Financial Action Task Force (FATF), according to its former President, Dr Marcus Pleyer.

Speaking at the UN Convention Against Transnational Organised Crime (UNTOC) 12^th Conference of the Parties (COP12) in Vienna, Pleyer – who headed FATF between 2020 and 2022 – highlighted the scale of these crimes.

“The amount of money that is laundered from environmental crimes is nearly $300 billion a year,” he said. “This is why we have put environmental crimes on our agenda.” 

Pleyer was speaking at an official UNTOC COP12 side event held in partnership between the governments of France, Peru, and the United States, as well as the Wildlife Justice Commission, the Alliance of NGOs on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice, the Global Initiative to End Wildlife Crime (EWC), Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC), and the Nature Crime Alliance. 

 Moderated by Lisa Hartevelt, Director of External Affairs, WJC, ‘Joint Action: Harnessing partnerships to combat crimes that affect the environment’, had the purpose of highlighting the critical role that civil society organisations (CSOs) play in supporting state parties to the UNTOC in combatting crimes that affect the environment.  

Watch the session in full

In the opening remarks of the event, the Co-Chairs of the Group of Friends on Crimes that Affect the Environment, Juliette Bigot from the Permanent Mission of France and Carlos Sanchez del Aguila from the Permanent Mission of Peru, highlighted how their partnership with CSOs was fundamental in increasing awareness of these crimes and the need for international action.  

Increasing engagement between governments, civil society and other sectors, including finance, is a key aim of the Nature Crime Alliance, which supports the Global Private Sector Dialogue (PSD) on financial crimes linked to crimes that affect the environment, in partnership with UNODC, INTERPOL, and UFW.  

Dr Pleyer, who currently serves as Deputy Director General, Germany’s Federal Ministry of Finance, and Chairs the European iteration of the PSD, underscored the importance of the Dialogues, noting that prior to the initiative, 80% of private financial participants did not interact with law enforcement and government authorities, and 66% did not interact with NGOs.  

The session also heard from John Scanlon, Chair of the Global Initiative to End Wildlife Crime (EWC), a founding member of the Nature Crime Alliance, and Sarah Maston, Co-Chair of the EWC’s Impact Technology Champions. Scanlon and Maston remarked upon the pressing need for scale in conservation technology. Further highlighting the need for collaboration between different stakeholders, Kristina Amerhauser, Senior Analyst at GI-TOC, spoke of the ECO-SOLVE platform. This platform facilitates OSINT data-sharing to law enforcement, government, and private sector actors, since lack of data is one of the most common problems stakeholders face when combatting crimes that affect the environment.  

Final remarks were delivered by Laura Holgate, US Ambassador to the Vienna Office of the UN. She spoke of the US government’s role in funding the Nature Crime Alliance as recognition of the role that CSOs can play in bringing cross-sectoral stakeholders together for effective results.

The latest Global Private Sector Dialogue on Disruption of Financial Crimes related to Crimes that affect the Environment, organised by UNODC with the support of the Nature Crime Alliance Secretariat, convened on Wednesday, October 16, 2024. More than a hundred representatives from financial intelligence units, law enforcement, and the private sector joined the sessions to hear from subject matter-experts on tackling financial crime linked to nature crime.  

The Global Private Sector Dialogue was chaired by John Edward Conway, Global Head of Financial Crime Compliance Framework and Policies at Santander Bank, and was co-chaired by Lynn Schlingemann, Senior Associate, Financial Crime and Corruption, Nature Crime Alliance Secretariat. 

The Dialogue consisted of three roundtable discussions. The first, on Intelligence Requirements, focused on investigative methods and new technologies for detecting financial crimes related to crimes that affect the environment. Financial crime analysts from Absa, HSBC, and Standard Bank shared case studies and highlighted learnings derived from them, as well risk indicators and red flags that were present in those case studies.  

In the second roundtable discussion, on Policy Requirements, representatives from Standard Chartered delved into banking policy and corporate governance for supporting national policies to mitigate risks of financial crimes related to the environment, more specifically emerging threats on environmental and financial crime.  

During the third and last roundtable discussion, experts from WWF presented the newly developed Environmental Crimes Financial Toolkit, while representatives from FACT Coalition explained their work on illicit finance and environmental crime. 

The Dialogues are part of the Nature Crime Alliance’s ongoing work to bolster capacity across the private and public sectors to tackle financial crime related to nature crime. 

For more information, contact Lynn Schlingemann, Senior Associate, Financial Crime and Corruption, Nature Crime Alliance Secretariat: lynn.schlingemann@wri.org