Environmental crime is lucrative, with its profits easily realised via financial crime and corruption.

This side event at the 9th Conference of the States Parties (CoSP) to the UN Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC) explored the issue with panelists from government and civil society.

They discussed the efforts and remaining gaps in leading national law enforcement and conservation efforts to attack this corruption by tracing both the illicit financial flows which facilitate environmental crime and the illegally obtained profits derived from it.

Can social norm and behaviour change approaches help to reduce corruption related to illegal wildlife trade (IWT)? Very possibly. SNBC initiatives have been shown to help combat diverse corruption problems, although for those related to IWT and other areas of conservation and natural resource management, the evidence for doing so is sparse.

The second edition of Basel Gold Day, held at the University of Basel, brought together leading voices from across the gold supply chain and civil society.

The panel discussions explored various problematic aspects of the gold industry, with a focus on recycled gold.

Published by the Targeting Natural Resource Corruption (TNRC) project, this Topic Brief explains how a well-designed system of internal controls can help to reduce corrupt behaviour affecting law enforcement against illegal wildlife trade (IWT), as well as enhance the functioning of IWT enforcement systems as a whole.

It is based on extensive field research and collaboration with agencies tasked with IWT enforcement in three countries in Africa and Latin America.

The topic brief covers:

This session at the 2022 International Anti-Corruption Conference shone a spotlight on efforts to take the profit out of environmental crimes like illegal wildlife trade, fishing, logging and mining.

Following (and confiscating) the money seems an obvious way to disrupt criminal networks engaged in environmental crimes, identify the kingpins and corrupt facilitators, and remove the profit motive. In practice, it is proving challenging. Why? What can practitioners do to ensure financial investigations achieve their potential in the fight against environmental crime?

Corruption risk assessments in a law enforcement context seek to map what and how corruption risks could undermine investigations and prosecutions of serious crimes like illegal wildlife trade. But how do you answer why those corruption risks arise in the first place?

Understanding this is key to developing corruption risk mitigation measures that are not just technically sound but politically feasible.