This virtual event explored how technology, cooperation and information-sharing are key to combating the trade in illegal goods, including wildlife, minerals and forest products.

It was part of the Corrupting the Environment webinar series of the Basel Institute on Governance and the OECD.

Piotr Stryszowski, Senior Economist at the OECD’s Task Force on Countering Illicit Trade, moderated the event, featuring:

This virtual event launched the Corrupting the Environment webinar series, a monthly series of discussions in 2021 on different issues of corruption, the environment and illicit trade. 

The first plenary meeting of the Countering Environmental Corruption Practitioners Forum will bring together practitioners in environmental conservation and anti-corruption. It is open to all who register their interest in being part of the forum.

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.

Hosted by the Basel Institute on Governance as part of the Targeting Natural Resource Corruption (TNRC) Learning Series, this webinar addressed three learning questions:

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?