Environmental crime a threat to sustainable development

Lazarus Sauti

Ecosystems – biological communities of interacting organisms and their physical environments – play a crucial role in transforming economies as they support revenues and future development opportunities.

This is so because livelihoods and sustainable harvest sectors rely heavily on natural resources, such as in agriculture, forestry and fisheries.

Furthermore, healthy ecosystems provide the platform upon which future food production and economies are ultimately based. African countries and other developing nations must therefore protect ecosystems and use them as springboards to economic development.

Opportunities ecosystems provide for future development, however, are threatened by a serious and increasingly complicated transnational organised environmental crime that is undermining sustainable development in many African states. This is according to the United Nations Environment Programme, an agency established to promote environmentally sound practices globally and in its own activities.

In a new report titled “The Environmental Crime Crisis – Threats to Sustainable Development from Illegal Exploitation and Trade in Wildlife and Forest Resources: A Rapid Response Assessment”, the United Nations Environment Programme claims that the monetary value of ‘environmental crime’ – logging, poaching, animal trafficking, illegal fishing and illegal mining – is between US$70 billion and US$213 billion each year.

Sadly, these monies are going straight into accounts of criminals and used to fuel criminal activities, as cleared indicated in the same report by the United Nations Environment Programme and the International Criminal Police Organisation or Interpol, an international intelligence agency permitting collaboration among intelligence agencies around the world further state, in the same report.

“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, illegal wildlife trafficking constitutes a barrier to the achievement of both sustainable development and environmental sustainability,” noted Achim Steiner, United Nations Under-Secretary General and United Nations Environment Programme Executive Director.

Unfortunately, as added by Steiner, this cancer of global environmental crime is bleeding Africa and other vulnerable developing nations by helping finance criminal, militia and terrorist groups and therefore threatening peace, security and sustainable development of many nations.

Environmental Investigation Agency, an independent, international campaigning organisation committed to investigating and exposing environmental crime, agreed that the consequences of failing adequately to address environmental crime are potentially disastrous to the economic wellbeing of any country.

Accordingly, appropriate responses are required to reduce environmental crimes to acceptable levels, where they no longer threaten peace and security of communities and the survival of wild species but promote sustainable social and economic development.

Because of this, the Environmental Crime Crisis – Threats to Sustainable Development from Illegal Exploitation and Trade in Wildlife and Forest Resources report, urged countries, especially developing ones, to seriously recognise that unlike other forms of crime, environmental crime is time critical.

African countries and the international community should therefore accept that this crime requires a substantial, committed and sustained continental and global response – and they should act without delay to redress it before it is ravages the continent.

But for this to work, there is need for strong policies and strategies. Unfortunately, in most – if not all – African countries, environmental legislation is all too often inadequate.

This hence calls for political leaders and policy decision makers in countries within and across the African continent to work together to strengthen their respective institutional, legal and regulatory systems.

Political will in these countries is also required to arrest corrupt and effectively address environment-related offences. Political leaders should come up with differentiated strategies for tackling corruption and addressing illegal wildlife and timber trafficking.

“To effectively eradicate corruption, considerations must be given to administrative reforms, particularly through the introduction of information and communication technology – to remove the direct human contact involved in areas such as trade in natural resources,” explained the United Nations Environment Programme report.

The report further said: “Tackling illegal wildlife trade demands an 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.

“A fuller understanding of the phenomenon of illegal wildlife trade is thus necessary to design and further strengthen – and accelerate – an effective strategy to successfully tackle the issue at all levels and with all means possible.”

Since most African countries suffer from environmental crimes, a holistic continental response needs to be implemented to support national, regional and international efforts by strengthening and synchronising actions targeting coherent environmental legislation, poverty alleviation and demand reduction. This response should be spearheaded by the African Union, a union consisting of 54 African states.

The scale and coordination of efforts by these 54 countries and other developing nations must also be substantially increased; they should not only be widened but must be combined with efforts on good governance, management and consumer awareness to ensure a long-term demand reduction of environmental crimes.

Critical to note is the fact that solutions to arrest environmental crimes require a multi-stakeholder approach and a combination of mechanisms to address both supply and demand reduction, based on deterrence, transparency, legal enforcement, behavioral change and alternative livelihoods.

As a result, African countries and all stakeholders in the environment fraternity must collaborate to protect the flora and fauna of the continent by investing in capacity building and technological support to national environment, wildlife and law enforcement agencies.

They must also ensure that this investment enables individual countries to further protect key populations of iconic endangered species threatened by poaching, such as but not limited to, rhinos, tigers and the African elephant.

Without doubt, environmental crime provides a serious threat only to wildlife and plant species but at large to humanity.

Accordingly, a multi-faceted response is required and it should take in a coherent effort to fully address the multiple dimensions of this notorious crime. The United Nations Environment Programme sums it thus: “This multifaceted response requires both national and international stakeholders to be involved in the process, including environmental, enforcement and development sectors, as well as stakeholders involved in security and peacekeeping missions.”