Mongabay · Climate & nature

Environmental crime profits must be tracked through supply chains

Environmental crimes like illegal logging and mining are highly profitable, undermining sustainable development and climate action. Addressing these issues requires tracking profits from extraction to corporate offices, not just focusing on enforcement at the source.

Environmental crimes, including illegal logging and mining, are highly profitable, undermining sustainable development and climate action. These activities are often treated as environmental offenses but represent a significant global criminal economy.

Proceeds are laundered through ordinary transactions, with illegally sourced goods acquiring legitimate paperwork and passing through multiple hands, obscuring their origin and environmental damage.

Larger profits are made further down the supply chain by financiers and integrators into the legal economy, not just extractors. Criminal organizations often diversify into these activities.

Individuals involved in extraction are often poor, operating in survival economies. Criminal groups exploit these vulnerabilities, making it difficult to leave these destructive cycles.

Enforcement efforts often focus on lower levels, with limited impact. Disrupting markets requires targeting organizers through financial investigations and regional cooperation.

To combat these crimes, efforts must follow the commodity and money through the entire system, focusing on processing, trade, and finance. Institutional coordination remains a challenge.

Consumer regulations are increasing pressure on companies to prove legality. Addressing root causes at extraction points, like providing livelihoods, is also crucial.

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