Political Failure Fuels Global Environmental Crime – EIA Warns

Environmental crimes have become more sophisticated, profitable and destructive over the past 18 years because governments have failed to muster the political will, resources and coordination needed to tackle them, the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) has warned.

In a new report, Crimes that Affect the Environment – Still a Critical Threat to Our Future, released on Tuesday, the London-based organisation said environmental crime should no longer be treated as a collection of isolated regulatory violations but as a major form of transnational organised crime driving climate change, pollution and biodiversity loss.

The warning comes 18 years after EIA’s landmark 2008 report, Environmental Crime – A Threat to Our Future, which called for a coordinated international response to the growing threat.

According to the agency, many of the weaknesses identified in 2008 — including fragmented laws, weak deterrence, inadequate cross-border cooperation and insufficient political commitment — remain largely unresolved.

EIA Securing Criminal Justice Programme Lead, Justin Gosling, said the situation had become more serious because criminals had continued to innovate while enforcement systems remained inadequate.

“Many of the structural weaknesses identified in 2008 — fragmented legislation, weak deterrence, limited cross-border cooperation and insufficient political will — persist today,” Gosling said.

He warned that the consequences of continued inaction were becoming increasingly difficult, and in some cases impossible, to reverse.

The report identifies climate, pollution, waste, forest, fisheries and wildlife crimes as interconnected activities increasingly driven by organised criminal networks.

It said illegal trade in hydrofluorocarbon refrigerant gases alone costs European governments an estimated €77 million annually in lost VAT, while legitimate industry suffered more than €400 million in losses in 2020.

Waste crime, described as one of the fastest-growing forms of environmental crime, includes fraudulent recycling operations and the illegal shipment of plastic waste to countries where it is falsely declared recyclable before being processed in unlicensed facilities.

The agency also highlighted illegal logging, forest conversion and illicit mining as major drivers of deforestation and environmental destruction, warning that criminal mining operations are increasingly associated with mercury contamination, corruption and violence against forest-dependent communities.

Illegal fishing was similarly identified as a multibillion-dollar criminal enterprise, accounting for an estimated 15 to 30 per cent of global annual catches and generating up to $23.5 billion annually.

Beyond depriving coastal countries of revenue, EIA said illegal fishing fuels other crimes, including labour exploitation and human trafficking, while destructive bycatch threatens already endangered marine species.

Wildlife trafficking also remains a highly profitable enterprise. The report said trafficking data recorded approximately 4,000 species between 2015 and 2021, while more than 70 per cent of emerging zoonotic diseases are linked to wildlife.

EIA said corruption, weak prosecution of senior criminal actors and the ability to move illicit commodities through legitimate supply chains had helped make environmental crime a “high-reward, low-risk” business.

Gosling said the international community already possessed many of the legal instruments required to respond, including the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organised Crime (UNTOC).

“This is not a failure of available tools — the legal frameworks and cooperation mechanisms needed to act already exist,” he said.

“The failure has been one of political will, resourcing and coordination.”

EIA is therefore calling for the more effective use of UNTOC against environmental crime, stronger cross-border enforcement and renewed political commitment to treating environmental crime as a global security threat.

The agency said failure to act would allow criminal networks to continue exploiting environmental resources while transferring the economic, social and ecological costs to governments, communities and future generations.