Our world is facing a triple crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss, and widespread social injustice. Nature crime is driving all three.

Illegal forms of mining, logging, fishing, wildlife trade, and land grabbing wreak destruction on some of the world’s most crucial ecosystems and visit violence and fear upon communities. These crimes are complex and rely on corruption at local levels and criminality within global financial systems and supply chains.

It won’t be possible to safeguard people, nature, and climate without understanding and eradicating these crimes. This report aims to provide key information on how these crimes work, their convergences with other forms of serious organized crime, and recommends approaches to tackling this critical issue.

Key Findings:

Nature crime is integrally linked with other crimes, including corruption, complex money laundering and tax evasion, narcotics and arms dealing, human trafficking for forced labor, and violence against environmental and land defenders.

Effectively preventing, reducing, and combating nature crime requires five broad strategies:

  • Strengthening national and international legal frameworks and enforcement mechanisms
  • Combating financial crime and corruption linked to nature crimes
  • Protecting the rights of workers, rural communities, and Indigenous Peoples and empowering civil society
  • Expanding multi-sector approaches
  • Deploying innovative tools and technologies to fight nature crime