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SIGNIFICANT OUTCOME: Project LEAF takes a lead
in combatting environmental crime in two continents
Under the auspices of INTERPOL’s Environmental Crime
Programme and project LEAF the Law Enforcement
Against Deforestation (LEAD) operation was undertak-
en with INTERPOL from 17 September to 17 November
2012. LEAD brought together law enforcement agencies
to combat forestry crime in Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colom-
bia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatema-
la, Honduras, Paraguay, Peru, and Venezuela. Under the
operation, officials carried out inspections and investiga-
tions on transport vehicles, retail premises, and individu-
als, as well as surveillance at ports and transport centres.
In the first phase, the seizures of wood and related prod-
ucts were estimated at more than 50,000 m3 of wood,
equivalent to some 2,000 truckloads of timber. The total
value of the seized timber is estimated at around USD
8 million. In phase two, approximately 292,000 m3 of
wood was seized, equivalent to around 19,500 truckloads
of timber, and valued at USD 39 million.
See:
media-releases/2012/N20120913
As part of INTERPOL’s Project Wisdom and Project
LEAF, more than 240 kg of elephant ivory and 856 tim-
ber logs were seized and 660 people arrested during
an INTERPOL-coordinated operation combating ivory
trafficking and illegal logging across Southern and East-
ern Africa. Also seized were 20 kg of rhino horns, 302
bags of charcoal, 637 firearms, nearly 2,000 rounds of
ammunition, 30 chainsaws, 200 kilos of cannabis and
khat, 65 pellets of heroin, 47 animal parts and 44 vehi-
cles. The month-long operation, from 26 September to
26 October 2013, supported by the Wildcat Foundation
and the Norwegian Agency for Development Coopera-
tion (NORAD), involved wildlife enforcement officers,
forest authorities, park rangers, police and customs of-
ficers from five countries - Mozambique, South Africa,
Swaziland, Tanzania and Zimbabwe.
See:
media-releases/2013/PR151
In 2012-2013 three UNEP Rapid Response Assessments
on environmental crime were launched, all co-funded by
UNEP and donor countries. All received extensive global
media coverage and are repeatedly quoted worldwide, in-
cluding in the UN General Assembly.
Green Carbon, Black Trade: Illegal Logging, Tax Fraud and
Laundering in the World’s Tropical Forests, was released on
27 September 2012 during World Forestry Week hosted by
the FAO in Rome. The report, jointly edited and launched
by GRID-Arendal and the INTERPOL Environmental
Crime Programme, focuses on the increasingly sophisti-
cated tactics being deployed in illegal logging and identi-
fies options for reducing both deforestation and carbon
emissions.87
SIGNIFICANT OUTCOME: Evidence underpinning action
The UNEP Rapid Response Assessment - Green Carbon,
Black Trade revealed that illegal logging has a global val-
ue of USD 30-100 billion and is responsible for 50-90%
of the deforestation in key tropical countries. In addition,
illegal logging represents 8-14% of global CO2 emis-
sions. Major countries, including Brazil, referenced the
report in media when announcing decisions to enhance
the effort against organized crime and illegal logging.
Nadia Pontes,
AFP, October 10, 2012
Two more Rapid Response Assessments were produced
during the first quarter of 2013. The UNEP report Stolen
Apes: The Illicit Trade in Chimpanzees, Gorillas, Bono-
bos and Orangutans 88 analyzes the scale and scope of the
illegal trade in apes and highlights the growing links to
sophisticated trans-boundary crime networks, which law
enforcement networks are struggling to contain. The re-
port was prepared by GRID-Arendal and the Great Apes
Survival Partnership (GRASP). Another report, prepared
by GRID-Arendal for UNEP, CITES, IUCN and TRAFFIC,
Elephants in the Dust: The African Elephant Poaching Crisis,89
provides an overview of the current state of the African
elephant and recommendations for action to ensure its
protection. Both reports were launched in early March, at
side events at the 16th Meeting of the Conference of the
Parties of CITES held in Bangkok, Thailand90 and were in-
tended to influence decisions at the COP.
SIGNIFICANT OUTCOME: National ivory action plans
On the very last day of the CITES COP16, an agreement
was reached on concrete actions to be taken by a group
of eight countries identified as the worst offenders in the
illegal ivory trade chain (the supply states Kenya, Tanza-
nia and Uganda; the consumer states China and Thailand;
and the transit countries Malaysia, Viet Nam and the Phil-
ippines). According to this agreement, the countries are
committed to quickly develop national ivory action plans
and to take urgent measures to implement and report on
these plans. The Whilst the Elephants in the Dust report
cannot claim attribution for this new policy, it is likely to
have been an important resource for raising awareness as
it was launched prior to the COP discussions on this issue.
Nadia Pontes,
AFP, October 10, 2012)
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