Between 50 to 90 per cent of logging in key tropical countries of the
Amazon basin, Central Africa and South East Asia is being carried out by
organized crime threatening efforts to combat climate change, deforestation,
conserve wildlife and eradicate poverty.
Globally, illegal logging now accounts
for between 15 and 30 per cent of the overall trade, according to a new
report from the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and INTERPOL.
Forests worldwide bind Carbon Dioxide
and store it – known as Green Carbon – and help mitigate climate
change. However deforestation, largely of tropical rainforests, is responsible
for an estimated 17 per cent of all man-made emissions – 50 per cent more
than that from ships, aviation and land transport combined.
The Rapid Response Report entitled
“Green Carbon: Black Trade” says that the illegal trade, worth between
US$30-100 billion annually, hampers the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation
and forest Degradation (REDD) initiative – one of the principal tools
for catalyzing positive environmental change, sustainable development,
job creation and reducing emissions.
With the increase in organized
criminal activity, INTERPOL has also noted associated crimes such as murder,
violence and atrocities against indigenous forest dwellers.
The report concludes that without
an internationally coordinated enforcement effort, illegal loggers and
cartels will continue to shift operations from one haven to another to
pursue their profitable trade at the expense of the environment, local
economies and even the lives of indigenous peoples.
The report was released at the World Forest conference in Rome at an event
with UN REDD, a coalition of UNEP, the UN Development Programme (UNDP)
and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
REDD and the expanded REDD+ initiative
provide national and international legal frameworks, including agreements,
conventions and certification schemes, to reduce illegal logging and support
sustainable practices. The report said that if REDD+ is to be sustainable
over the long term, payments to communities for their conservation efforts
need to be higher than the returns from activities that lead to environmental
degradation.
“Funding to better manage forests
represents an enormous opportunity to not only address climate change but
to reduce rates of deforestation, improve water supplies, cut soil erosion
and generate decent green jobs in natural resource management,” said Achim
Steiner, UN Under-Secretary General and UNEP Executive Director.
“Illegal logging can however undermine
this effort, robbing countries and communities of a sustainable future,
if the unlawful activities are more profitable than the lawful ones under
REDD+,” he added.
According to the report, criminal
groups are combining old-fashioned tactics such as bribes with high-tech
methods such as hacking government websites. Illegal operations are also
becoming more sophisticated as loggers and dealers shift activities between
regions and countries to avoid local and international policing efforts.
While significant progress has
been made through programmes such as REDD+, most efforts are targeted at
encouraging and creating incentives for legal trade – not combatting crime.
Unfortunately, current economic incentives are rarely effective in reducing
collusive corruption and illegal logging activities as there is little
risk of being apprehended.
“The threat posed to the environment
by transnational organized crime requires a strong, effective and innovative
international law enforcement response to protect these natural resources
and combat the corruption and violence tied to this type of crime, which
can also affect a country’s stability and security,” said Ronald K. Noble,
Secretary General of INTERPOL.
Estimates in the report that show
the scale of the problem is much wider than previously thought come from
improved knowledge of methods employed to launder illegal timber.
The report describes 30 ingenious
ways of procuring and laundering illegal timber. Primary methods include
falsification of logging permits, bribes to obtain permits (up to US$50,000
for a single permit in some countries), logging beyond concessions and
hacking government websites to obtain or change electronic permits.
One new way to launder millions
of cubic metres of wood is to mix it with legally cut timber and process
it and launder it through saw, paper, pulp and board mills. Another big
scam involves selling timber and wood originating from wild forests as
plantation timber – often with government subsidies for plantations.
Specific examples of illegal activity
include the following:
· Brazilian
authorities in 2008 said that hackers working for illegal logging cartels
in the Brazilian state of Pará gained access to transport and logging permits,
allowing the theft of an estimated 1.7 million cubic metres of forest.
A Brazilian federal prosecutor accused 107 companies, 30 ring leaders and
some 200 individuals of involvement, and sued these companies for almost
US$1.1 billion.
· In
2009 another Brazilian federal prosecutor investigated a scam allegedly
involving some 3,000 companies in the timber sector, which illegal timber
“eco-certified” and exported to the US, EU and Asia.
· In
Indonesia, the amount of logs allegedly produced through plantations increased
from 3.7 million cubic metres in 2000 to over 22 million in 2008. UN Office
on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) estimates suggested that less than half of the
plantations actually existed, reflecting a massive organized laundering
operation.
· In
Kalimantan, Indonesia, a bribe for a logging permit of around 20 km2
costs US$ 25-30,000. Import-export discrepancies suggest as much as a threefold
difference in claims between officially exported and actually imported
timber between Kalimantan and Malaysia – suggesting massive tax fraud.
· In
the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), over 200 rangers in the Virunga
National Park, famous for its gorillas, have been killed over the last
decade defending the park boundaries against militias operating a charcoal
trade estimated at over US$28 million annually.
· In
Uganda, the report describes incidences of military personnel escorting
loggers through border check points from the DRC to bring high-value illegal
timber onto local markets for sale.
A much-heralded apparent decline
in illegal logging in the 2000s was in fact a shift from obvious activity
to more advanced laundering operations by organized criminals, the report
adds. In many cases, a five–fold increase in timber sold as “plantation
wood” occurred in the years following law enforcement crack-downs.
In several instances, illegal timber
transported through border crossings and harbours accounted for up to 30
times the official volumes. However, this laundering and smuggling of timber
will enable law enforcement to act more firmly, as tax fraud is more strictly
enforced than environmental laws that are often weak.
Much of the laundering is made
possible by large flows of investment funds based in the EU, US and Asia
into companies involved in the crime, including in establishing plantation
operations with the sole purpose of laundering illegally cut timber.
In many cases, corrupt officials,
local military and police emerge with revenues up to ten times that available
through available legal pursuits. This seriously undermines much needed
investments in sustainable forest operations and alternative livelihood
incentives.
INTERPOL and UNEP, through its
GRID Arendal centre in Norway, have established a pilot-project called
LEAF (Law Enforcement Assistance to Forests) funded by the Norwegian Government
agency NORAD to develop an international system to combat organized crime
in close collaboration with key partners.
To complement and expand on such
efforts, the report makes the following key recommendations:
· Strengthen
and consider funding opportunities for a fully fledged LEAF programme under
INTERPOL and UNEP, in close collaboration with REDD+, the International
Consortium on Combating Wildlife Crime (ICCWC) and all relevant partners.
· Increase
national investigative and operational capacities through training on transnational
environmental crime.
· Centralize
all land-clearing permits to one national register, which will greatly
facilitate transparency and investigation.
· Classify
geographic regions based on suspected degree of illegality and restrict
flows of timber and wood products from such areas including shipping.
· Encourage
tax fraud investigations with a particular focus on plantations and mills.
· Reduce
investment attractiveness in forests enterprises active in regions identified
as areas of illegal logging by implementing an international INTERPOL-based
rating system of companies extracting, operating in or buying from regions
with a high degree of illegal activity.
The report “Green carbon: Black
trade“ by UNEP and INTERPOL is available at: www.grida.no and www.unep.org
High resolution graphics from the
report for free public use in media are also available for download at: www.grida.no
