Page 183 - Supplemento 2-2016 (ENG)

Tackling Environmental Crime throUgh standardized Methodologies

vant and evidence-based, we developed the Wildlife and Forest Crime Analytic
Toolkit. The Toolkit allows us, upon request, to go to a country and look at
what is happening there with respect to wildlife crime.

We check how well-organised and well-resourced government agencies
are in responding to wildlife crime, whether domestic legislative frameworks are
strong enough to tackle wildlife crime, whether investigators have a mandate to
investigate wildlife crime cases etc. Common findings of the Toolkit have
shown that often the legal framework for tackling wildlife crime is inadequate:
for example, in one country the environmental conservation agency has to
bring wildlife criminals to justice on the basis of antiquated conservation and
hunting laws.

Naturally, hunting laws are woefully inadequate in bringing down organi-
sed criminal groups.

In one Asian country we found that national legislation only criminalises
trafficking of Asian ivory, but not necessarily the African ivory that transits
through the country. The Toolkit has allowed us to identify further challenges,
and ultimately to work with donors in designing evidence-based interventions,
allowing the best possible use of the limited resources we have.

I would like to conclude by listing some of our recommendations.
We welcome recent developments at the European level, notably the
European Union Action Plan against Wildlife Trafficking. Unfortunately
though, wildlife crime laws across the European Union are different. Even
when there are Europe-wide rules, they tend to be enforced differently in dif-
ferent countries. Defence lawyers take full advantage of this. Measures to har-
monise legislation on wildlife crime across the European Union could be con-
sidered.
The international community needs to concentrate available resources on
interventions that work. In our experience, we have found that long-term men-
torships, embedding experts in relevant agencies and ministries to work with
national officials on a daily basis, are far superior to organizing short, one-off
training workshops. Mentors help officials investigate and build cases, both on
a national and regional level, and encourage agencies to work together, for
example to create nexuses between Africa and Asia.

181