Transnational environmental crime: black markets in gold, wildlife and timber

Transnational environmental crime is a growing problem causing multifaceted damage to the world. The proliferation of environmental crime exacerbates the global destruction of ancient rainforests; the mass extinction of species; and the pollution of the atmosphere, land, and water, negatively affecting planet Earth. By uncovering its incentives and features based on empirical research in different environmental crime landscapes around the world, this presentation focusses on understanding environmental crime and addressing regulatory loopholes from a criminological perspective.

This presentation introduces the topic of transnational environmental crime, indicating the scope, magnitude, and harm as well as the criminogenic asymmetries that contribute to environmental crime. Then the perpetrator-victim continuum, the legal-illegal interfaces, and the convergence with other crimes will be analyzed. The presentation concludes with a discussion about the regulatory and enforcement implications in the response to environmental crime.

Dr Daan van Uhm’s bio: Daan is Associate Professor of Green Criminology at the Utrecht University School of Law, Willem Pompe Institute for Criminal Law and Criminology. He has conducted research on various forms of environmental crime, including illegal mining  in Latin America, wildlife trafficking in Southeast Asia, deforestation in Central Africa, and the criminalization of ecocide. Daan van Uhm obtained his PhD in Criminology at Utrecht University in 2016 (The Illegal Wildlife Trade: Inside the World of Poachers, Smugglers and Traders, Springer). In 2018 he received the Veni grant of the Dutch Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) for his research project 'The Diversification of Organized Crime into the Illegal Trade in Natural Resources' and in 2022 the ERC Starting Grant (European Research Council) for the research project 'Green Crimes and Joint Crime Ventures: Laundering Natural Resources'. Van Uhm primarily focuses on research in the context of green crimes and harms.