For more than a decade, the illegal trade in Burmese teak has stood as a stark example of how environmental crime, corruption and conflict intersect within global markets. Recent enforcement actions in Europe and the US mark an important shift – authorities are increasingly recognising that importing timber linked to military-controlled supply chains is not […]
Forests are often talked about as places of nature and wildlife, but they are also deeply connected to our economies and everyday lives. This year’s International Day of Forests (21 March) highlights the link between forests and the economy and the reality is simple – when forests are healthy, economies are more stable; when forests […]
Last year, authorities in Vietnam indicted a total of 22 defendants for the crimes of smuggling, bribes, fraud and the abuse of public power related to the illegal trade of approximately $71 million worth of timber from January 2021 to January 2024. This case included 13,376 containers of wood veneers made from acacia, eucalyptus, rubberwood […]
Malawi has long featured as a key player in the global wildlife trafficking scene. As far back as 2002, Malawian wildlife trafficking networks were heavily implicated when Singaporean officials intercepted 6.2 tonnes of ivory in what was then the largest ivory smuggling case detected since the introduction of the 1989 ban on international trade in […]
The UK produces the second largest amount of plastic waste per capita globally, with an estimated 1.7 billion items of plastic discarded weekly – averaging 90 billion items per person each year. More than half of this material is incinerated, having risen from 46 per cent in 2022 to 58 per cent in 2024. This […]
Our latest Wildlife report, A Pivotal Player – Vietnam’s ongoing fight against the illegal wildlife trade, provides an updated look at elephant ivory, pangolin scale and rhino horn trafficking implicating Vietnam between 2022-24. In this special follow-up blog – based on the work of our Investigation & Intelligence team’s painstaking tracking of individuals and analysing […]