Transnational environmental crime in the Asia-Pacific: Characteristics and key issues

Transnational environmental crime (TEC) is one of the fastest-growing areas of criminal activity, globally worth billions of dollars. It includes illegal logging and timber smuggling, wildlife trafficking, the black market in ozone-depleting substances (ODS) and other prohibited or regulated chemicals, the illegal trade in hazardous and toxic wastes, and what is known in the environmental governance lexicon as IUU (illegal, unreported and unregulated) fishing. TEC constitutes a seemingly intractable dimension of the non-compliance and enforcement problem that is central to global environmental governance. It is also an issue of increasing interest to the community of practice and scholars interested in transnational crime more generally. There is no doubt that those engaged in TEC include both resource-specific smuggling rings and organized crime groups for whom various individuals of fauna and flora, other environmental resources and pollutants are just one more commodity that can generate profit.