1,721,035 research outputs found
Uncovering the illegal wildlife trade
No full textThis book is based on four years of PhD research on the illegal trade in wildlife by the criminologist Daan van Uhm. In this study the author explores the nature of the illegal wildlife trade. Wildlife confiscations over a ten-year period in the European Union were analysed and presented by graphics and maps to provide an overall picture of the visible illegal trade. The primary research is based upon ethnographic fieldwork in important source countries of the illegal trade, such as Russia, Morocco and China. Conversations with informants directly involved in the illegal business ensure a unique insight into this lively black market. The author reveals the social world behind the illegal activities and how the illegal wildlife business is organized. This is a story about illegal entrepreneurs smuggling tiger bone and rhino horn to be used in Chinese medicine, live monkeys destined for the Western pet industry and caviar for the upper-classes of society. Legal and illegal businesses collide where corrupt officials, legally registered companies, wildlife farms and sophisticated criminal organizations all have a share. The route of the illegal wildlife trade is followed from poor poaching areas to rich business districts as it is smuggled, laundered, stolen, sold, exchanged, manufactured and transformed from animals or eggs into desirable items in the West
Environmental crimes, illicit economies and the emergence of a Mekong Crime Complex
No full textSince Myanmar’s fragile experiment in democracy was derailed by a military coup in February 2021 the country has transformed into a global centre of criminality. A global organised crime index based on data collected even before the coup gave Myanmar an organised criminality ranking of 3rd in the world (out of 193 countries), as well as placing it 1st in both Asia and the Southeast Asian region (Global Initiative, 2021). In 2018 it had been ranked 82nd out of 84 economies in the world, labelled as an enabler of crime and noted for its manifest lack of commitment to countering illicit trade (behind only Libya and Iraq; Transnational Alliance to Combat Illicit Trade, 2018). Since then, the ensuing civil war, reductions in state law enforcement capacity and indeed increased state participation as a criminal actor itself, have all pushed Myanmar into a position as the current global epicentre of transnational organised crime. Green or environmental crimes have long been an important feature of this criminal landscape. The fracturing of state authority and policing and regulatory capacity, as well as the increasing permissiveness that has accompanied the conflict, has done little to reign in the size and destructive impacts of the many criminal enterprises that continue to loot Myanmar’s environmental resource inheritance
Uncovering the illegal wildlife trade: Inside the world of poachers, smugglers and traders
No full textThis book is based on four years of PhD research on the illegal trade in wildlife by the criminologist Daan van Uhm. In this study the author explores the nature of the illegal wildlife trade. Wildlife confiscations over a ten-year period in the European Union were analysed and presented by graphics and maps to provide an overall picture of the visible illegal trade. The primary research is based upon ethnographic fieldwork in important source countries of the illegal trade, such as Russia, Morocco and China. Conversations with informants directly involved in the illegal business ensure a unique insight into this lively black market. The author reveals the social world behind the illegal activities and how the illegal wildlife business is organized. This is a story about illegal entrepreneurs smuggling tiger bone and rhino horn to be used in Chinese medicine, live monkeys destined for the Western pet industry and caviar for the upper-classes of society. Legal and illegal businesses collide where corrupt officials, legally registered companies, wildlife farms and sophisticated criminal organizations all have a share. The route of the illegal wildlife trade is followed from poor poaching areas to rich business districts as it is smuggled, laundered, stolen, sold, exchanged, manufactured and transformed from animals or eggs into desirable items in the West
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