Countering Environmental Corruption Practitioners Forum

Working groups

Land corruption

Land corruption jeopardizes conservation outcomes, climate progress, and human rights by creating insecure land tenure and enabling land grabbing and other negative behaviors. Members of this group explore land grabbing and associated corruption, how it is negatively impacting people and the environment, and possible solutions.

Follow-the-money

Criminals engaged in environmental crimes and corruption often seek to hide their profits behind opaque ownership arrangements and by moving the proceeds through complex financial systems that make it difficult for law enforcement to trace. Follow-the-money techniques are essential to detect, investigate and prosecute environmental criminals and corrupt facilitators. This group is a peer network for professionals to share experiences and troubleshoot challenges.

Open data

The ability to swiftly analyze publicly available data on government licensing, public procurement, asset disclosures, tax records, financial allocations, and other interactions can be a game-changer for uncovering red flags of corruption. Members of this group explore emerging opportunities to collaborate in this evolving area.

Climate finance

Corruption is a major driver of the climate crisis. The cost of responding to, adapting to and mitigating the worst effects of global heating, will be immense, and these financial investments create tempting opportunities for corruption. This group bridges anti-corruption and conservation professionals to advance solutions that can strengthen the integrity of climate finance.

Takeaways on how can trade data trace illegal flows of timber?

This meeting introduced the use of trade discrepancies data to tackle illegal timber flows. TRAFFIC presented a new tool, TimberStats, to contribute to the analysis. Recordings of the presentations from Camilo Pardo-Herrera, Senior Analyst, Terrorism, Transnational Crime and Corruption Center (TraCCC), and Fred Ellis, Wildlife Trade Analyst and Financial Specialist are shared here.

The true cost of corruption: Inside Madagascar’s endangered tortoise trade

Madagascar's critically endangered radiated tortoises face extinction by 2050, driven by illegal trade networks fuelled by systemic corruption. A seizure in Thailand in 2024 revealed the scale of this crisis, with more than 1,200 tortoises and 48 lemurs smuggled out of Madagascar. Corruption permeates every stage of the supply chain - from poaching enabled by poverty and bribery, to transport facilitated by political interference, to lenient legal processes influenced by favouritism.

"Green" anti-corruption practitioners need a safe space to exchange ideas and experiences – both good and bad. Many individual practitioners show tremendous commitment, but close collaboration and peer learning will give them greater strength to stand up to sophisticated global networks of environmental criminals.

Juhani Grossmann, Head, Green Corruption programme, Basel Institute on Governance

Environmental corruption is a systemic problem that costs trillions of dollars, affects the lives and livelihoods of billions of people, and threatens the future of our planet. With more than 500 members, this network is bridging the conservation and anti-corruption communities to enhance practice and scale solutions.

Elizabeth Hart, Senior Director and Chief of Party, WWF – Targeting Natural Resource Corruption project

For TRAFFIC, fighting illegal wild species trade also means exploring how corruption undermines any conservation efforts. The Practitioners Forum gives us the opportunity to find allies who share this vision as well as to learn about new tools and best practices in incorporating counter-corruption activities into our environmental work.

Gabriel Šípoš, Anti-corruption Coordinator, TRAFFIC

Environmental corruption threatens to dismantle and reverse efforts to address our planet's most pressing challenge. Convinced that multi-stakeholder and multi-pronged solutions are critical to countering such corruption, this diverse network is an important step in that direction.

Anoukh de Soysa, Climate Governance Specialist, Transparency International

If we want to win the fight against the climate crisis and protect our planet, we have to get environmental corruption under control. For years, I have been dreaming of such a platform to bring together the two key communities that we need to see working hand in hand: environmental and governance practitioners! I am looking forward to fruitful collaborations!

Brice Böhmer, Climate & Environment Lead, Transparency International

We are a network of anti-corruption and conservation professionals passionate about countering environmental corruption.

Through the Practitioners Forum, we combine our talents and expertise to innovate, collaborate, exchange knowledge and information, and scale solutions from the ground up.