Environmental crime worth billions is climate fight’s blind spot

Robert Muggah is co-founder of the Igarapé Institute, a Brazilian think-tank.

Environmental crime - from illegal logging and gold mining to wildlife trafficking and toxic waste - has long been sidelined in climate diplomacy. COP agendas were consumed with emissions, adaptation, and finance.

Meanwhile, the illicit economies accelerating deforestation and biodiversity loss were left in the shadows of the UN's framework convention on climate change (UNFCCC) and absent from nationally determined contributions (NDCs) and Global Stocktakes. The result was a dangerous blind spot: negotiators talked-up ambition while ignoring the illicit markets hollowing it out.

That is beginning to change. At COP28, civil society and agencies such as the FACT coalition, Igarape Institute, Interpol and the UN Office for Drugs and Crime pushed environmental crime onto the agenda.

By COP29 in Baku, governments were under pressure to integrate crime disruption and anti-corruption strategies into national plans. And in 2024, Brazil, together with Peru and France, spearheaded a resolution at the UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (UNTOC) to plug legal gaps and strengthen justice responses.

Notwithstanding incremental diplomatic progress, formal recognition of environmental crime in the UNFCCC remains patchy. Environmental crime still sits outside the main negotiating tracks, despite its corrosive effects on the rule of law, investment, and climate action.

The scale of these crimes is staggering: illegal economies linked to forests and minerals are estimated to generate hundreds of billions of dollars annually, rivaling the value of legal commodity exports.

Left unchecked, they not only accelerate emissions and biodiversity collapse but also deter the very investors needed for a low-carbon transition. The urgency is clearest in the Amazon. Research by the Igarapé Institute and the Amazon Investor Coalition show organized crime groups, armed dissidents and local elites driving land grabbing, cattle ranching, and illegal gold mining across hundreds of municipalities.

In Brazil, opaque land registries, corruption and underfunded enforcement create fertile ground for organized crime groups such as Primeiro Comando da Capital, known as PCC, and Comando Vermelho, or CV, which control territories in tens of Brazilian cities.

In Colombia, ex-guerrillas and gangs impose parallel governance systems, squeezing communities and climate projects alike. These dynamics are degrading ecosystems and undermining confidence in climate pledges.

There are signs of progress. Between June and July 2025, Operation Green Shield, a coordinated action involving over 1,500 police officers across Brazil, Peru, Colombia and Ecuador, led to 94 arrests, US$ 64 million in asset seizures and the rescue of thousands of trafficked animals. 

Brazil is scaling land regularisation schemes and Indigenous territorial surveillance, while Colombia advances a multipurpose cadastre, justice-strengthening programs and green corridors. Civil society groups are deploying digital platforms that monitor land use in real time and share data with authorities and investors.

In a bid to stem the growing influence of organized crime, Brazil relaunched the plan for the prevention and control of deforestation in the Amazon, or PPCDAM, and announced a new security and sovereignty plan called AMAS in 2023. Bolstered by a new international police center and targeted operations, these interventions seek to halve deforestation by 2030 and redouble law enforcement measures to fight environment crime. 

Encouraging as these latest efforts are, they remain piecemeal. The upcoming COP30 summit in November in Brazil's Amazonian city of Belém offers a pivotal chance to move environmental crime from the margins of climate diplomacy to the center.

What would that look like? At a minimum, COP30 should deliver formal recognition of environmental crime as a cross-cutting obstacle to mitigation and adaptation, just as “loss and damage” shifted from the periphery to the mainstream.

Next, governments could commit to integrating governance and rule-of-law reforms into their country climate plans, including both NDCs and adaptation plans.

Reports must track not only emissions reduction efforts but also monitor land transparency, anti-corruption measures, and policing and judicial capacity, all vital for de-risking territories and unlocking climate finance.

Negotiators might also consider institutional collaboration to scale-up the fight against environmental crime. For example, a joint UNFCCC–UNTOC mechanism could align climate, justice and security responses, ensuring enforcement and financial tracking reinforce climate goals.

Governments could likewise expand support for community-led enforcement: Indigenous surveillance networks, community ranger schemes and digital monitoring platforms that safeguard rights and ecosystems such as those being tested in Brazil and Colombia. Ultimately, COP30 must prioritize finance with integrity.

Brazil's proposed $125bn Tropical Forests Forever Facility is emblematic, rewarding measurable reductions in deforestation, ring-fencing funds for Indigenous and local communities, and potentially creating guardrails against criminal capture of climate and nature finance.

If COP30 is to matter, negotiators must move beyond rhetorical nods. Tackling environmental crime is not just about safeguarding forests: it is about preserving the credibility of the climate regime itself. Tropical forests, such as the Amazon, are the frontline.

Ignore the illicit economies and climate goals will fail. Confront them, and COP30 could unlock the resilience the planet urgently needs.