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Strengthening the Weakest Links: An Innovative Approach to Enforcement Conservation International Center for Conservation and Government Enforcement Initiative Anita Sundari Akella December 2004. Why Enforcement?. Why Enforcement?.
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Strengthening the Weakest Links: An Innovative Approach to Enforcement Conservation International Center for Conservation and Government Enforcement Initiative Anita Sundari Akella December 2004
Why Enforcement? Why Enforcement? • Enforcement of PA boundaries, natural resource use rules and regulations is weak • Illegal timber trade $150 billion per year • Illegal fishing 30% of total catches • Illegal wildlife trade $6 – 7 billion per year • Innovative conservation strategies are stronger with good enforcement • Ecosystem Services Payments • Tradable Development Rights • PA Creation
What Are Conservationists Doing About It? • Solutions are ad-hoc and often limited to individual sites • No methodical analysis of why enforcement is weak • No comparison across sites to draw global lessons learned
Conventional Wisdom on Enforcement • Hire and equip more detection agents • Raise fines These strategies, in isolation, are not working!
Enforcement: An Economic Perspective • Illegal activity is fundamentally an economic issue • To deter it, disincentives must be bigger than incentives driving illegal activity • Enforcement is also an economic issue
Innovation: The Enforcement Economics Approach ED = Pd * Pa|d * Pp|a * Pc|p * Penalty * e-rt Where: ED Enforcement Disincentive Pd Probability of detection Pa|d Probability of arrest given detection Pp|a Probability of prosecution given arrest Pc|p Probability of conviction given prosecution e-rt discount factor t Time between detection and penalty
Risky Business? Only 1% of crimes result in a conviction
Applying the theory in practice • Bahia, Brazil: Illegal logging, illegal deforestation • Selva Maya, Mexico: Illegal wildlife trade • Palawan, Philippines: Cyanide/Dynamite fishing • Papua, Indonesia: Illegal logging, illegal wildlife trade
Atlantic Forest BAHIA, BRASIL Incentives to illegally log or deforest: $75.00 Enforcement Disincentive: $6.44
Selva Maya CHIAPAS, MEXICO Incentives to Illegally Hunt/Trade Wildlife: $191.57 Enforcement Disincentive: $5.66
Papua Province INDONESIA Incentives to Illegally Ship Timber: $91,967.36 Enforcement Disincentive: $6.47
Calamianes Islands PALAWAN, PHILIPPINES Calamianes Islands PALAWAN, PHILIPPINES Incentives to Dynamite/Cyanide Fish: $70.57 Enforcement Disincentive: $0.09
What does this mean for conservation? • For complex reasons, enforcement is abysmal in many of the countries where we work. • Less than 1%of environmental crimes result in any penalty whatsoever. • When it comes to the environment, CRIME PAYS!
Key Challenges • Interagency cooperation across enforcement chain • Adequate budgetary resources • Consistent performance monitoring and adaptive management system for all agencies • Regular, ongoing capacity-building programs, jointly developed • Strong, clear and adequate laws and policies
Priority: Reform Enforcement Policy • Increase budget allocation to environmental enforcement agencies across the chain • Strengthen, clarify, and consolidate legislation • Establish guidelines for inter-agency cooperation and annual performance reporting • Create the legal framework for alternative enforcement systems to operate
Priority: Implement Adaptive Management • Develop standardized data management systems for use across agencies • Reach agreement on enforcement statistics (indicators) to be produced annually • Train key staff in use of enforcement economics methodology to analyze statistics and develop strategic enforcement strengthening plans • Require annual publication (public disclosure) of enforcement performance report
Priority: Build Enforcement Capacity • Improve performance of detection agents, prosecutors and judges through periodic training • Involve all agencies in the process of designing curricula for each audience • Take advantage of existing technical assistance partnerships with donor government agencies • Incorporate specialized local NGOs, think tanks and institutes