Other Resources

Operational considerations for the integrity principles for benefit-sharing mechanisms in nature-based solutions

This paper demonstrates the application of WWF's Integrity Principles for benefit sharing mechanisms (BSMs) in nature-based solutions (NbS). It is adapted from specific guides created for three WWF landscape teams, offering a general version that can be adapted for other landscapes and organizations. This guide is organized into four key pillars of effective governance: (1) full and effective participation, (2) transparency and accountability, (3) fairness, and (4) effectiveness. Each pillar is subdivided into smaller elements containing prompts and questions to assist project implementers. This guide complements WWF's Integrity principles for benefit sharing in forest NbS for climate mitigation paper, which proposed 12 principles for how benefits of NbS can be shared in a way that is fair, accountable, rights-based, and effective.

The political economy of a green recovery in Ukraine

This new Policy Brief discusses the political economy of a green recovery in Ukraine. It analyzes how corruption might inhibit green, equitable and sustainable reconstruction in Ukraine, the drivers of this corruption and the political opportunities for tackling it. It recommends joining up the anti-corruption and environmental reform agendas, ensuring citizen and community involvement in post-war recovery and building on wartime community self-help initiatives. The brief is based on research undertaken in 2022 by Anna Paterson, Andrii Biletskyi, Lyubov Palyvoda and Sam Bickersteth for the Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF) Ukraine, with support from the Targeting Natural Resource Corruption project.

Understanding power and politics for better conservation outcomes

This blog explains the utility of adopting Political Economy Analysis (PEA) in conservation to improve the effectiveness of conservation efforts and minimize unintended consequences of their work. It highlights that illegal and unsustainable natural resource exploitation enabled by crime and corruption, and related social and environmental impacts, occur because powerful groups and individuals benefit from such activities. A PEA can help conservationists understand power dynamics and tackle harmful vested interests (those ways in which groups and people benefit from damage to the natural environment) and corruption (the abuse of power for private gain). The blog concludes by highlighting available resources to assist conservationists in understanding and applying PEA and underscores the significance of PEA in guiding informed decision-making for conservation in complex, political environments.

Methodological guide for corruption risk assessments in fisheries value chains

This methodological guide, developed by WWF Peru, serves to assess the corruption risks in the squid and mahi mahi fisheries value chains in Peru. While initially tailored to the specific context of Peru, this guide offers adaptability for broader application across sectors and contexts. It provides a simplified, yet comprehensive, overview of the corruption risk assessment process, making it a valuable starting point for practitioners seeking to conduct similar assessments. This guide draws from WWF Peru's project experience and is organized around four key methodological phases, with information on the sources used to design each part of the process.

Red flags for conservation: Infrastructure safeguards for nature

Infrastructure is crucial for human life and economic growth but has led to declines in biodiversity. Weaknesses in infrastructure planning, procurement, and implementation create opportunities for corruption that harms nature. This guide offers indicators to identify infrastructure risks, including 22 red flags for conservation and 31 indicators for uncovering corruption risks. These indicators help shed light on potential harm to nature from corruption or collusion in infrastructure projects.

Convergence of wildlife crime and other forms of transnational organized crime in Eastern and Southern Africa

As wildlife crime has increased in seriousness and profitability, it has also developed corrupt support systems and associated illicit financial flows. This report aims to analyze these dynamics and the breadth of crime convergence related to the illegal wildlife trade (IWT) in Eastern and Southern Africa, as well as where on the wildlife crime value chain convergence is happening.

Manual for Serbian civil society organizations: Processes of development and adoption of spatial and urban plans with special focus on protected areas

There are challenges facing the preservation and management of protected natural areas in Serbia, despite the country's positive regulations and commitments. Illegal construction and large capital projects have endangered these areas due to limited management opportunities and insufficient government action. On the other hand, civil society organizations which have the capacity to address these problems, often have no standing to act in procedures related to the protection of these areas, which further hinders their active participation. This manual helps Serbian civil society organizations understand rules of spatial and urban planning, opportunities for public participation, key illegal practices in the management and implementation of activities within protected areas, legal procedures, and how to improve citizen participation to combat corruption.

Who reaps the benefits? Integrity principles for benefit sharing in forest NbS for climate mitigation

This paper aims to centralize a shared statement of ambitious ethical guidelines, for discussion with the global community, that constitute the highest integrity for NbS benefit sharing. After discussion and refinement of these principles, WWF will seek to develop concrete, practical guidance for applying these principles to NbS interventions in several pilot landscapes.

Strategic framework: Political economy analysis for conservation impact (PEACI)

This strategic framework was developed by WWF’s Governance Practice to create a shared understanding of what political economy analysis (PEA) is and why it is important for conservation impact. The framework explores some useful PEA approaches and tools and explains how to integrate these into conservation programming. The framework is designed to be accessible to stakeholders across the WWF global network. Given the focus on practitioner-level challenges, it may also be a valuable point of reference for others in the conservation community who seek to address corruption via their programming.

Behavioral drivers of corruption facilitating illegal wildlife trade: Problem analysis and state of the field review

This Problem Analysis is a review of the efficacy and opportunities for using social norm and behavior change (SNBC) approaches to combat illegal wildlife trade (IWT) and other natural resource-related corruption. The report synthesizes the available information and suggests the next steps to redress this current lack of evidence. It seeks to understand what SNBC approaches might or might not work in fighting corruption and identify entry points for designing SNBC interventions that can effectively reduce corruption related to IWT.

Colombian fisheries and aquaculture sector: Overview of corruption

Corruption in the fisheries and aquaculture sector has been gaining more attention in recent years. However, the characteristics of fishing, that allows for illegal catch to be transferred from one vessel to another at sea, and particularly the use of both flags and ports of convenience, make it difficult to know through which states the money is flowing. To better identify corruption vulnerabilities, UNDOC has divided the sector’s value chain into seven stages, with different actors and different opportunities for corruption at each stage. Since Colombia’s fisheries sector is still small, there has been little research conducted on corruption in the area. Using this value chain approach, an assessment of vulnerable points for corruption in Colombian fisheries and aquaculture is made.

Preventing and Combating Corruption as it Relates to Crimes that Have an Impact on the Environment

This 2021 Guide prepared by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) Research and Trend Analysis Branch, Corruption and Economic Crime Branch, and the Global Programme for Combating Wildlife and Forest Crime, examines the role of corruption associated with crimes that have an impact on the environment, including wildlife, fisheries, forests, and other natural resources.

Corruption and criminality behind biodiversity loss in Colombia’s forests: Wildlife trafficking

WWF Colombia, Transparency for Colombia, the Foundation for Conservation and Sustainable Development, and InSight Crime teamed up to identify the facts of corruption and criminality behind the main drivers of deforestation, forest degradation and biodiversity loss in Colombia’s Amazon and Pacific regions. This video explores the factors fueling wildlife trafficking in Colombia’s Amazon and Pacific regions, including: a lack of information, criminal networks, corruption, permit falsification and abuse, and weak law enforcement.

Corruption and criminality behind biodiversity loss in Colombia’s forests: Land grabbing

WWF Colombia, Transparency for Colombia, the Foundation for Conservation and Sustainable Development, and InSight Crime teamed up to identify the facts of corruption and criminality behind the main drivers of deforestation, forest degradation and biodiversity loss in Colombia’s Amazon and Pacific regions. This video shares how protected territories in the northwestern Amazon region of Colombia, particularly those for indigenous communities or protected areas, have been targeted for land grabs: the illegal seizure and private exploitation of land explicitly set aside for a public or protected purpose.

Corruption and criminality behind biodiversity loss in Colombia’s forests: Illegal mining

WWF Colombia, Transparency for Colombia, the Foundation for Conservation and Sustainable Development, and InSight Crime teamed up to identify the facts of corruption and criminality behind the main drivers of deforestation, forest degradation and biodiversity loss in Colombia’s Amazon and Pacific regions. This video explores the role criminal actors have been playing in illegal mining, along with how corruption (with the involvement of government actors) underpins the lucrative trade’s operation.

Corruption and criminality behind biodiversity loss in Colombia’s forests: Illegal logging

WWF Colombia, Transparency for Colombia, the Foundation for Conservation and Sustainable Development, and InSight Crime teamed up to identify the facts of corruption and criminality behind the main drivers of deforestation, forest degradation and biodiversity loss in Colombia’s Amazon and Pacific regions. This video shares how illegal logging in Colombia’s Amazon and Pacific regions has been feeding a lucrative global market for illicitly sourced timber.

Social Norms and Corruption: An Overview

This short guide, from the Corruption, Justice and Legitimacy Program at the Fletcher School, presents the essential components of social norms that anti-corruption practitioners should understand. Social norms can prevent anti-corruption (or any) programming from changing behavior through their effect on people's expectations.

Technical Guidance on the Development Response to Organized Crime

This Technical Guidance from USAID offers a series of practical, important lessons for how development programming can target, respond to, and counter organized crime. For NRM practitioners with projects targeting organized crime, or even just operating in contexts where organized crime is significant, this Guidance is a helpful resource for designing and implementing projects for success.

The Role of Open Data in the Fight against Land Corruption

Land management, administration and allocation are all critical areas for land-based biodiversity conservation. Opening up land-related data, combining it with data from other sources, and making this information easily accessible to women and men equally could be a means to counteract corruption in these functions. But does open data and enhanced data transparency indeed help to counteract land corruption?

Corruption, informality and social norms

This Introductory Overview from TNRC partner the U4 Anti-Corruption Resource Centre focuses on the social conditions that may promote corrupt behaviors. There is no single "norm of corruption," and the effectiveness of anti-corruption measures is highly context-specific. Programs that aim to address the negative impact of corruption on natural resource management and conservation will benefit from assessing how specific norms, values and attitudes affect corruption dynamics in a given context.

The conservation-corruption conundrum: Understanding everyday relationships between rangers and communities

This paper from TNRC partner the U4 Anti-Corruption Resource Centre offers a look at how understanding the range of demands and pressures on rangers, especially in the context of corruption or conflict, can inform policy and practice to reduce the negative impact of corruption on conservation and natural resource management.

Reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in a context of nationalist oligarchy: Lessons from Indonesia

This U4 Brief examines two pilot programs for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) in Central Sulawesi to explore the ways that political dynamics can shape the processes and outcomes of conservation projects. It draw lessons for better integrating anti-corruption considerations into future anti-deforestation initiatives.

Thinking and Working Politically: Resources from USAID for Biodiversity Conservation

There is strong evidence that political factors overwhelmingly drive the loss of biodiversity, along with the corruption that facilitates it. Thinking and Working Politically (TWP) helps practitioners identify and stay attuned to the political dynamics that shape their operational context and affect the likelihood of achieving objectives.

Promoting a gender-sensitive approach to addressing corruption in the forestry sector

Research shows a link between poor corruption control and a high rate of deforestation. Increasing women’s active and meaningful participation in community forestry institutions may improve forest governance and the sustainability of resources. This 2019 paper from the U4 Anti-corruption Resource Center presents evidence on corruption in the forestry sector, gender and forestry, and offers suggestions for research, policy and practice.

Overcoming the pitfalls of engaging communities in anti-corruption programmes

Effective engagement of communities is a crucial strategy for anticorruption initiatives, as well as conservation initiatives. But achieving strong local involvement can present challenges for donors and practitioners. This 2020 paper from the U4 Anti-corruption Resource Center presents insights on how practitioners can overcome pitfalls of engaging communities in their anti-corruption work.

Discussion Note: Thinking and Working Politically and Strengthening Political Economy Analysis in USAID Biodiversity Programming

There is a growing consensus among researchers and analysts from foreign assistance agencies, multilateral donors, academia and civil society that development interventions often fail or produce suboptimal results because political realities have not been sufficiently taken into account. Because biodiversity is so fundamental to economic life, resilience, social stability and national security, projects undertaken in the conservation and natural resource management fields are inevitably affected by politics, power relations and political economy.

Organized Crime, Conflict, and Fragility: Assessing Relationships Through a Review of USAID Programs

This 2015 white paper from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is a useful reference for natural resource management practitioners seeking to address corruption’s impact on conservation outcomes in conflict-affected environments where organized crime is prevalent.

Small-Scale and Artisanal Mining: Impacts on Biodiversity in Latin America

This 2019 white paper from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) presents evidence on the environmental impact of artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) in Latin America, and identifies corruption as one element of a complex set of drivers.

Strengthening Rule of Law Approaches to Address Organized Crime

In 2018-2020, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and Management Systems International (MSI) hosted a series of roundtable discussions to better understand the dynamics between the rule of law and organized crime. Corruption clearly emerged as a key factor in shaping these dynamics.

Gender-based violence and environment linkages: The violence of inequality

This 2020 report from the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) consolidates knowledge and experiences gathered from across sectors and is a valuable reference for policymakers and practitioners to understand issues and potential interventions to address Gender-based Violence (GBV) as it relates to the environment. Among other forms of GBV, this report discusses sexual extortion by authority figures for access to land rights. Such extortion is a form of corruption that is linked to environmental outcomes.

Scaling Back Corruption: A Guide on Addressing Corruption for Wildlife Management Authorities

This 2019 Guide from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime provides a reference tool to assist wildlife management authorities, including Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) Management and Scientific Authorities, to assess risks and develop capabilities to tackle corruption risks that can undermine their work—and by doing so proactively reduce the occurrence, extent and negative impact of wildlife crime. In many countries, wildlife management authorities were set up to focus on conservation and tourism, leaving them ill-equipped to respond to the degree of crime and corruption that they now face.

Illegal Logging, Fishing and Wildlife Trade: The Costs and How to Combat It

This 2019 paper from the World Bank Group concludes that illegal logging, fishing and wildlife trade have a combined estimated value of USD 1 trillion or more per year and that governments in source countries forego an estimated USD 7-12 billion each year in potential revenues as a result of this illegality. The majority of these losses (over 90 percent) comes from estimated ecosystem services that are not currently priced by the market. The report recognizes corruption as a pervasive facilitating factor behind environmental crime and illicit trade and provides a basic road map to address the root causes of these illegal activities.

Countering Wildlife Trafficking through Tanzania’s Seaports

This 2019 report by TRAFFIC outlines vulnerabilities in transportation and customs capabilities that are exploited by criminal traffickers to move illicit wildlife products. African seaports that serve regional and international trade provide traffickers with multiple smuggling routes, and the container shipping industry particularly facilitates the movement of illicit goods. This report offers evidence from two seaports in Tanzania—Dar es Salaam and Zanzibar—on their involvement in wildlife trafficking. It also touches on the corruption that may be associated with organized criminal groups who orchestrate trafficking of wildlife, timber and fish.

Rotten Fish: A Guide on Addressing Corruption in the Fisheries Sector

This 2019 guide by UNODC focuses on addressing corruption in the fisheries sector. It is specifically designed to help policymakers with the difficult task of identifying the points in their legal and regulatory frameworks that are vulnerable to corruption risks, and to act to address these weaknesses. Moreover, it aims to sensitize the authorities working on fisheries management. Where corruption has already gained a foothold, the guide suggests ways to reduce its impact and develop safeguards to prevent its return.