TNRC Knowledge Hub - Conservation Challenge: Illegal logging and associated trade

Does your work focus on addressing illegal logging and associated trade? Are you concerned that corruption is driving deforestation and illegal timber flows? This page outlines three steps to start building anti-corruption approaches into your conservation programming.

The Challenge

• Corruption has been flagged as a critical factor in the loss of 420 million hectares of forests globally between 1990 and 2020.
• Conventional responses focus on strengthening law enforcement to intercept illegal logging, illegal wood trafficking, and criminal syndicates who use corruption to their advantage. These interventions are essential but insufficient.
• Reduce opportunities for corruption by advancing transparency in land use and forest management decisions and considering partnerships and new approaches to address how corruption may affect planned enforcement efforts and inclusive conservation approaches.

Three Steps to Follow

Whether you have decades of experience or are new to the field, you may not know exactly where corruption risks lie, how they might be influencing your conservation outcomes, and what can be done about them. Start by taking the 90-minute eCourse below.

Best results will come from layering interventions at multiple risk points. The first step is to think about who has power in your implementing context. You can then start to identify drivers and facilitators of corruption and entry points for—as well as limitations on—change. The resources below will help you to ask the right questions and identify those risk points.

Consider whether some of the programming avenues below would help to address your challenges. Take a moment to read these principles for getting started from recent experience testing anti-corruption approaches in various contexts.

Remember: Evidence suggests that targeting corruption through multiple approaches yields best results.