Does your work focus on enhancing the sustainability of legal supply chains for wildlife, timber and fish? Are you concerned that corruption is driving negative outcomes? This page outlines three steps to start building anti-corruption approaches into your conservation programming.
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.
This course introduces basic learning from anti-corruption research and practice to help break down the concept of corruption and expand understanding of the ways that it can be addressed in conservation programming. Case studies are included from the wildlife, forests, and fisheries sectors, based on real-world experiences.
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.
Learn more about assessing the threats that corruption may pose to conservation objectives and identify responses that are appropriate to your specific context.
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.
Support traceability in forests, marine and wildlife supply chains
Explore the Supply Chains Guide
Foster transparent access to information on concessions, ownership, and other open governance approaches
Explore the Open Governance Guide
Integrate behavioral change approaches
Explore the Social Norms & Behavior Change Guide
© Kevenodes / Vecteezy
Media reports in Argentina and private conversations with stakeholders suggest high probability of corruption related to bycatch and discards in fisheries. Vida Silvestre Argentina delivered a pilot to address corruption that undermines effective fisheries governance. The team took a politically-informed approach to address this corruption risk. An electronic fisheries information system (e-logbook) was rolled out for reporting fishing information at the capture stage. In parallel, the team also conducted an advocacy campaign, which is ongoing, to encourage the passage of a national traceability law. Delivery of this pilot involved interviewing captains and ship owners, testing and rolling out the e-logbook, developing advocacy materials, meeting with key decision makers, participating in Congressional debates, expanding the system of actors with which leaders engage, strategic media releases, and coordination of events advocating for the adoption of a national traceability regulation (TNRC Pilot 2021-2023).
© Luis Barreto / WWF-UK
Connect with anti-corruption experts and others in the conservation community who could be strong partners or advisors by joining a working group in the Countering Environmental Corruption Practitioners Forum.
Image attribution: © naturepl.com / Jen Guyton / WWF; © Brian J. Skerry / National Geographic Stock / WWF; © Georgina Goodwin / Shoot The Earth / WWF-UK; © Hkun Lat / WWF-Aus
