This final report provides a summary of the contributions made by the United States Agency for International Development-funded Targeting Natural Resource Corruption (TNRC) project. The project worked from 2018 – 2024 and focused on improving biodiversity outcomes by equipping conservation and natural resource management practitioners to assess and address the threats posed by corruption to wildlife, fisheries, and forests. This objective was achieved through three strategic approaches: 1) harnessing existing knowledge and generating new evidence about the impact of corruption and effective programming responses; 2) communicating and networking to disseminate that information and demonstrate practical application, building experience, and generating new learning opportunities; and 3) supporting practical application through pilot projects in six countries and select initiatives to broaden practitioner experience. Additionally, the project worked on institutionalizing anti-corruption within partner organizations to leave a legacy of concrete change.

The project was led by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and implemented by a consortium of leading conservation and anti-corruption organizations, including TRAFFIC; the U4 Anti-Corruption Resource Centre at the Chr. Michelson Institute (U4); the Terrorism, Transnational Crime and Corruption Center (TraCCC) at George Mason University; and in collaboration with the Basel Institute on Governance.

Does your work focus on combating wildlife trafficking? Is corruption enabling illicit trade and undermining your results? This guide outlines three steps to start building anti-corruption approaches into your conservation programming.

For more resources and tools, visit TNRCproject.org.

This guide is a high-level “how-to” for carrying out a corruption risk assessment in a conservation law enforcement context, using the Map, Characterize, Assess, and Recommend (MCAR) approach designed by the Basel Institute on Governance. The first section covers planning: the resources, timing, and other considerations for setting up the assessment. The second section lays out each step of the assessment, with tips, basic instructions, and implementation recommendations for each stage. Finally, the annexes provide sample supporting materials, including a simplified process diagram and map, a sample questionnaire for interviews, and a basic confidentiality agreement.

This TNRC Guide shares practical knowledge for program designers and implementers to reduce corruption’s impact on conservation.

A corruption-oriented situation analysis can help conservation and natural resource management (NRM) practitioners understand and respond to the threats that corruption poses to conservation and NRM outcomes. As part of the Targeting Natural Resource Corruption (TNRC) project, WWF teams in different countries conducted situation analyses to inform both small-scale pilot projects and large-scale investments, in each case aiming to get a better idea of the ways that corruption may impact NRM activities and how they could design projects that would respond more effectively to those threats. Part I of this guide collects lessons from their experience and provides insights on implementing this type of analysis. Part II shares three case studies and analysis tools for doing corruption-oriented situation analysis.

For more resources and tools, visit TNRCproject.org.

This brief highlights the importance and potential of robust internal controls in helping achieve the objectives of agencies tasked with protecting wildlife and the environment by identifying performance gaps and opportunities for improvement, enabling oversight, and fostering accountability. However, in some countries, internal controls are not always applied to wildlife-related corruption or even natural resource management. Conservation or anticorruption partners can help government institutions strengthen their systems of internal controls, building on procedures already in place. Well-designed systems of internal controls can discourage corrupt behavior and mitigate other risks to wildlife and natural resources. While no system can completely eliminate the potential for corrupt behavior, enhancing internal controls can help close the implementation gap between agency objectives and what happens in practice.

For more resources and tools, visit TNRCproject.org.

The Open Government Partnership (OGP) is a collaboration of over 150 national and local governments and more than 1000 civil society partners working to promote transparent, participatory, inclusive, and accountable governance. OGP offers a promising opportunity to bring transparency, participation, and accountability to the governance of natural resources, as participating governments collaborate with their civil societies to commit to concrete, impactful reforms to bring transparency, accountability, and participation to bear on the most relevant and important challenges those publics face. This guidance shows how conservation organizations can start taking advantage of OGP as a possible key platform for accomplishing conservation priorities.

Visit the TNRC Knowledge Hub for more resources.

This practice note is based on interviews with 18 people who worked in or with justice systems in Africa, Asia, and South America, to understand their perception of the effect case monitoring can have on corruption in the justice system. Monitoring cases can help identify and highlight weaknesses in the justice system and reduce corruption vulnerabilities related to wildlife crime cases. But projects must be designed with appropriate scope and resources, as impact takes time and is difficult to measure. Monitoring is likely most effective when monitors use multiple cases to identify patterns of red flags that indicate systematic failures. This note recommends several good practices, based on the interviewees' and authors' experiences. However, these practices must always be tailored to a specific context. 

For more resources and tools, visit TNRCproject.org.

The rhino horn trade represents one of the four largest illegal wildlife trade flows by value and corruption is a key facilitator. Visualizing how corruption manifests along the supply chain can help conservation practitioners and wildlife management agencies better understand both the specific risks and the potential responses to combat illegal rhino horn and other illicit wildlife trades. This guide includes an infographic and accompanying text that maps the areas along the rhino horn supply chain that are most vulnerable to corruption and identifies feasible entry points for different anti-corruption approaches.

For more resources and tools, visit TNRCproject.org.

The Basel Institute on Governance undertook targeted sector-level political economy analyses (PEAs) in three countries to understand why corruption risks may emerge in investigations and prosecutions of illegal wildlife trade (IWT) cases. The experience showed that PEAs can help practitioners better understand corruption risks in a specific context, complementing data from other analyses like corruption risk assessments (CRAs). Using these two analytic approaches together helps design and implement mitigation measures that take prevailing political and power dynamics into account, identifying windows of opportunity for addressing corruption risks and highlighting strategically important stakeholders that may support or oppose the intervention.

For more resources and tools, visit TNRCproject.org.

On International Anti-Corruption Day 2022, we recognize the determination of women who are taking remarkable steps to address corruption through conservation programming. Nicola Okes represents TRAFFIC International, based in Southern Africa. She currently works across the global TRAFFIC network to coordinate engagement on issues relating to the illegal wildlife trade, with a focus on rhinos and elephants. She has previously worked on marine conservation and trade, analyzing both legal and illegal trade with the purpose of providing sustainable solutions to environmental concerns.

For more resources and tools, visit TNRCproject.org.

On International Anti-Corruption Day 2022, we recognize the determination of women who are taking remarkable steps to address corruption through conservation programming. Renata Cao's work focuses on supporting World Wildlife Fund (WWF) offices in the Latin America region to advance their counter wildlife trafficking agendas and to facilitate coordinated responses, build regional technical capacities, and forge strategic partnerships.

For more resources and tools, visit TNRCproject.org.

A new briefing from WWF and TRAFFIC finds distressing evidence of documented snaring cases involving a minimum of 387 big cats (tigers, leopards, snow leopards, and Asiatic lions) across seven Asian countries between 2012-2021, with a majority of cases documented outside protected areas.

This report is the fifth iteration of TRAFFIC longstanding worldwide monitoring of the illegal trade in tigers Panthera tigris, almost 23 years of seizure data from January 2000 to June 2022.

This paper presents three case studies that portray how Free Trade Zones (FTZ) and Special Economic Zones (SEZ) characteristics contribute both to Illegal wildlife trade and corruption, while also demonstrating that wildlife trafficking is merely an expression of the multiple illicit economies that can take place in FTZs/SEZs in the absence of adequate controls. These cases also demonstrate that the corrupt practices within these areas do not necessarily differ from other forms of corruption happening elsewhere in the country, region, or trade chain. Rather, what makes FTZs/SEZs particularly interesting for illicit trade is the additional layer of opaqueness and complexity that they pose for local authorities.

Visit the TNRC Knowledge Hub for more resources.

In late 2020, WWF commissioned GlobeScan to conduct research to build upon previous consumer analysis to generate up-to-date insights about ivory consumption and consumer perceptions toward the ivory ban after its implementation (Dec. 31, 2017). This study follows previous research conducted by GlobeScan in 2017, 2018, and 2019 on both the pre-and post-domestic ivory ban in Mainland China.

The Identification Guide for Ivory and Ivory Substitutes is an updated and expanded tool to help law enforcement officers, forensic scientists, online technology company enforcement staff and wildlife trade management authorities distinguish between types of ivories and their substitutes. This Guide includes detailed procedures, visual aids, and instructions for recognizing ivory products, particularly those that have undergone heavy alterations such as carving and painting.

The single most obvious thread that runs through the survey completed by patrol rangers at nearly 500 sites in 28 countries is that rangers are facing excessive safety and health risks that could be significantly reduced with the appropriate interventions.

WWF has conducted the largest consumer survey about ivory trade in China—2,000 people in 15 cities—for three consecutive years with GlobeScan, providing the best available assessment measuring changes in attitudes, purchasing and ban awareness over time.

Poaching and the illegal trade of tiger parts are continuing to threaten wild tiger populations. TRAFFIC’s latest report on the illegal trade in tiger parts analyzes data over a 19 year period from 2000 to 2018, providing details and statistics on trends and the urgent threats facing wild tigers.

The importance of biodiversity below the forest canopy is often underappreciated, and yet it is a crucial component of healthy functioning forest ecosystems. Below the Canopy: Plotting Global Trends in Forest Wildlife Populations is the first-ever global assessment of forest-dwelling wildlife populations and highlights the multitude of threats forest-living species are facing.

Japan is a country with one of the world’s largest ivory markets and flourishing domestic trade. Although Japan has taken some steps in amending its legal framework around the ivory trade, the domestic markets still remain open and are thus contributing to the illegal domestic ivory trade. This report analyzes best practices related to the commercial ivory trade in six international jurisdictions to ultimately provide a guide for how Japan can improve its legal and regulatory measures on this issue.