Fighting environmental crime

Environmental crime is a growing threat to the environment, biodiversity and public health but also to international security.
It contributes to tensions in societies and is often linked to other types of crime that it fuels (criminal or terrorist financing, corruption and money laundering, murders).

All countries in the world are affected, including countries of origin, transit and destination. Yet, environmental crime is still not very present in national legislation.

Moreover, law enforcement officers and magistrates rarely have specific training. That is why police, customs and justice cooperation and legislation harmonization mechanisms have been introduced to identify and punish environmental criminals more effectively.

An enhanced national security and justice arsenal

Specialized law enforcement

The French National Gendarmerie’s Environment and Health Command (CESAN) was created in 2023 primarily to fight environmental crime, ranging from everyday anti-social behaviour to the most stringently punished criminal offences.
CESAN works closely with international partners to strengthen the legal and operational frameworks required to fight these crimes and plays a key role in coordinating France’s efforts to protect the environment and public health from criminal threats.

Main roles of CESAN

• Support: in order to best help Gendarmerie and Judicial Police units in their investigations, as well as elected representatives, CESAN provides operational, legal and technical support.
• Intelligence and analysis: in order to prevent and study malicious acts that harm the environment, CESAN coordinates the Gendarmerie’s surveillance and control action to a) gather, centralize and analyse intelligence, with the ultimate goal of identifying new phenomena.
• Innovation: in order to optimize investigations, CESAN recommends regulatory reforms and introduces innovations, including technological and digital tools. It also has a mobile unit for crisis management.
• International cooperation: CESAN leads European projects, thanks to its active participation alongside partner countries and institutions. It has functional authority over the Central Office to Suppress Damage to the Environment and Public Health (OCLAESP) and Gendarmerie units.

CESAN can call on more than 4,000 trained Gendarmerie officers responsible for environmental protection and public health, who are present across mainland and overseas France.

For more information, visit the CESAN website.

OCLAESP is an interministerial judicial police unit that was created in 2004 to fight trafficking that is particularly complex technically and is linked to: i) the environment, such as trafficking in waste and wood, and pollution; ii) public health, such as trafficking in medicines, and in relation to agrifood and phytosanitary safety; iii) animal cruelty, including trafficking in protected or non-protected species; and iv) elite doping, with trafficking in doping products.

For more information, visit the OCLASEP website.

Specialized courts

Specialized regional court units for environmental crimes, or regional environmental court units (PRE) were created in 2020 in order to handle complex environmental crime more effectively, as well as civil cases relating to environmental damage and civil liability cases under the French Environmental Code.

The remit of PREs covers:

• Offences under the Environmental Code;
• Offences under the Forest Code;
• Certain offences under the Rural and Maritime Fishing Code and Mining Code;
• All related offences.

PREs are competent to hear cases on these offences which “are or appear complex”. Complexity is determined in light of the case’s technical nature, the scale of the damage caused, or the geographical jurisdiction over which the offence was committed.

Action at European level

Over the last decade and a half, the European Union has stepped up its action to protect the environment and fight environmental crime by creating specific legal provisions and a European Multidisciplinary Platform Against Criminal Threats (EMPACT), which has set priorities for the fight against serious organized crime for the period 2022-2025 and made environmental crime a major thrust of EU efforts.

At the same time, during France’s Presidency of the Council of the European Union in 2022, the EU decided to bolster the legal framework to fight this form of crime. In May 2024, a new directive supporting the protection of the environment through criminal law was adopted. This directive has expanded the number of offences covered by EU law and toughened criminal penalties, and ensures that justice and enforcement authorities have the best tools to fight damage to the environment.

Action at international level

In its bilateral relations with its partners, France strives to better address environmental crime.

Strengthening international cooperation to fight environmental crime

France’s commitment to fighting trafficking in wildlife is clear in its participation in the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) and in the World Conservation Congress of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), as well as the efforts of the members of the IUCN French National Committee, offering a forum for dialogue between the various actors in international cooperation.

France also supports the International Consortium on Combating Wildlife Crime (ICCWC), which brings together five intergovernmental organizations:

• CITES Secretariat;
• INTERPOL;
• United Nations Office on Drug and Crime (UNODC);
• World Bank;
• World Customs Organization, as well as several coalitions working to stop poaching and illegal trade of wildlife, such as the African Elephant Fund and the Great Apes Survival Partnership (GRASP, UNEP-UNESCO).

Ensuring recognition of environmental crime as a global challenge

France is acting to strengthen international cooperation to fight all aspects of environmental crime. From 2019 to 2021, strong action helped to have environmental crime recognized as an emerging and concerning type of crime and a global challenge for the international community in the various bodies and conventions established under the aegis of the United Nations Office on Drug and Crime.

In liaison with the UNODC, France contributes to knowledge and awareness of this criminal phenomenon, supporting global studies and analysis.

Milestones in France’s international action

• A resolution sponsored by France, Morocco and Brazil at the Commission on Narcotic Drugs in March 2025 on the environmental impact of drugs, encouraging Member States to take every necessary step to fight the direct and indirect damage to the environment caused by illicit cultivation of drug plants, illicit production and manufacture of drugs, and their transport, smuggling, sale, consumption, handling and disposal, with a view to protecting the environment, biodiversity and human health.
• A resolution sponsored by France, in liaison with Peru and Brazil, in October 2024, was adopted at the Conference of the Parties to the Palermo Convention (UNTOC). It calls for the creation of an open-ended intergovernmental expert group to take stock of the implementation of the international framework to combat environmental crime, identify gaps and consider possible responses relevant to such gaps.
• The holding, at France’s instigation, of the first expert discussions on environmental crime in the UNODC framework, in February 2022.
• A joint 2022-2026 action plan for France and the UNODC was signed in February 2022 to fight environmental crime. This joint action plan aims to finance actions in the field as well as knowledge products on this subject.
• A comprehensive text on environmental crime that strengthens international cooperation and the UNODC’s mandate when it comes to research and analysis was adopted at the instigation of France in May 2021 at the 30th Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice (CCPCJ).
• In the Kyoto Declaration adopted in March 2021 at the 14th United Nations Congress on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice, Member States committed for the first time to adopt effective measures to prevent and fight crimes that harm the environment.
• Two resolutions, negotiated upon France’s instigation within the framework of the United Nations Convention against Corruption in 2019 and that of the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime in 2020, established quasi-universal legal instruments that can now be used to prevent and fight environmental crime and strengthen international cooperation in the area.

Fighting environmental crime networks with INTERPOL

The International Criminal Police Organization, or INTERPOL, is very active in the fight against environmental crime through four specialized working groups on:

• Fisheries Crime;
• Forestry Crime;
• Pollution Crime;
• Wildlife Crime.

These groups are working to dismantle environmental crime networks by providing national services with the tools and expertise they need.
INTERPOL also has specialized databases and coordinates police operations in multiple countries, at the request of its member countries, to fight environmental crime.

Fighting money laundering related to trafficking in wildlife

The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has launched an initiative to enhance knowledge of financial flows related to trafficking in wildlife. With France’s assistance, the FATF published a 2020 report identifying avenues for strengthening the role of financial institutions in detecting suspicious flows and money laundering practices related to trafficking in wildlife and for boosting international cooperation between financial institutions in this area.

In 2021, a new FATF report was published on Money Laundering from Environmental Crime, ranging from illegal logging, mining and clearing to the trafficking of waste.

Updated: April 2025