27 Mar 2009: ISS Today: Prevention of Environmental Crime Through Community Policing

27 March 2009: Prevention of Environmental Crime Through Community Policing

 

The prevention and combating of crime involving natural resources such as water, forests, wildlife and the environment in general should be the primary concern of most governments, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa. This is because the economies of sub-Saharan Africa are primarily dependent on natural resources. Thus, any crime committed involving natural resources not only degrades the environment, but also deprives the local population of their basic needs.

 

In the last few years, research findings have indicated that the increase in environmental crime is mostly crossborder in nature, especially in East Africa. In Tanzania, for example, a study by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism in partnership with Trade Record Analysis of Flora and Fauna in Commerce (TRAFFIC) Eastern/Southern Africa revealed that hundreds of tonnes of illegal timber were transported from the southern part of the country every month to Asia. These illegal tonnes of timber were exported, sometimes through formal ports, mainly to China, thus questioning the credibility of environmental law enforcement agencies in preventing and combating environmental crime. In 2007 alone, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism seized 157 containers of timber in the Dar es Salaam port that were illegally being transported to China. In Kenya, according to the Kenya Forest Service, in the month of October 2008 alone six trucks full of illegal timber from the Mau forest were confiscated. Furthermore, it is estimated that in the Transmara district, Kenya, there is an average of one lorry load of illegal timber being detained each month. Again, the main destination of illegal transportation of timber from Kenya is the Asian continent, mainly China and Singapore. While these crimes in the forestry sector serve as examples, there are other environmental crimes being perpetrated such as illegal hunting and bush meat trade, water pollution, transportation and dumping of hazardous waste.

 

These crimes have both direct and indirect negative impacts on local communities, including depletion of the resource base on which they depend and altering of local climatic conditions. The problem, however, has always been that the management systems of natural resources, including enforcement of the relevant laws, drive the local people to the periphery while government officials are at the centre. This centre-periphery relationship make local people feel that the natural resources surrounding them are not theirs but someone else’s property. This highlights the issues of accessibility to and ownership of natural resources and therefore the local communities find no incentives for them to protect the said resources.

 

Thus, in an attempt to make local people own the natural resources they depend on, and therefore participate fully and actively in their management, the police and other environmental management agencies have introduced what is popularly known as a ‘community policing’ system. Under this system, the police and other law enforcement agents play the coordination role while actual activities of protecting the environment are vested in the local communities. Local communities, therefore, share information through a well established system with police and other stakeholders on the likely and/or already committed environmental crime, hence making it easy to apprehend the perpetrators. In Tanzania, community police is known as ‘police shirikishi’, which work closely with the national police, the National Environmental Management Council (NEMC), the Anti-Poaching Unit (APU) of the wildlife division and the Forestry Surveillance Unit (FSU) in the Forestry Directorate to share information on environmental related crimes. The system is intended to enhance investigations through evidence gathering, making prosecution of environmental cases in the law courts more successful. The most important benefit of this system though, is that the number of crimes committed has been reduced because this has made collusion amongst perpetrators more difficult. 

 

To enhance public awareness on environmental crime and their negative consequences, several strategies are being used including print and electronic media, meetings with stakeholders and awareness raising at schools and other venues through drama groups or traditional dancing. In Sudan, for example, there is a monthly television programmes known as ‘police and people’ and ‘people and environment’ on the national television and in South Sudan television is used to disseminate and educate the public on the environmental related management issues such as understanding environmental crimes and their attendant consequences. Similarly, in Tanzania there is a weekly television and radio programme on ‘police and community’ popularly known in Swahili as ‘polisi na jamii’ to sensitize and educate the public on some of best practices of community policing.

 

Although the system of community policing would seem to be effective in preventing and combating environmental crime and hence suggested to be adopted by eastern African countries and elsewhere in the continent, there are still some issues that are yet to be addressed for it to be sustainable. Some apprehended suspects are being acquitted, despite local people’s belief that evidence gathered were adequate enough for them to be convicted. Local people tend to associate court decisions with corrupt practices during the hearing proceedings. Also, some businessmen continue to violate with impunity the permits they have been issued with to harvest flora and/or fauna - frequently after colluding with some government officials entrusted with powers to cross-check the actual harvests and amount stated on the permit. Then there is the issue of lack of political will whereby some politicians use their positions to perpetrate environmental crimes. Similarly, in areas that have experienced civil wars, such as Southern Sudan and Northern Uganda, there are claims that military officials sometimes participate in committing environmental crimes, such as illegal logging and game hunting, making it difficult to apprehend them. There are also claims that soldiers from the Lord Resistance Army (LRA) have invaded the Lontoto National Park in Southern Sudan and killed wild animals for meat and trophies. Environmental crimes are difficult to control in areas emersed in civil war because there many firearms in the hands of unauthorized civilians. It is believed, for instance, that in Southern Sudan alone more than one million guns are in the hands of unauthorized people.

 

To address these issues it is considered prudent that collaboration and networking among different stakeholders – government officials, politicians, law enforcement agencies, the military and police forces, and local communities are a prerequisite for the prevention and combating of environmental crimes. Networking and collaboration can be enhanced through participation in seminars, workshops, conferences and use of print and electronic media that target each key stakeholders and their role in the prevention and combating environmental crime in their respective jurisdictions. 

 

Wilson Kipkore, Programme Head and Donald Mwiturubani, Senior Researcher, Environmental Security Programme, ISS Nairobi

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