Strengthening the Weakest Links:

An Innovative Approach to Enforcement

Conservation International

Center for Conservation and Government

Enforcement Initiative

Anita Sundari Akella

December 2004

Why Enforcement?• Enforcement of PA boundaries, natural resource use rules

and regulations is weak• Illegal timber trade $150 billion per year• Illegal fishing 30% of total catches• Illegal wildlife trade $6 – 7 billion per year

• Innovative conservation strategies are stronger with good enforcement• Ecosystem Services Payments• Tradable Development Rights• PA Creation

Why Enforcement?

What Are Conservationists Doing About It?

• Solutions are ad-hoc and often limited to individual sites

• No methodical analysis of why enforcement is weak

• No comparison across sites to draw global lessons learned

• Hire and equip more detection agents

• Raise fines

Conventional Wisdom on Enforcement

These strategies, in isolation, are not working!

Enforcement: An Economic Perspective

• Illegal activity is fundamentally an economic issue

• To deter it, disincentives must be bigger than incentives driving illegal activity

• Enforcement is also an economic issue

ED = Pd * Pa|d * Pp|a * Pc|p * Penalty * e-rt

Innovation: The Enforcement Economics Approach

Where:

ED Enforcement Disincentive

Pd Probability of detection

Pa|d Probability of arrest given detection

Pp|a Probability of prosecution given arrest

Pc|p Probability of conviction given prosecutione-rt discount factort Time between detection and penalty

Transit of Cases Through Enforcement System

020406080

100120

Step in the Enforcement Chain

Nu

mb

er o

f Cas

es Only 1% of crimes result in a conviction

Risky Business?

Applying the theory in practice

• Bahia, Brazil: Illegal logging, illegal deforestation

• Selva Maya, Mexico: Illegal wildlife trade

• Palawan, Philippines: Cyanide/Dynamite fishing

• Papua, Indonesia: Illegal logging, illegal wildlife trade

Incentives to illegally log or deforest: $75.00

Enforcement Disincentive: $6.44

Atlantic Forest

BAHIA, BRASIL

Selva Maya

CHIAPAS, MEXICO

Incentives to Illegally Hunt/Trade Wildlife: $191.57

Enforcement Disincentive: $5.66

Papua Province

INDONESIA

Incentives to Illegally Ship Timber: $91,967.36

Enforcement Disincentive: $6.47

Calamianes Islands

PALAWAN, PHILIPPINES

Incentives to Dynamite/Cyanide Fish: $70.57

Enforcement Disincentive: $0.09

Calamianes Islands

PALAWAN, PHILIPPINES

What does this mean for conservation?

• For complex reasons, enforcement is abysmal in many of the countries where we work.

• Less than 1% of environmental crimes result in any penalty whatsoever.

• When it comes to the environment, CRIME PAYS!

Transit of Crimes Through Enforcement System

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Bahia Selva Maya Papua Palawan

Site

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Key Challenges

• Interagency cooperation across enforcement chain

• Adequate budgetary resources

• Consistent performance monitoring and adaptive management system for all agencies

• Regular, ongoing capacity-building programs, jointly developed

• Strong, clear and adequate laws and policies

Priority: Reform Enforcement Policy

• Increase budget allocation to environmental enforcement agencies across the chain

• Strengthen, clarify, and consolidate legislation

• Establish guidelines for inter-agency cooperation and annual performance reporting

• Create the legal framework for alternative enforcement systems to operate

Priority: Implement Adaptive Management

• Develop standardized data management systems for use across agencies

• Reach agreement on enforcement statistics (indicators) to be produced annually

• Train key staff in use of enforcement economics methodology to analyze statistics and develop strategic enforcement strengthening plans

• Require annual publication (public disclosure) of enforcement performance report

Priority: Build Enforcement Capacity

• Improve performance of detection agents, prosecutors and judges through periodic training

• Involve all agencies in the process of designing curricula for each audience

• Take advantage of existing technical assistance partnerships with donor government agencies

• Incorporate specialized local NGOs, think tanks and institutes