The report addresses the World Bank’s views and those from the broader community on how to move the forest law enforcement and governance (FLEG) agenda forward. It provides a framework for the understanding of sources and drivers of forest crime and the structure of the law enforcement systems. Such framework is a helpful tool for the assessment of national and international programmes and actions. It argues that forest crime, including illicit activities such as illegal logging, illegal occupation of forest land, woodlands arson, wildlife poaching, and encroachment on both public and private forests, and corruption is rampant throughout the world. Forest crime results in threatening the conservation of forest resources and biodiversity, subjecting legitimate forest enterprises to unfair competition through price undercutting and discouraged from making socially and environmentally responsible investments in the sector, the spread of corruption across the economy, and lower growth and creating a negative environmental, economic, and social consequences also at the global level. The report notes that, to address forest crime there is need to:
develop specialised capacity in law enforcement within forestry agencies
ensure enormous investments in controlling forest crime
address key drivers both within and outside forest sector
address both failures of law and failures of implementation
strengthen supply-side measures with measures to control imports of illegal timber and wood products
integrate anti-money laundering and asset forfeiture laws into the fight against forest crime and related corruption
explore the potential of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative as a means of increasing the transparency of the forest sector financial flows in some key forest countries, especially where a relatively small number of companies operate large forest concessions.