Location
EIA’s investigations are a trademark of our work around the world, but we tackle environmental crime and defend the natural world strategically, operating in a number of different ways.
Our findings are combined with scientific documentation and representation at international conventions, creating the hard-hitting campaigns which have earned us a global reputation.
Investigations
Diligent, carefully planned undercover investigations are at the heart of EIA’s work, going out to the frontlines of environmental crime and returning with the credible intelligence and persuasive imagery necessary to confirm the findings of our preliminary research and tip-offs in the field.
The more complex and potentially dangerous cases see investigators setting up false front companies and well-researched fake identities, allowing them to infiltrate potentially criminal organisations and get close to the key individuals suspected of involvement.
Campaigning
The evidence sourced in the field is used by EIA to raise awareness and to advocate meaningful change and policy reforms, lobbying those in power and producing authoritative reports and compelling short films.
We also identify and advocate solutions to the problems we expose, a major focus of which is the role played by consumer demand for products harming the environment, from illegal logging to supermarket refrigeration.
Cooperation
EIA works closely with a number of other organisations, developing close partnerships with local NGOs around the world as well as engaging with wildlife and customs enforcement agencies at international and national levels; for example, we provide hard intelligence to Interpol and the World Customs Organisation, while our bespoke training films on illegal trades are used by enforcement agencies worldwide.
Members:
Resources
Displaying 6 - 10 of 12Myanmar's Rosewood Crisis: Why Key Species and Forest Must be Protected Through CITES
... Extremely rapid growth in Chinese imports of ‘redwood’, ‘rosewoods’ or ‘Hongmu’ timbers from Myanmar in the past two years is directly driving increased illegal and unsustainable logging, posing a real threat to governance, the rule of law and the viability Myanmar’s dwindling forests. EIA research shows that, based on current trends, the two most targeted Hongmu species in
Myanmar - tamalan and padauk - could be logged to commercial extinction in as little as three years.
APPETITE FOR DESTRUCTION - China’s trade in illegal timber (text, video and Burmese press release)
This report covers several countries in Asia and Africa....."Myanmar contains some of the most significant
natural forests left in the Asia Pacific region,
host to an array of biodiversity and vital to the
livelihoods of local communities. Forests are
estimated to cover 48 per cent of the country’s
land. Yet other recent estimates put forest
cover at just 24 per cent.
These vital forests are disappearing rapidly. Myanmar has one
of the worst rates of deforestation on the planet, with 18 per
Crossroads: The illicit timber trade between Laos and Vietnam
This report from EIA highlights an illegal trade in banned timber from Laos into Vietnam, where it supplies a booming furniture industry. The report suggests that this is the result of weak law enforcement and poor governance in Laos. A number of recommendations are made to address this situation, including improved cooperation between the two countries. The findings are based on undercover operations conducted in 2010 and 2011.
It’s not a question of doing or not doing it - it’s a question of how to do it
The main aim of this study was to assess, within the context of the Malonda Programme
in Niassa Province, the implementation of community consultations and negotiations as
well as the delimitation and demarcation of community land. These activities had been
carried out within the context of requests from several investors concerning the Right to
Use and Exploit Land (Portuguese acronym DUAT, Direito de Uso e Aproveitamento
de Terra), in order to create extensive commercial forest plantations in Niassa. The
Borderlines: Vietnam's Booming Furniture Industry and Timber Smuggling in the Mekong Region
Vietnam has become a hub for processing huge quantities of unlawfully-logged timber from across Indochina, threatening some of the last intact forests in the region, a major new report reveals. Much of the illegally-imported wood is made into furniture for export to consumer markets in Europe and the US.