Friday, July 04, 2014

New report: illegal logging keeps militias and terrorist groups in business

Total profit from environmental crime may exceed $200 billion per year


Photo by US Army Africa

Deforestation has many harmful consequences, from loss of wildlife habitat to degradation of water and air quality, and many more. Now, a new report adds another repercussion to the list: the funding of terrorist groups and other crime networks. 

Entitled “The Environmental Crime Crisis” and released last week by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) during the first United Nations Environment Assembly in Nairobi, Kenya, the report found that together with other other illicit operations such as poaching, illegal deforestation is one of the top money-makers for criminal groups like Boko Haram and Al-Shabaab. 
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