Context
Environmental crime constitutes a major element in the growth of serious criminal activity and is bound up with threats to global peace and security, while also providing a soft entry point into global illicit flows for traffickers. The illicit trade is often highly organised and accompanied by state-led corruption, violence and widespread human rights abuses. All the available evidence points to a burgeoning problem, driving biodiversity loss and environmental damage, which in turn decreases the planet’s resilience to climate change. As awareness of this problem has grown, laws, policies and enforcement prioritieshave developed, but the continued growth and impacts of environmental crime suggest that responses still fall short. ECO-SOLVE has been designed to monitor the online illegal wildlife trafficking (IWT), extract useful and digestible data that can inform law enforcement and private sector actions, while promoting transparency and accountability in tackling illicit online markets.
ECO-SOLVE engages in multilateral coordination, enhancing political will and ensuring its work influences key international forums on law enforcement, data, and community engagement. It also convenes local and Indigenous communities in regional and multilateral forums to drive productive, trusted and confident conversations between community members, enforcement officers and policy makers.
Overall objective
ECO-SOLVE aims to support the disruption of illicit flows of environmental commodities globally using new and innovative technologies.
Specific objectives
- To drive disruption of illicit flows of environmental commodities, by using data and networks.
- To boost political will through multilateral engagement.
- To engage communities by integrating their perspectives into law enforcement strategies, global policy making, and enhancing support mechanisms.
- To drive direct disruption through innovation grants and lessons-sharing.
Concrete activities
- Multistakeholder engagement, dialogues and scoping missions, including the Second Security & Development Dialogue on Environmental Crime (2025) and community engagements and group dialogues with environmental defenders in Brazil and Indonesia (2024), and Colombia (2025)
- Establishment of data hubs in the Global Monitoring System for online illegal wildlife trafficking (IWT) across eleven countries.
- Research activities into IWT trends.
- Research and development of technologies to monitor and detect IWT.
- Project duration
- 1 Aug 2023 - 1 Aug 2026
- Project locations
- BrazilCameroonColombiaCzechiaDemocratic Republic of the CongoIndiaIndonesiaMadagascarMexicoNigeriaPeruSouth AfricaThailandUnited Arab EmiratesVietnam
- Overall budget
- €10 000 000
- Threat area
- Fight against Organised Crime
Results
- Improved effectiveness of law enforcement online, which increases the risk of detection of IWT leading to rising costs and reduced profits for those engaged in the trade.
- Enhanced political will through coordinated action at the multilateral level, consolidating ECO-SOLVE’s multistakeholder platform as a central node in international coordination efforts.
- Integration of community perspectives into law enforcement strategies and a global platform connecting communities across borders to increase resilience.
- Creation of a body of innovative and replicable practice that can be scaled and implemented globally.
Achievements
- Grants for community led projects in Brazil and Indonesia have been disbursed to tackle illegal logging, illegal wildlife trade, illegal fishing and other environmental crimes.
- Three amplifying grants have been awarded for innovative projects, including DNA profiling in response to IWT and illegal timber trade.
- Four strategic NGO partnerships with SCENTS, TRAFFIC, IFAW, and WTI are established.
- Data Hub Liaisons in Brazil, South Africa, and Thailand have been operational from April 2024, and Indonesia, Colombia, and Partner hubs IFAW (UAE/MENA region) and WTI (South Asia region) from March 2025. By the third quarter of 2025, 11 data hubs (covering 23 countries) will be operational.
- ECO-SOLVE has produced several technology outputs:
- GMS Website and dashboard.
- Data Management System (DMS) to maintain systematised records.
- Case Management System (CMS) to manage intelligence and examine criminal networks.
- AI-powered Webscraper to scan the web in a more robust manner and gather thousands of IWT records at once.
- As of January 2025, monitoring efforts have covered 11 languages and platforms, 34 key species targeted by IWT, 6,280 IWT detections, and 1,597 IWT accounts profiled. 17 intelligence reports have been submitted to law enforcement. 41% of the intelligence reports were supported to directly support enforcement operations and 15 support requests from law enforcement partners received.
- Three Global Trend reports on IWT are published.
- A data interoperability working group with 16 organisations and 25 representatives is created and maintained.