Daan P. Van Uhm

• PhD
• Criminologist at Utrecht University

This chapter reviews the convergences that occur between human trafficking and illegal wildlife trade according to information and case studies reported in the literature, including academic and grey publications, as well as the authors' personal knowledge and empirical research in this area. We outline human trafficking and illegal wildlife trade...

In de afgelopen jaren heeft groene criminologie zich ontwikkeld tot een belangrijk vakgebied binnen de criminologie, aangedreven door urgente ecologische crises als gevolg van illegale houtkap, mijnbouw, vervuiling, klimaatverandering en de handel in bedreigde diersoorten. Basisboek Groene criminologie bespreekt de opkomst, ontwikkeling en uitdagin...

The chapter is dedicated to the important work of Nigel South on green criminology and responds to the call for empirical research into the relationship between scarcity, conflict, and environmental crime (South 2014; Beirne & South 2007; Brisman & South, 2013). Based on empirical research in three violent landscapes around the world – the Darién G...

Transnational environmental crime has become one of the largest criminal activities in the world. This chapter introduces the topic of transnational environmental crime by defining it, indicating the magnitude, scope, and harms, and identifying the various types of transnational environmental crime. In addition, the criminogenic asymmetries that at...

Biodiversity is essential for the well-being of the world but has been declining at an alarming rate in the 20th and 21st centuries. An important threat to biodiversity consists of criminal and harmful activities against the environment. Biodiversity crime refers to illicit and unlawful acts or serious harms that pressure biological entities, inclu...

This book addresses one of today’s most urgent issues: the loss of wildlife and habitat. Combining conservation studies with a focus on animal rights, the chapters explore the successes and failures of the international treaties CITES and the BERN Convention.

Introduction In recent years, the illegal wildlife trade has received increasing attention. In the political debate, the focus is mainly on iconic species such as elephants, rhinoceroses, and tigers, but reptile populations are also seriously harmed by the illegal reptile trade. For example, reptiles are an easy target for criminal groups because t...

Environmental crime and green criminology In recent years, the harmful effects of human activities on the environment have become a central topic on the international agenda. While many harms against the environment have not (yet) been criminalized, more and more activities that were previously legal are becoming criminalized by law and that raises...

El comercio ilegal de vida silvestre ha llamado la atención de los criminólogos debido a la fuerte interconexión entre los actores criminales y legítimos. Los estudios que examinan las interconexiones entre los ámbitos legales e ilegales del comercio de especies protegidas han venido centrándose en las prácticas de blanqueo cuando observan el movim...

In Organized Environmental Crime, Daan van Uhm breaks new ground by rejecting the classic image of organized crime as specializing in one kind of criminal activity. Instead, he develops an innovative approach to understanding how organized crime groups diversify into the illegal trade in natural resources by looking at the convergence between envir...

Whilst traditionally, the study of the illegal wildlife trade has been focused on species that consider the role of the Western world as a consumer or transit hub, the study of the illegal trade in European eels is a landmark opportunity to deem the role of Europe as a source area for wildlife trafficking. Based on a qualitative methods research de...

In the twentieth century, the damage from unregulated trade in wildlife became transparent as many species became extinct or were on the brink of extinction. Consequently, various moral entrepreneurs emerged to underline the need for regulation. The effect of these initiatives to protect endangered species was divergent. On the one hand, protecting...

A green criminological perspective on the Environmental Act It is expected that the Environmental Act will enter into force on 1 July 2023. With regard to the enforcement of the Environmental Act two types can be distinguished, namely administrative and criminal law enforcement. In essence the Environmental Act is administrative in nature, which me...

The Laos borders with China, Myanmar, and Thailand have been identified as vulnerable hubs for illegal wildlife trade. In particular, some special economic zones (SEZs) in Laos are linked to illegal wildlife products, including tiger bones, rhino horn, and ivory for sale. SEZs are zones granted more free market-oriented economic policies and flexib...

The profitability of illegal forest crimes is increasingly attracting sophisticated crime groups – including militias and corporate criminals. This chapter focuses on the complex relationships and interactions between militia groups and timber and charcoal traders. The case of the illegal timber and charcoal trade in the Democratic Republic of the...

The rising global scarcity of natural resources increasingly attracts transnational criminal organizations. Organized crime syndicates diversify into the lucrative business of tropical timber, endangered species, and natural minerals, alongside their traditional activities. The developing interconnectedness between environmental crime and other ser...

This chapter focuses on the interrelationship between atrocity crimes and anthropogenic environmental degradation. The environment as cause, tool, and victim of armed conflict will be discussed and the interpretation of the environment in the context of the three categories of mass atrocity crimes under the Rome Statute—genocide, crimes against hum...

This chapter focuses on the interrelationship between atrocity crimes and anthropogenic environmental degradation. The environment as cause, tool, and victim of armed conflict will be discussed and the interpretation of the environment in the context of the three categories of mass atrocity crimes under the Rome Statute—genocide, crimes against hum...

This contribution describes, building on ethnographic data, how illegal tobacco trade in Europe is organised and how law enforcement praxis in different EU countries impacts on this trade. With a (still) substantial demand for cheap cigarettes, low moral objections, favourable trade conditions, enhanced technology and relatively high profits and lo...

Whilst drug trafficking has been a concern for several decades, wildlife trafficking has only fairly recently garnered international attention. Often media coverage of wildlife trafficking links it to the illegal trade of drugs. This article analyses wildlife and drug trafficking connections of various kinds. The purpose is to reveal the overlaps a...

The illegal wildlife trade has increasingly been linked to organized crime in recent years. In particular, Chinese crime groups seem to be major players in more organized forms of this trade. This article examines the involvement of Chinese organized crime groups in the trade of wildlife in the borderlands of the Golden Triangle. We will discuss th...

In recent years there is increasing public attention for dog fighting in Europe. This article focuses on this phenomenon in the Netherlands: its organisation, various actors, modus operandi and possible involvement of organized crime. This qualitative research is based on semi-structured interviews, analysis of police files, observations and online...

This article provides an introduction to the special issue of Trends in Organized Crime on ‘Organised Crime and Animals’. The special issue contributes to the criminological literature on organised crime, new illicit markets and green criminology. The articles in this special issue offer a wide range of empirical evidence, criminological analysis a...

This article explores the relationship between the Emberá–Wounaan and Akha Indigenous people and organized crime groups vying for control over natural resources in the Darién Gap of East Panama and West Colombia and the Golden Triangle (the area where the borders of Laos, Myanmar (Burma), and Thailand meet), respectively. From a southern green crim...

The funding information provided at the Acknowledgement section in the original article is inaccurate.

Climate Change Litigation – Learning from the Urgenda case Climate litigation is an understudied phenomenon in criminology. In this article we will discuss the rise of climate change litigation and growing recognition of global environmental harms from a green criminological perspective. More specifically, we will discuss both the legal reasoning a...

The EU is an important market for illegal environmental trades-such as timber, wildlife, fish, waste, minerals and metals-which are causing serious harms to the environment worldwide. In this blogpost, the seventh in RENFORCE Blog's special series on the enforcement of EU law, Daan van Uhm argues that ecocentric values should be embedded in both EU...

Wildlife trafficking is considered to be an example of a transnational organized crime by policy-makers and enforcement agencies. Empirically, however, there is mixed support for this. Recently, there has been increased attention on the convergence of different illegal activities in an effort to share resources, personnel and transport routes. The...

Historically, the poaching of wildlife was portrayed as a small-scale local activity in which only small numbers of wildlife would be smuggled illegally by collectors or opportunists. Nowadays, this image has changed: criminal networks are believed to be highly involved in wildlife trafficking, which has become a significant area of illicit activit...

In the past decades, private actors have become key actors in regulation and enforcement of various forms of trade. In this paper, we focus on the role of private actors in the regulation of the trade in diamonds and caviar. We examine the stages of calling for additional regulation; setting regulatory requirements; and determining and effectuating...

The dark world of dogfighting Organizing dog fights is prohibited in the Netherlands. In such fights, two dogs have to fight each other, sometimes to the death. The animal suffering behind this is enormous. Little is known in the Netherlands about the phenomenon of dog fighting, both from a scientific point of view and through criminal cases. In th...

Gold mining has become a significant new form of organized crime activity in Colombia, where criminal groups continue to shift their operations from cocaine trafficking into gold mining. This chapter focuses on how the Gulf Clan has diversified into gold mining in Colombia, why gold extraction is embedded in other organized crime activities, and ho...

This chapter introduces the topic of convergence between organized crime and the mining industry. The alluring nature of precious metals and minerals is highlighted and set against the modern-day global rush not only for gold, diamonds, and amber but also industrial materials, such as iron ore, coal, and sand. It is noted how environmental crimes,...

The overexploitation of nature has led to anthropogenic defaunation, which results in complex socioeconomic, political and ecological consequences. Influenced by the economic growth of modernization and the interconnectedness of globalization, zoonotic diseases emerge as incalculable side effects of defaunation. By rejecting anthropocentric worldvi...

This chapter puts forth that criminogenic asymmetries in the realms of ecology, economy, law, politics and power have created conditions ripe for global defaunation and enabled large flows of the illegal wildlife trade to flourish. To demonstrate how such criminogenic asymmetries contribute in complex ways to the absence of controls and provide opp...

Precious metals and minerals have fascinated humankind since the beginning of time. In recent years organized crime has become increasingly involved in mining activities worldwide. Based on a wide range of case studies from the Amazon rainforest through the Ukrainian flatlands to the desert-like savanna of Central African Republic and Australia’s e...

The United States and the European Union are major demand markets for illegal wildlife worldwide. The current study analyzes wildlife contraband seizures made at US ports of entry with those made in the EU during a similar time period in order to identify concentrations of illegal wildlife imports with regard to products, places of import and expor...

This study focusses on the role of trust in the illegal distribution of protected wildlife in China. This research attempts to contribute to the literature by disentangling the establishment of trust within the illegal wildlife trade based on ethnographic fieldwork between 2011 and 2016. Both traders and consumers are resorting to mechanisms of tru...

The trade in wildlife is not a new phenomenon. The earliest civilizations were linked to the trade in live animals and parts thereof, from the Egyptian pharaohs to aristocrats in the modern era. This article focuses on the history of the wildlife trade in order to understand the social construction of the value of wildlife. In dynamic social and cu...

Three perspectives on the illicit trade in protected birds in the Netherlands The Netherlands are considered as an important hub for the illicit trade in species of endangered birds protected by the CITES convention. In this article the authors analyze five substantial criminal cases from three different perspectives. First, from a criminal busines...

This study focuses on the role of corruption in facilitating the illegal wildlife trade. This research attempts to contribute to the literature by disentangling the existence, influence and nested nature of corruption within the illegal wildlife trade based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in China, Morocco, Russia and Uganda. By utilizing Passa...

Environmental crimes are primarily driven by financial motives. The combined financial value of illicit trade in protected wildlife, illegal logging and waste trafficking is estimated to come directly after counterfeiting, the narcotic drugs trade and illegal gambling. Logically, the proceeds of these crimes must also be laundered. Goods, however,...

Towards a non-anthropocentric criminology Changing ecological conditions in a globalizing world pose new challenges for human societies. Global warming, large-scale pollution, deforestation and species extinction have increasingly become topics on the international agenda. Even though many of these harmful activities are criminogenic, criminology...

• Overfishing, exacerbated by illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing, is a serious threat to the conservation of the Caspian sturgeon populations, exposing them to the brink of extinction. This indicates the importance of investigating the causes and eliminating the consequences of the occurrence of IUU fishing. • This study aimed to de...

In order to further crime victims’ compensation, the Dutch legislator relatively recently extended the admissibility criterion. Since 2010, the key lies in the assessment of whether such a claim presents an undue burden for the criminal proceedings (S. 51f DCCP). In order to learn whether this legal change has been effective, an evaluative research...

The use of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) has existed for thousands of years and is deeply rooted in Chinese society. In the context of Chinese migration and growing markets from the West, the TCM market has developed into a lucrative drug industry. However, not all medicines are legal, some illegal medicines contain sinister components, such a...

The illegal trade in Barbary macaques contributes to a substantial decline in the wild population. From the late 1990s onwards, European sanctuaries addressed the growing number of seized animals being offered for shelter and the Barbary macaque has become the most seized CITES mammal in the EU in the 2000s. This chapter focuses on the organization...

In this chapter, the nature of the illegal wildlife trade is approached by quantitative analyses of wildlife seizures. Wildlife confiscations over a 10 -year period in the European Union were analysed and presented by graphics and maps to provide an overall picture of the visible illegal trade. The EU is one of the foremost destination markets for...

This study answers the call for empirical research on transnational environmental crimes by exploring the illegal trade in wildlife. In this chapter, the research methods of the study are presented. To obtain a global overview of this illegal trade, statistical descriptive analyses were carried out on a database with confiscations of illegal wildli...

Since social and professional concerns regarding the environment increased and the impact on humans became clear, the wildlife trade became slowly criminalized in the past few decades. While it can be expected that criminologists would study this phenomenon, many criminologists hesitated in discovering this new field for several reasons. In this ch...

In the twentieth century, the damage from unregulated wildlife trade became transparent as many species became extinct or were on the brink of extinction. Consequently, various moral entrepreneurs emerged to underline the need for regulation. This chapter shows that the effects of these initiatives to protect endangered species were divergent. On t...

The chain of the illegal wildlife trade consists of different stages, actors and networks. The wildlife moves along a line of contacts from the source areas to the final destinations. In this chapter, three case studies are analysed as to their similarities and differences in the context of the social construction of the value, global anomie and cr...

Caviar has a long and rich history, from the food of the poor to a luxury product for the upper classes in Europe. Historically, the symbolic value of caviar is determined in the context of changing social, political and environmental circumstances. The poaching exploded in the 1990s with the dissolution of the Soviet Union, due to which poor local...

The trade in wildlife is not a new phenomenon. The earliest civilizations were linked to the trade in live animals and parts thereof, from the Egyptian pharaohs to aristocrats in the modern era. In this chapter, the focus is on the global history of the wildlife trade in order to understand the social context of the trade. In dynamic social and cul...

After the five mass extinctions on Earth that were caused by meteorite impacts, volcanism and large-scale climate change, several scientists predict that we are currently at the beginning of a sixth mass extinction. In this scenario, it is humankind that is causing the mass extinction with the illegal trade in wildlife as one of the most important...

In this book the author examines the illegal wildlife trade from multiple perspectives: the historical context, the impact on the environment, the scope of the problem internationally, the sociocultural demand for illegal products, the legal efforts to combat it, and several case studies from inside the trade. The illegal wildlife trade has become...

Deze studie brengt de huidige praktijk van het civiele schadeverhaal in kaart. Geconstateerd wordt dat er regionale verschillen bestaan in de wijze van voorbereiding. Ook is sprake van uiteenlopende opvattingen over de plaats en betekenis van civiel schadeverhaal onder leden van het openbaar ministerie en strafrechters, met daaraan verbonden versch...