By Mark Ungar and Juan Corredor García

This Plain Language Summary is published in advance of the paper discussed. Please check back soon for a link to the full paper.

Colombia’s Law 2111 is one of the world’s strongest laws against environmental crimes such as illegal logging, mining, land grabbing, and deforestation.  Yet environmental destruction in the Colombian Amazon remains high.  This article explains why.

We show that three kinds of obstacles prevent environmental crimes from being addressed at each of the three main stages of the enforcement chain: Detection and policing;  Investigation and prosecution; and adjudication and sanction.  Those obstacles are:

1. Enforcement agencies cannot acquire evidence or witnesses because they lack trained personnel; transportation; laboratories, autonomy, and coordination.

2. Environmental crime is fueled by powerful organized networks of armed militias; drug traffickers; mining firms; ranchers; land speculators; transport companies, and corrupt officials.  These omnipresent alliances control supply chains, use fraud, and intimidate communities. 

3. Because the Amazon’s economy is dependent on cattle ranching, gold mining, and agriculture, state officials and citizens look the other way when organized crime invests in these sectors.

To test our argument, we analyze data from and conducted fieldwork in four Amazon departments: Caquetá, Guaviare, Meta, and Putumayo.  We arrive at four key findings: 1. Only a tiny fraction of deforestation alerts lead to criminal charges. 2. Most arrests involve lower-level individuals, not network leaders; 3. Many cases are dismissed; and 4. Administrative sanctions are rare, in part because administrative agencies are politicized. 

Why does this matter? Environmental crime, which is one of the world’s biggest forms of criminality, fuels deforestation and climate change; funds armed groups; undermines democracy; encourages corruption; and displaces indigenous communities. 

We suggest three main responses to these challenges: 1. Strengthen investigative units by insulating them from political pressure; 2. Support Indigenous patrols and local surveillance to improve cooperation with enforcement agencies; and 3. Detect patterns by combining satellite data, judicial records, land registries, and citizen reports.

Although focused on Colombia, our study can identify enforcement gaps in any country’s effort to combat environmental crime.  In conclusion, we show that even with strong laws, enforcement fails because the state lacks capacity, organized crime is embedded, and economic incentives favor unsustainable and often illegal extraction.