Economic and financial crime in the forestry industry – developed vs. developing countries
Delitos económicos y financieros en la industria forestal: países desarrollados frente a países en desarrollo
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.34140/bjbv5n2-023Palavras-chave:
economic and financial crime, corruption, shadow economy, money laundering, developed countries, developing countries, GDP, deforestation, forest industryResumo
Wood is one of the most important natural resources, used in construction and fencing, art (artworks and musical instruments), household uses (utensils and hand tools), wooden toys, furniture, shipbuilding, fuel, and stationary. Therefore, deforestation is an indispensable process to our society. However, deforestation does not have to mean smaller forestland, as it should be accompanied by afforestation. But this does not happen, partially due to illegal deforestation, that raises the deforestation level much higher than the sustainable one, and partially due to laws that permit legal deforestation to be above the durable limit, obviously for economic and political reasons The aim of this paper is to study the differences in the influence that economic and financial crimes (corruption, shadow economy, and money laundering) have on the rate of deforestation in developing versus developed countries. Recent data (from 2012 to 2020) is used for 185 countries from all over the world, in order to obtain updated and relevant results. The practical use of the findings is given by their relevance in finding efficient, adapted, and effective solutions for unsustainable deforestation (legal or not), for pollution, and for a cleaner air and environment, and for a better understanding of this phenomenon, by addressing it differently according to the level of development of a country. Also, this research is an attempt to raise awareness upon illegal deforestation and corruption. The regressions applied to the database show that both developed and developing countries present a direct connection between economic and financial crime and the level of deforestation, but in developed countries the influence of economic and financial crime on deforestation is lower. Therefore, the focus in reducing the deforestation by reducing the economic and financial crimes rate should be on developing countries, where the levels of corruption, shadow economy, and money-laundering are higher, and so is the deforestation rate.
Referências
Achim, M. V., & Borlea, S. N. (2020). Economic and Financial Crime: Corruption, Shadow Economy and Money Laundering (Studies of Organized Crime ed., Vol. 20). Charm: Springer International Publishing.
Alexandrowicz, W. P. (2017). Malacofauna of the Holocene tufa in the valley of the Ociemny Stream (Pieniny Mts., southern Poland). Geology Geophysics and Environment, 43(1), 5-18. doi:10.7479/geol.2017.43.1.5
Ali, J., & Nyborg, I. L. (2010). Corruption or Alternative System? Re-assessing Corruption and the role of the Forest Services in the Northen Areas, Pakistan. International Forestry Review, 12(3), 209-220. doi:10.1505/ifor.12.3.209
Ali, J., Benjaminsen, T., Hammad, A., & Dick, O. (2005). The road to deforestation: An assessment of forest loss and its causes in Bascho Valley, Northern Pakistan. Global Environmental Change - Human and Policy Dimensions, 15(4), 370-380. doi:10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2005.06.004
Amacher, G., Ollikainen, M., & Koskela, E. (2012). Corruption and Forest Concessions. Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, 63(1), 92-104. doi:10.1016/j.jeem.2011.05.007
Bakehe, N. P. (2020). The effect of democracy on environmental degradation: the case of deforestation in the Congo Basin. Development Durable & Territoires, 11(3). doi:10.4000/developpementdurable.17857
Barrett, C. B., Gibson, C. C., Hoffman, B., & McCubbins, M. D. (2006). The complex links between governance and biodiversity. Conservation Biology, 20(5), 1358-1366. doi:10.1111/j.1523-1739.2006.00521.x
Barroso, L. R., & Campos Mello, P. P. (2020). How to Save the Amazon: Why Forest Has More Value Standing than Cut Down? Revista de Dierito Da Cidade-City Law, 12(2), 331-376. doi:10.12957/rdc.2020.50890
Brown, M. L. (2010). Limiting Corrupt Incentives in a Global REDD Regime. Ecology Law Qaurterly, 37(1), 237-267.
Bulte, E. H., Damania, R., & Lopez, R. (2007). On the gains of committing to inefficiency: Corruption, deforestation and low land productivity in Latin America. Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, 54(3), 277-295. doi:10.1016/j.jeem.2007.05.002
Cavanagh, C. J., Vedeld, P. O., & Traedal, L. T. (2015). Securitizing REDD plus? Problematizing the emerging illegal timber trade and forest carbon interface in East Africa. Geoforum, 60, 72-82. doi:10.1016/j.geoforum.2015.01.011
Chen, G., Powers, R. P., de Carvalho, L. M., & Mora, B. (2015). Spatiotemporal patterns of tropical deforestation and forest degradation in response to the operation of the Tucurui hydroelectric dam in the Amazon basin. Applied Geography, 63, 1-8. doi:10.1016/j.apgeog.2015.06.001
Cozma, A.-C., Achim, M. V., & Safta, I. L. (2022). Economic and Financial Crime in the Forest Industry - Internationally and in Romania. 24th RSEP International Conference on Economics, Finance & Business (pp. 72-88). Vienna, Austria: BC GRUP INC. doi:https://doi.org/10.19275/RSEPCONFERENCES158
Cozma, A.-C., Cotoc, C.-N., Vaidean, V. L., & Achim, M. V. (2021). Corruption, Shadow Economy and Deforestation: Friends or Strangers? Risks, 9(9). doi:10.3390/risks9090153
Devine, J. A., Currit, N., Reygadas, Y., Liler, L., & Allen, G. (2020). Drug trafficking, cattle ranching and Land use and Land cover change in Guatemala's Maya Biosphere Reserve. Land Use Policy, 95. doi:10.1016/j.landusepol.2020.104578
Devine, J. A., Wrathall, D., Aguilar-Gonzalez, B., Benessaiah, K., Tellman, B., Ghaffari, Z., & Ponstingel, D. (2021). Narco-degradation: Cocaine trafficking's environemntal impacts in Central America's protected areas. World Development, 144. doi:10.1016/j.worlddev.2021.105474
Devine, J. A., Wrathall, D., Currit, N., Tellman, B., & Langarica, Y. R. (2020). Narco-Cattle Ranching in Political Forests. Antipode, 52(4), 1018-1038. doi:10.1111/anti.12469
Drapenzo, R., & Shelestukov, V. (2019). Ecological and Economical Violations as a Threat for Sustinable Development and National Environmental Safety (on Example of Kemerovo Region)., 105. doi:10.1051/e3sconf/201910502016
Ewers, R. M. (2006). Interaction effects between economic development and forest cover determine deforestation rates. Global Environmental Change - Human and Policy Dimensions, 16(2), 161-169. doi:10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2005.12.001
Fearnside, P. M. (2008). The Roles and Movements of Actors in the Deforestation of Brazilian Amazonia. Ecology and Society, 13(1).
Galintao, G. I., & Galintao, S. P. (2012). The effects of corruption control, political stability and economic growth on deforestation - induced carbon dioxide emissions. Environment and Development Economics, 17, 67-90. doi:10.1017/S1355770X11000222
Gunes, Y., & Elvan, O. D. (2005). llegal logging activities in Turkey. Environmental Management, 36(2), 220-229. doi:10.1007/s00267-003-0107-1
Indarto, J., Kaneko, S., & Kawata, K. (2015). Do forest permits cause deforestation in Indonesia? International Forestry Review, 17(2), 165-181. doi:10.1505/146554815815500651
Islam, K. K., & Sato, N. (2012). Deforestation, land conversion and illegal logging in Bangladesh: the case of the Sal (Shorea robusta) forests. Iforest - Biogeosciences and Forestry, 5, 171-178. doi:10.3832/ifor0578-005
Ji, Y., Ranjan, R., & Truong, C. (2018). Determinants of illegal logging in Indonesia: An empirical analysis for the period 1996-2010. Journal of Sustainable Forestry, 37(2), 197-220. doi:10.1080/10549811.2017.1369436
Koren, H. S., & Butler, C. D. (2006). The interconnection between the build environment ecology and health. Environmental Security and Environmental Management: the Role of Risk Management, 5.
Laing, T. (2019). Small man goes where the large fears to tread: Mining in Guyana: 1990-2018. Resources Policy, 63. doi:10.1016/j.resourpol.2019.101426
Latif, S. A., & Munir, A. (2017). Smog and Environmental Crime (Reflected From Cases in Riau). Proceedings of the International Conference on Democracy, Accountability and Governance, 163, 269-272.
Laurance, W. F. (2007). Forest destruction in tropical Asia. Current Science, 93(11), 1544-1550.
Luis Carpio-Dominguez, J. (2021). Organized Crime (Drug Trafficking) and Environmental Preservation, the Pending Issue of Public Safety in Mexico. Revista Cs En Ciencias Sociales, 33, 237-274. doi:10.18046/recs.i33.4076
Lynch, M. J., Long, M. A., Barrett, K. L., & Stretesky, P. B. (2013). Is It a Crime to Produce Ecological Disorganization? Why Green Criminology and Political Economy Matter in the Analysis of Global Ecological Harms. British Journal of Criminology, 53(6), 997-1016. doi:10.1093/bjc/azt051
Mahanty, S. (2019). Shadow Economies and the State: A Comparison of Cassava and Timber Networks on the Cambodia-Vietnam Frontier. Journal of Contemporary Asia, 49(2), 193-215. doi:10.1080/00472336.2018.1545917
Medina, L., & Schneider, F. G. (2019). Shedding Light on the Shadow Economy: A Global Database and the Interaction with the Official One. CESifo Working Paper , 7981. Retrieved from https://ssrn.com/abstract=3502028
Mendes, C. M., & Porto Junior, S. (2012). Deforestation, economic growth and corruption: a nonparametric analysis on the case of Amazon forests. Applied Economic Letters, 19(13), 1285-1291. doi:10.1080/13504851.2011.619487
Minten, B., Sander, K., & Stifel, D. (2013). Forest management and economic rents: Evidence from the charcoal trade in Madagascar. Energy for Sustainable Development, 17(2), 106-115. doi:10.1016/j.esd.2012.08.004
Nazarova, T., Martin, P., & Giuliani, G. (2020). Monitoring Vegetation Change in the Presence of High Cloud Cover with Sentinel-2 in a Lowland Tropical Forest Region in Brazil. Remote Sensing, 12(11). doi:10.3390/rs12111829
Ozinga, S., & Mowat, H. (2012). Strategies to Prevent Illegal Logging. Handbook of Globalisation and Environmental Policy: National Government Interventions in a Global Arena, 2, 439-466.
Pailler, S. (2018). Re-election incentives and deforestation cycles in the Brazilian Amazon. Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, 88, 345-365. doi:10.1016/j.jeem.2018.01.008
Papuc, R. M., Pintilii, R.-D., Andronache, I., Peptenatu, D., & Dobrea, C. R. (2015). Assessment of the Economic Pressure on Forest Ecosystems in Romania. Water Resources, Forest, Marine and Ocean Ecosystems, 2, 441-446.
Pattanayak, S. .., Sills, E. O., & Kramer, R. A. (2004). Seeing the forest for the fuel. Environment and Development Economics, 9, 155-179. doi:10.1017/S1355770X03001220
Pollini, J. (2011). The Difficult Reconciliation of Conservation and Development Objectives: The Case of the Malagasy Environmental Action Plan. Human Organization, 70(1), 74-87. doi:10.17730/humo.70.1.6879m4w585133302
Pozmogov, A., Kallagov, B., Tedeeva, Z., Kuchieva, M., & Gergaeva, A. (2019). Environmental Risk as a Problem for the Socio-Economic Development of the Region. Indo American Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences, 6(3), 6873-6876. doi:10.5281/zenodo.2615309
Ritchie, H., & Roser, M. (2016). Emissions by sector. Retrieved 08 09, 2021, from Our World in Data: https://ourworldindata.org/emissions-by-sector
Ritchie, H., & Roser, M. (2021). Forests and Deforestation. Retrieved 09 08, 2021, from Our World in Data: https://ourworldindata.org/forests-and-deforestation
Santibanez, F., & Santibanez, P. (2007). Trends in land degradation in Latin America and the Caribbean, the role of climate change. Climate and Land Degradation. doi:10.1007/978-3-540-72438-4_4
Schneider, F. (2022). New COVID-related results for estimating the shadow economy in the global economy in 2021 and 2022. International Economics and Economic Policy, 19, 299-313. doi:10.1007/s10368-022-00537-6
Shanee, N., & Shanee, S. (2016). Land Trafficking, Migration, and Conservation in the No-Man's Land of Northeastern Peru. Tropical Conservation Science, 9(4). doi:10.1177/1940082916682957
Sheng, J., Han, X., Zhou, H., & Miao, Z. (2016). Effects of corruption on performance: Evidence from the UN-REDD Programme. Land Use Policy, 59, 344-350. doi:10.1016/j.landusepol.2016.09.014
Sodhi, N. S. (2008). Invited views in basic and applied ecology - Tropical biodiversity loss and people - A brief review. Basic and Applied Ecology, 9(2), 93-99. doi:10.1016/j.baae.2007.11.001
Sullivan, L. (2013). Identity, Territory and Land Conflict in Brazil. Development and Change, 44(2), 451-471. doi:10.1111/dech.12010
Sundstrom, A. (2013). Corruption in the commons: Why bribery hampers enforcement of environmental regulations in South African fisheries. International Journal of the Commons, 7(2), 454-472.
Sundstrom, A. (2016). Understanding illegality and corrpution in forest governance. Journal of Environmental Management, 181, 779-790. doi:10.1016/j.jenvman/2016.07.020
Tellman, B., Magliocca, N. R., Turner, B., & Verburg, P. H. (2020). Understanding the role of illicit transactions in land-change dynamics. Nature Sustainability, 3(3), 175-181. doi:10.1038/s41893-019-0457-1
Tellman, B., Sesnie, S. E., Magliocca, N. R., Nielsen, E. A., Devine, J. A., McSweeney, K., . . . Aguilar-Gonzalez, B. (2020). Illicit Drivers of Land Use Change: Narcotrafficking and Forest Loss in Central America. Global Environmental Change - Human and Policy Dimensions, 63. doi:10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2020.102092
Villar, D., & Schaeffer, D. J. (2019). Dasarmament Is the New War, Gold Is the New Opium, and Ecohealth Is the Historic Victim. Environmental Health Insights, 13. doi:10.1177/1178630219862241
Wehkamp, J., Aquino, A., Fuss, S., & Reed, E. W. (2015). Analyzing the perception of deforestation drivers by African policy makers in light of possible REDD plus policy responses. Forest Policy and Economics, 59, 7-18. doi:10.1016/j.forpol.2015.05.005
Wolfersberger, J., Delacote, P., & Garcia, S. (2015). An empirical analysis of forest transition and land-use change in developing countries. Ecological Economics, 119, 241-251. doi:10.1016/j.ecolecon.2015.08.018
