Earth League International (ELI) is a non-profit organization that fights environmental/wildlife crime by merging the worlds of conservation, intelligence, investigation, research, analysis, and media production. ELI was founded in 2013 by Andrea Crosta, a former intelligence officer with the Italian Navy. ELI has a team of over 50 experts from around the world, including former law enforcement officials, intelligence analysts, journalists, and conservationists.
ELI works to disrupt the proliferation of environmental/wildlife crime around the world. They identify and investigate the most important environmental criminals and wildlife traffickers in the world, they research their networks, the links to Transnational Organized Crime, and the Convergence with other serious crimes, such as money laundering, human smuggling, corruption, and drugs. ELI targets transnational criminal organizations linked to environmental crime, international traffickers, middlemen and corrupt government officials.
IUCN is the International Union for Conservation of Nature, a global environmental organization that works to conserve the world’s natural resources. IUCN has a membership of over 1,400 government and non-governmental organizations, and it is the world’s largest environmental knowledge network.
ELI and IUCN have a close working relationship. In 2018, ELI and IUCN NL (the Netherlands National Committee of IUCN) launched a project called Operation Jaguar to combat jaguar poaching and trafficking in the Amazon region. The project has resulted in the identification of several key traffickers and the seizure of thousands of jaguar parts.
ELI and IUCN are committed to working together to protect the world’s wildlife and ecosystems. They believe that by combining their expertise and resources, they can make a significant impact on the fight against environmental crime.
Here are some specific examples of the work that ELI and IUCN have done together:
- In 2019, ELI and IUCN NL released a report that exposed a major jaguar trafficking network in South America. The report led to the arrest of several traffickers and the seizure of thousands of jaguar parts.
- In 2020, ELI and IUCN worked together to launch a new initiative to combat the illegal wildlife trade in Africa. The initiative is called the African Wildlife Cybercrime Taskforce, and it is aimed at disrupting the online trade in wildlife products.
- In 2021, ELI and IUCN published a report that called for a new global treaty to combat environmental crime. The report argued that a new treaty is needed to address the growing threat of environmental crime, which is estimated to cost the global economy trillions of dollars each year.
ELI and IUCN are two of the leading organizations in the fight against environmental crime. By working together, they are making a significant impact on protecting the world’s wildlife and ecosystems.
