ECO-SOLVE: ENHANCED SOLUTIONS FOR TACKLING ENVIRONMENTAL CRIMES

Press kit

Insufficient data, weak cooperation, excluded communities, and corruption hamper an effective response to environmental crime.

ECO-SOLVE will use artificial intelligence and cutting-edge digital analysis to produce new responses to environmental crime. Implemented by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, ECO-SOLVE will provide law enforcement, policymakers, and local communities with invaluable information to fight online and offline illegal wildlife trade.

activities

ECO-SOLVE is designed around three key workstreams – technology, exposure and community engagement, set out in more detail below – to address the issues hampering current law enforcement responses. These are supported by a fourth output, a grant facility that will fund other organizations to partner with our monitoring system, or run data cooperation or community projects that will intensify the impact of the ECO-SOLVE project.

The project’s activities employ new models and emerging technology, and are designed to generate fresh solutions to old problems. The grant facility has been designed to encourage experimentation and enable timely interventions to disrupt environment crime. The project has also been designed to connect local programming with regional and global policymaking.

1. Technology for disruption

The GI-TOC will build a global monitoring system composed of ‘data hubs’ in key countries using OSINT and machine-learning approaches to monitor online illicit wildlife markets. The hubs will stimulate local intervention in online wildlife trafficking and support capacity building in local law enforcement, while generating data that can help us understand trends and shape global policymaking. It will also promote international cooperation to create data that can be used to disrupt other illegal environmental flows.

2. ELITE PROTECTION EXPOSURE

Through mixed-method research projects, we aim to uncover evidence of the elite-level corruption behind the illegal timber industry, and identify gaps in enforcement and legislation

3. COmmunity engagement

This component of the project will empower
communities affected by environmental crime so that their perspectives can inform better local policing, while allowing them to participate in and inform debates in global forums.

4. STRATEGIC GRANT FACILITY

A grant facility will be used to heighten the impact of the three workstreams above by funding community projects in areas affected by environmental crime, enabling partnerships and projects linked to improving global data on illicit environmental flows, and to react to opportunities to address impunity or corruption.

At the core of the ECO-SOLVE approach is collaboration among the numerous stakeholders that are the target beneficiaries or partners of this programme.

To ensure synergy, the activities have been designed to align with the needs of EMPACT, as well as global development priorities. The activities will involve the participation and partnership of local communities exposed to organized environmental crime, national and international NGOs, law enforcement bodies, researchers and policymakers.

PRESS RELEASE

New EU-funded Project to Combat Environmental Crimes Using AI and Open-Source Intelligence

BRUSSELS 20 March 2024

A new, three-year project funded by the European Union will use artificial intelligence and cutting-edge digital analysis to produce new responses to environmental crime. Implemented by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, ECO-SOLVE will provide law enforcement, policymakers, and local communities with invaluable information to fight online and offline illegal wildlife trade.

The launch event includes keynote speeches, panel discussions, live interviews, and videos and animations, with contributions drawing out the nature of the problems that ECO-SOLVE aims to address, and highlighting the ways in which the project has set about tackling them.

The launch event includes keynote speeches, panel discussions, live interviews, and videos and animations, with contributions drawing out the nature of the problems that ECO-SOLVE aims to address, and highlighting the ways in which the project has set about tackling them.

resources for SOCIAL MEDIA

Amplify Our Voices: Join the Conversation

Spread the word and support ECO-SOLVE by sharing our story. In this folder, you'll find everything you need to make your social media posts stand out - from visual assets designed for Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook to pre-written tweets and posts that align with our key messages. Every share, post, and tweet helps us gain more visibility and brings your network closer to our community.

Website and contact

Do you have data you’d like to add to our online wildlife trafficking database? Would you like to disseminate our stories of green corruption? Or replicate our community engagement dialogues? Get in touch to connect.

About the GI-TOC

The Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime is an independent civil society organization, headquartered in Geneva. It provides a platform to promote innovative approaches to responding to organized crime, which serve as the building blocks to shaping an inclusive global strategy against organized crime.