Since Donald Trump’s unexpected presidential victory, environmentalists fear a substantial rollback of protections for our natural world. Yet there may be a silver lining. Trump’s broader security goals — to crush the Islamic State group, fight transnational criminals and promote stability — does allow for perhaps one environmental agenda to be advanced: the ongoing fight against environmental criminals.
Around the world, transnational organized criminals are involved in natural resource theft and other environmental crimes that benefit them, finance terrorism and cause instability. Overall, environmental crime generates upward of $258 billion and is growing by 5 to 7 percent annually — two to three times the growth rate of the global economy, a figure that should startle any businessman.
Last year during an interview with Chuck Todd on “Meet the Press,” Trump responded to a question on how he would deal with Islamic State. His response: “I want to take away their wealth.” By protecting our environment from transnational criminals and terrorists, President-elect Trump will do just that while gaining crucial ground on other security priorities.
Here’s a look at the perpetrators of environmental crime.
In recent years, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, turned to gold over drugs — a growing trend among organized criminal and terror groups around the world. The FARC have long financed their enterprise through illegal mining in Colombia and neighboring countries, and relied on the same networks they use to peddle drugs to pawn their stolen gold. In 2015, the Colombian Armed Forces raided 63 FARC-operated mines, which netted the group $9 million — per month. In October of this year, the government seized $3.4 million of the group’s mining assets. These figures indicate that, in some regions of the country, the group’s income from illegal mining surpasses the money it generates from drug trafficking, for which the group is infamous.
Other terrorist organizations are also financing their endeavors with profits from pillaged resources or by exploiting legal industries to move their stolen commodities. The Taliban funds itself by selling drugs, which are trafficked by fishermen. The Lord’s Resistance Army funds itself by poaching elephants. One 2015 study tracking the flow of blood diamonds through West Africa raised concerns that Boko Haram may shift its focus to this lucrative revenue stream. These organizations — all of which make the U.S. government’s list of terror organizations — are experts at finding where resources are abundant and protective capacity is low, where Mother Nature is most vulnerable.
[READ: Obama’s missed opportunity on child soldiers.]
It’s not only terrorists who steal from and otherwise exploit the environment. There’s a much wider group of transnational bandits who are involved in looting the environment for profit. The Asian Triad, a collective of Chinese syndicates, has been operating in South Africa for decades. The syndicates have their hands in a range of illicit activities. Most recently, they’ve entered into the illegal abalone trade. The groups use the legal trade to hide their illicit activities, which include dealing the ingredients for methamphetamine. What’s more, the groups have entrenched poaching into local economies, sowing instability.
These groups leave instability and insecurity in their wake. Look no further than the South China Sea. The intense territorial conflicts there, fueled in part by China’s unsustainable demand for seafood, are pushing countries to turn to military means for control. The government of Indonesia has adopted a strategy of sinking vessels that are illegally fishing in their territory. Chinese fishing boats, fortified with metal sheeting, have begun ambushing South Korean coast guard vessels. The geostrategic conflicts fueled by resource disputes don’t only unfold in local waters. China’s distant water fleet has become ensnared in conflicts as far away from home as Argentina. It’s no coincidence that China has deliberately projected its power regionally and around the world during a moment when demand for resources, particularly food, is skyrocketing. Throughout his campaign, President-elect Trump promised to get tough on China. Resources are at the core of Chinese aggression and regional instability. Cracking down on China necessarily includes addressing the regional instability fueled by resource theft.
So what are President-elect Trump’s first steps on these “natural security” challenges?
First, the President-elect should include these environmental crimes in the national security strategy. Doing so would open the security toolbox to fight the threat of criminals exploiting the environment for their destructive benefit. The shift would also usher in an era for the entire U.S. government to respond to the threats these groups pose. For example, the Combined Maritime Forces, a naval coalition of 31 countries to which the U.S. contributes, has already begun targeting fishing vessels to find and seize arms and drugs, which are fueling conflict in the region. Expanding the mission of coalitions like the Combined Maritime Forces to include a call to target environmental crime will help the President-elect meet his goal of reducing instability and crime in the Middle East.
Second, President-elect Trump should appoint to his security team a natural security czar. A natural security leader would be able to coordinate an interagency response to this agile, ever evolving threat, and an expert dedicated to addressing the threat could marshal the dexterity needed on the part of governments to outmaneuver these shady groups.
These concrete steps — shifting the U.S. national security strategy to include natural security and tapping an expert in the threat networks that perpetrate environmental crime — will set President-elect Trump’s course for achieving his security goals, while in parallel making our environment safe again.
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How President-elect Donald Trump Can Tackle Environmental Crime originally appeared on usnews.com
