This workshop is a joint initiative of ESA and the Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Commission to foster a greater uptake of Earth Observation technology in environmental compliance assurance.
Environmental crime is growing at annual rates of 5% to 7% globally. Countering environmental crime is complex as it is often perpetrated by criminal organizations operating across borders. It also spans a broad range of activities, such as illegal waste management and shipment, illegal logging and trade in timber, illegal water abstraction, pollution, habitats destruction and wildlife trafficking.
Combatting environmental crime often requires international cooperation, not only to roll up international networks, put also to account for differing legal frameworks, enforcement mechanisms, and priorities among countries. The European Union recently adopted a new directive to improve the effectiveness of criminal law enforcement and help achieve European Green Deal objectives by fighting against the most serious environmental offences.
The workshop aims to:
- Identify and review methods enabled by geospatial data sources, and particularly Earth Observation, to support better detection and characterization of environmental crimes and their consequences.
- Enhance awareness of the latest developments in geospatial and open source intelligence in the context of multidisciplinary evidence collection to assure environmental compliance.
- Identify gaps in administrative capacity or expertise among enforcement authorities.
- Collect insights on priority areas to improve the integration of EO capabilities in intelligence workflows and protocols for environmental crime investigations.
- Aligning with stakeholders’ agenda, highlight the importance of developing crime-countering strategies that are evidence-based and data-driven, addressing both the root causes of crime and its environmental, societal and economic dimensions.
- Inform the definition of requirements for Earth Observation and other geospatial products and services supporting environmental crime investigations.
- Outline a way forward to implement new solutions for a wider uptake of EO into investigations of environmental crimes within the ESA-JRC cooperation activities.
https://envcrimes2024.esa.int/