Environmental Crime

What is environmental crime? As it suggests in the title, environmental crimes are crimes that damage the environment. It is a relatively new area of criminology, but is increasingly relevant due to environmental concerns taking centre stage in the 21st century. Environmental crime also includes the harming or illegal trading of endangered animals, such as poaching elephants for their ivory for capturing orang-utans for the illegal pet trade. Some environmentalists also consider activities such as whaling as criminal.

Environmental crime by Individuals This includes Fly-Tipping, littering, picking protected wild flowers and dealing in endangered animals. Individual green crime is different to other forms of crime because many of the perpetrators do not consider themselves as criminals. It is very much a new kind of crime and up until recently, it wasn’t considered deviant to do things such as dump your rubbish. It is only relatively recent that the public have been made aware of the dangers of these activities; partly by the actions of the Enviroment Agency, and partly by the wider concerns over global warming. The most unusual forms of environmental crimes in this country include egg collecting, badger baiting and most recently, fox hunting, which was made illegal in 2005.

Environmental crime by Businesses This kind of criminal activity mostly takes the form of polluting and fly tipping. The most recent example would be the BP Oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. The spill continues to cause extensive damage to marine and wildlife inhabitants there, and has had a massive impact on Mexico’s fishing and tourism industry. The company cutting corners of safety in order to work cheaply and make a profit caused the oil spill.

Environmental crime by Government Many Governments of the West commit environmental crimes by not disposing nuclear waste and weapons safely. Many Environmentalists argue that the British Government is criminal for planning to build more nuclear power stations, as they believe nuclear power will never be a safe source of energy. Another area of concern is the danger of Nuclear disasters such as the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, when a Russian nuclear power station exploded. Many Governments around the world legitimate the activity of whaling, including Japan, Canada, Iceland and Norway, despite international opposition. Whaling has a devastating affect on the whale population, as it has lead to 5 out of 13 whale species becoming endangered.