Global World Environment Day Kicked off Yesterday

Luanda, 5 June 2016 - Angola on Sunday kicked off global celebrations of World Environment Day with a pledge to combat the illegal trade in wildlife, which is part of wider global environmental crime, costing up to $258 billion per year.

World Environment Day (WED), the world's biggest day for positive environmental action, is being officially hosted by the southern African nation, which is attempting to overcome issues related to the WED theme of ending the illegal trade in wildlife.

Angola lost many of its elephants during a long civil war, which ran on-and-off from 1975 to 2002. It is unclear how many elephants remain, but those that do are facing pressure from poachers. The nation is also a transit country for ivory, with carved goods coming over the border from the Democratic Republic of Congo for re-sale, largely to Asian nations.

Angola is introducing tougher penalties for poaching, shutting down its domestic illegal markets, and looking to provide alternative livelihoods for those at the bottom of the illegal wildlife trade chain. They are also training former combatants to become wildlife rangers and have opened new tourism lodges in the southeastern Cuando-Cubango province.

The troubles facing Angola are part of a wider global problem. A new United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)-INTERPOL report, The Rise of Environmental Crime, found that transnational criminal networks are profiting to the tune of up to $258 billion per year from environmental crimes, including the illegal trade in wildlife. This is a 26 per cent increase on previous estimates.

Environmental crime dwarfs the illegal trade in small arms, which is valued at about $3 billion. It is the world's fourth-largest criminal enterprise after drug smuggling, counterfeiting and human trafficking. The amount of money lost due to environmental crime is 10,000 times greater than the amount of money spent by international agencies on combatting it - just $20-30 million.

To combat the illegal trade in wildlife, the United Nations system and partners have launched the Wild For Life campaign, which draws on support from celebrities such as Gisele Bündchen, Yaya Touré and Neymar Jr. to mobilize millions to take action against poaching and the trafficking of illegal wildlife products.

The campaign is run by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the UN Development Programme (UNDP), the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). The Global Environment Facility (GEF) and World Bank are also on board as supporters.

Elsewhere, around the world, tens of thousands of people were actively celebrating WED at many hundreds of events from New York to Beijing, from Canberra to Kathmandu, to raise attention on the urgency of battling wildlife crime and other pressing environmental problems.

BRUSSELS

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The Brussels Institute for Environment (IBGE) organizing an festival for the environment in Parc du Cinquantenaire in Brussels on 5 June around the theme of ‘good food’. The event consisted of a large village with a huge variety of stands related to this year's local theme of 'Goof Food' (sustainable food).

The UN was represented UNEP, the World Food Programme (WFP), the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the UN Regional Information Centre (UNRIC) in a joint stand. While the main theme was centered around sustainable consumption and production, the #NotWasting campaign and and world hunger, a link will was also made to the global WED theme of illegal trade in wildlife.