This month, the Financial Accountability and Corporate Transparency (FACT) Coalition secured new grant funding through the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation to expand its existing work addressing illicit financial systems that enable and reward the perpetrators of environment crimes. With additional resources from the Andes-Amazon Initiative, FACT will work to close regulatory loopholes, increase enforcement efforts, and improve collaboration between the U.S. and governments in the Andes-Amazon region to mitigate financial crimes and illicit financial flows from environmental crimes in the Amazon.
In addition to supporting new avenues of research, advocacy, and engagement on environmental crimes, this funding will also allow FACT to increase secretariat staff capacity to work on the intersection of environmental and financial crimes. The FACT secretariat is currently hiring for the position of Senior Policy Advisor for Environmental Crimes and Illicit Finance to help develop and lead this expanding portfolio.
Last year, FACT organized a convening on the intersection of environmental crime and illicit finance and welcomed a number of new members dedicated to environmental conservation and the prevention of environmental and nature crimes, including the Center for Climate Crime Analysis, Greenpeace USA, and the Wildlife Justice Commission. These groups join longstanding members such as Friends of the Earth, the Natural Resource Governance Institute, and EarthRights International. In September, 2023, FACT joined the newly-formed Nature Crime Alliance, a cooperative network of more than two dozen governments and non-governmental organizations dedicated to fighting nature crime, hosted by the World Resources Institute.
This major phase of expansion of the Coalition’s work to combat environmental crime coincides with the upcoming launch (en español) of FACT’s latest report, “Dirty Money and the Destruction of the Amazon: Uncovering the U.S. Role in Illicit Financial Flows from Environmental Crimes in Peru and Colombia.” The report – based on interviews with diverse stakeholders including local and regional activists, indigenous leaders, anti-money laundering experts, and government officials in Peru, Colombia, and the United States – demonstrates the role that the U.S. financial secrecy system plays in enabling environmental crimes in Latin America, and details domestic policy steps necessary to address the problem.
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Notes to the Editor:
- Click here to RSVP for the hybrid in-person and virtual launch of FACT’s new report on the U.S. role in environmental crimes in Peru and Colombia, to be held on October 26.
- The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation fosters path-breaking scientific discovery, environmental conservation, patient care improvements and preservation of the special character of the Bay Area. For more information, visit Moore.org and follow @MooreFound.
- A complete list of members of the Nature Crime Alliance can be found here.