Experts call for better coordination to curb trade in illegal products
Nirmal Ghosh, Straits Times 18 Feb 11;
BANGKOK: Last November, detectives from India's Directorate of Revenue Intelligence seized an innocent-looking shipment of gas cylinders that had arrived in New Delhi from the Middle East. They were labelled as R-134A, a gas used in refrigeration that does not deplete the ozone layer.
But the enforcers had received a tip-off. The 1,139 cylinders, weighing 13.6kg each, did not contain R-134A. Instead, they contained R-22, an ozone-depleting gas restricted under the Montreal Protocol - a global treaty that aims to phase out ozone-destroying substances.
The haul in India was just the latest in a series. A coordinated global drive between May and November last year yielded 7,500 cylinders containing 108 tonnes of illegal ozone-depleting substances, and more than 650 shipments of goods containing outlawed ozone-depleting chemicals.
Ozone-depleting substances include a range of chemicals used in refrigeration, foam and fumigation.
The smuggling of cheap but outlawed chemicals is expected to rise, as the Montreal Protocol mandates their substitution with more ozone-friendly but expensive substances, making the profits from illegal trade substantial.
Mr Atul Bagai, the United Nations Environment Programme's senior coordinator for the Asia-Pacific, warned in an interview: 'Illegal trade could undermine the success of the Montreal Protocol and delay recovery of the ozone layer.'
The ozone layer is a thin film of ozone gas in the stratosphere that protects life on Earth from harmful solar radiation.
The smuggling of illegal or restricted ozone-depleting substances is among a range of transnational environmental crimes that also include illegal trade in plants, wildlife and hazardous waste, and governments are scrambling to keep pace with the thriving trade.
To address one aspect - the illegal wildlife trade, which, according to a recent estimate, is worth around US$10 billion (S$12.8 billion) a year globally - eight South Asian countries last month set up the South Asia Wildlife Enforcement Network (Sawen), which links enforcement agencies across the region, to coordinate anti-smuggling efforts.
But whether the contraband is ozone-depleting substances or illegal wildlife, enforcers have a challenging job. Shipments are usually either concealed among legitimate goods or mislabelled, and technical skills and specialised equipment are often required to spot and identify ozone-depleting chemicals, products from endangered species and hazardous waste.
Governments also tend to allocate more resources to other types of crime. At the India-Nepal border, for instance, Customs and other enforcement agencies focus mostly on the smuggling of drugs, gold and counterfeit currency notes.
Analysts and enforcement experts in Asia say information sharing should be ramped up considerably to curb growing international environmental crime.
Sawen, for instance, is an effort to link enforcement agencies more closely in an increasingly open region. There are hopes that it could, in future, formally link up with a similar network among the 10 Asean countries that was set up in 2005.
Mr Samir Sinha, head of the regional office of wildlife crime-monitoring organisation Traffic, told The Straits Times: 'This is a very major step, an essential piece of a collective effort to conserve a region of outstanding biological diversity.'
Such networks could help governments counter the opening up of land routes between South Asia, South-east Asia and China, a process that offers new opportunities for transboundary crime, from human trafficking to commodity smuggling.
But observers note that while occasional seizures of contraband make the news, they remain just 'blips' in overall enforcement terms.
Environmental crime officer Justin Gosling from Interpol's Bangkok office noted: 'When an enforcement agency seizes the commodity and makes perhaps a minor arrest, the commodity doesn't reach the market. But often, the person who organised the shipment is not prosecuted, and you still have a market out there.'
He added: 'The key is that a network has to act as a network, not just a club one belongs to. Most countries operate within their borders, but we have to target criminals who operate across borders.'
To make a real impact, it is essential for enforcement agencies to share information, he said. 'Having accurate information is like having a map, compared to walking in the dark.'
