Acciones para promover la Gobernanza Transparente de los Recursos Naturales

The TGNR project identifies a symbiotic relationship between corruption and organized crime that drives four main 'motors' of environmental degradation in Colombia: illegal gold mining, timber trafficking, wildlife trafficking, and illegal land appropriation. The report argues that corruption allows criminals to access power, while organized crime provides corrupt officials with illicit services like violence and extortion. To counter this, the project recommends legal reforms (such as classifying environmental crimes as predicate offenses for money laundering), strengthening state institutions, improving technological information systems to reduce official discretion, and empowering local communities to reduce their vulnerability to criminal networks. The document emphasizes that these illegal activities threaten Colombia's national security by funding armed groups and cause significant economic losses through tax evasion and 'criminal dumping'.

• There is a symbiotic relationship between corruption and organized crime in the management of natural resources. Corruption enables criminal actors to access decision-making power through bribes, while organized crime provides corrupt political and economic actors with illicit services, such as extortion, forced displacement, and assassination, to achieve their goals without detection.
• The project identifies four primary 'motors' driving deforestation and biodiversity loss: illegal open-pit alluvial gold mining (covering extraction, processing, commercialization, and export), timber trafficking (focusing on the legal value chain of natural forest wood), wildlife trafficking (including illegal hunting, transport, and sale), and illegal land appropriation in specially protected areas.
• To combat these drivers, the report proposes specific legal modifications, including updating Article 46 of Law 1952 of 2019 (Unique Disciplinary Code) and amending Article 323 of the Penal Code to recognize environmental crimes as source crimes for money laundering.
• The report recommends improving technological tools and information systems to reduce the discretion of public officials in registering permits for the use, transport, and commercialization of products, which currently facilitates the 'whitening' of illegal products.
• Illegal resource exploitation and land appropriation pose a national security threat because they generate profits comparable to drug trafficking, which are used to fund organized armed groups (GAO and GAOR) that control territories and weaken state institutions through corruption.
• The illegal economy causes economic instability through 'criminal dumping,' where illegal profits from gold, timber, or wildlife are used to buy foreign goods (e.g., jewelry in Panama or clothing in China) and import them to Colombia at prices lower than the legal market, harming legitimate businesses.
• Environmental crimes are linked to severe social and health impacts, including zoonotic diseases from wildlife trafficking, mercury poisoning from gold mining, the murder of environmental leaders, child prostitution, and human trafficking, particularly in the 'Triple Border' region of Colombia, Peru, and Brazil.

APA

WWF International (2021). Acciones para promover la Gobernanza Transparente de los Recursos Naturales. https://www.worldwildlife.org/documents/377/2yj5xit2z3_Resumen_Ejecutivo_TGNR_FINAL.pdf

Chicago

WWF International. Acciones para promover la Gobernanza Transparente de los Recursos Naturales. 2021. https://www.worldwildlife.org/documents/377/2yj5xit2z3_Resumen_Ejecutivo_TGNR_FINAL.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=WWF International |title=Acciones para promover la Gobernanza Transparente de los Recursos Naturales |date=October 2021 |url=https://www.worldwildlife.org/documents/377/2yj5xit2z3_Resumen_Ejecutivo_TGNR_FINAL.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{wwfinternational2021acciones, author = {{WWF International}}, title = {{Acciones para promover la Gobernanza Transparente de los Recursos Naturales}}, institution = {WWF International}, year = {2021}, month = oct, url = {https://www.worldwildlife.org/documents/377/2yj5xit2z3_Resumen_Ejecutivo_TGNR_FINAL.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }