Stopping traffic.

Illegal trafficking of hazardous waste, endangered natural resources including animals and plants, and toxic chemicals including ozone-depleting substances has become big business. To stop that traffic, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and other organizations in June 2003 launched a coordinated international effort that emphasizes more efficient training for customs officials on the front line.

The "GreenCustoms" initiative aims to build capacity among border police and customs authorities. Among its resources are a new website, http://www.unepie.org/ ozonaction/customs/, where visitors can find online and print training manuals and videos, as well as lists of upcoming training events. Besides UNEP, other organizations involved in the initiative are Interpol, the World Customs Organization, and the secretariats of the three multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs) that have trade provisions: the Convention on Inter national Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer, and the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal.

According to estimates in a December 2000 U.S. government report, International Crime Threat Assessment, criminal organizations around the world earn $10-12 billion a year from illegally dumping trash and hazardous waste. The same report estimates that criminals make as much as $8 billion from stealing and illegally trading natural resources such as forest timber and fish. Trade in ozone-depleting substances such as chlorofluorocarbons also is huge--the United Nations estimates that criminals worldwide traffic as much as 30,000 metric tons per year.

As the three MEAs have been implemented, customs officers seasoned mostly in stopping drug trade have had to learn to track down environmental crime, says Rajendra Shende, head of the Energy and OzonAction Branch in UNEP's Division of Technology, Industry, and Economics. Training to control and monitor environmental crime is a challenge because the MEAs are so complex. CITES, for example, provides various protections to more than 30,000 species of animals and plants that are traded illegally in many forms, including live animals, wooden musical instruments, and medicines. The MontrEal Protocol bans production of more than 97 ozone-depleting substances, while the Basel Convention regulates the import and export of more than 40 categories of hazardous waste. The challenge to customs officers is to keep track of what--and how--resources are protected, as well as recognizing standardized names for all the species, chemicals, and categories addressed by the MEAs.

GreenCustoms does not require the training, only offers and promotes it. Under the new initiative, the World Customs Organization and the secretariats of the three MEAs are coordinating and integrating their training so that officers receive training on all the agreements at the same time, rather than having to attend a separate training session for each MEA.

Training sessions provide identical guidelines to customs officers from the countries that have ratified the three MEAs so that all use the same methods for identifying illegal substances and sharing information. The initiative is also promoting a "train the trainer" approach--officers who attend the joint training sessions can go back and train their colleagues. The secretariats plan to seek grant funding for additional projects such as monitoring and review of the initiative and the compilation of a manual that will include overviews of customs rules and regulations, trading methods used by criminals, and how to recognize illegal substances.

Training sessions also allow officers to share information and intelligence about suspected crimes. In addition, the initiative is introducing other networking methods, for example by setting up electronic forums. "We need to get customs officers in neighboring countries into discussion," Shende says. "Ignorance of customs officers is the friend of smugglers." For more on environmental crime, see "Environmental Crime: Profiting at the Earth's Expense," p. A96 this issue.