Combating Transnational Conservation Crimes in the Amazon (CTCCA)

About the project

The Combating Transnational Conservation Crimes in the Amazon (CTCCA) project is an initiative by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). It aims to improve regional cooperation and capacity of enforcement and justice system actors to detect, interdict, investigate and prosecute transnational conservation crimes in the Amazon, such as wildlife, forest, fisheries, and minerals-related crimes.

Duration: 4 years (2021 – 2025)

The project will be implemented in six of the Amazon region countries: Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, and Suriname, and the beneficiaries of TCCA throughout the project will include:

  • Enforcement agencies, including police, customs, border liaison officers, rangers, forestry/wildlife officials, anti-poaching units, anti-corruption authorities, financial investigation units;
  • Criminal justice system actors: prosecutors, judiciary, legislators;
  • National Wildlife and environmental authorities and decision-makers responsible for overseeing protected area conservation and management action;
  • Sub-regional and regional institutions and decision-makers responsible for coordinating and facilitating national-level conservation action and for harmonizing management approaches across the sub-regions;
  • Natural resource-dependent communities;
  • Consumer groups and policymakers; and,
  • Civil society organizations (CSOs).

The activities that will be held include the following areas:

1. Regional intelligence and law enforcement capacity building

The project will provide technical support and training to all the relevant stakeholders, besides supporting the exchange of existing international, and regional law enforcement cooperation platforms.

2. South America Wildlife Enforcement Network (SudWEN)

The operationalization of SudWEN will be reinvigorated and supported under the activities of the project, including the nomination of operational focal points from the SudWEN countries, facilitation of a regular exchange of information, and preparation of the statutory documents.

3. IUU/Fisheries crimes

Regional multi-agency awareness will be provided as well as training for fisheries management authorities.

4. Inventory and analysis of regional communication platforms and databases

Already functioning data sharing platforms will be analyzed and it will be held a feasibility study of the available regional and global enforcement focused information systems.

5. Evidence gathering of drivers of conservation crimes

The project will take actions to fill the gap in information, knowledge, and data about TCCs in Latin America with the presentation of the report findings and supporting the implementation process of information and data tools such as the ICCWC Wildlife and Forest Crime Analytic Toolkit and the ICCWC Indicator Framework (IF).

6. Regional capacity building activities

The project will continue to build capacity based on the IF and the Toolkit training curricula for law enforcement and prosecutors, and a new associated training component.