Year of publication 2013

INTERPOL recognises forest crime as a significant and growing problem that is undermining government policies to sustainably manage and protect forests. Through Project Leaf, INTERPOL is working with governments to further the skills, capabilities, and capacities of their law enforcement agencies to undertake intelligence-led law enforcement to combat forest crime. INTERPOL recognises, however, that in many timber-producing countries law enforcement officers face severe difficulties, including low wages, little training and poor equipment. This report has been undertaken by INTERPOL to assess the needs of those officers in the field, and identify areas that need to be addressed to strengthen their law enforcement capacity. International mechanisms, such as REDD+, and the international donor community can play an important role in providing countries with the funding and resources they need to build the capacity of their law enforcement agencies, through supporting capacity building and training programmes. This publication collects all the INTERPOL's analysis of the capacity needs of forested-countries to enforce forest laws. The aim is to: increase financial and technical resources, create a national strategy to increase coordination between different enforcement agencies, promote institutional reforms to tackle corruption; strengthen national and international collaboration among agencies.