convergence

Global Scale and Impact of Illicit Trade
of the $50 billion in lost excise taxes (that is, illicit cigarettes are sold at half the regular price),
and therefore makes a revenue of $25 billion. Using the cost of crime ratio of 1.5, we infer a
loss of $37 billion.
Environmental Crime
To estimate the indirect impacts, one may add the estimates we reviewed for illegal logging (9
percent of $190 billion, or $17 billion), illegal fishing (20.55 percent of $81.5 billion, or $17
billion), other wildlife trade (roughly $5 billion), and the $11 billion for illegal toxic wastes. 53
Acknowledging that the last two estimates are not based on detailed studies, this places the
illegal market size at $50 billion. Using the cost of crime ratio, this results in crime-related
impacts of $75 billion.
Calculating direct impacts of human activity on the environment, whether resulting from
illicit activities or not, is a daunting task. To obtain an order of magnitude of these impacts,
we suggest a generic approach that does not get into the specifics of a given environmental
crime. It consists of using a first estimate for the total yearly value brought by ecosystem
services, a second estimate for the rate of depletion of these ecosystems, and a third estimate
on the proportion of that depletion caused by environmental crimes. The multiplication of
these three values provides a rough approximation of the direct permanent losses caused by
one year of environmental crimes. Yet ecosystem losses are permanent; therefore, we need to
integrate future losses as well. For that we use standard economic techniques for the current
value of future losses. More details are given below:
• Value of ecosystem services: a paper which was very influential in mainstreaming
the economics of nature calculated that the annual value of ecosystem services is in
the range of $16–54 trillion with an average of $33 trillion per year, or 183 percent
of the global GDP. 54 Global GDP was $18 trillion per year at the time of the study,
and put in perspective with the current global GDP of $63 billion, this represents
an annual value of ecosystem services of $115 trillion.
• Rate of depletion: While there is no such thing as a universal measurement of the
rate of depletion of ecosystem resources, we may use as a first approximation the
rate of depletion of forests, which are a fundamental pillar of our global ecosystem.
The UN Food and Agriculture Organization publishes an annual report on the
state of the world’s forests. The report of 2011 states that the annual change rate of
forest area was −0.13 percent during the period 2000 to 2010 (versus −0.2 percent
for 1990 to 2000). 55 We will make the approximation that this rate of depletion
generally applies to other ecosystem services.
• Our review of various environmental crimes suggests that, according to the market,
they represent approximately 10 percent to 25 percent of the total market activity.
Based on that, we will consider that illicit trade contributes to 10 percent of the total
depletion of ecosystem services. Therefore, each year $115 trillion × 0.13 percent ×
55