FloraGuard: Tackling the Online Illegal Trade in Endangered Plants Through a Cross-Disciplinary ICT-Enabled Methodology

Abstract

This article presents a part of the ongoing Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)-funded project “FloraGuard: Tackling the illegal trade in endangered plants” that relies on cross-disciplinary approaches to analyze online marketplaces for the illegal trade in endangered plants, and explores strategies to develop digital resources to assist law enforcement in countering and disrupting this criminal market. This contribution focuses on how the project brought together computer science, criminology, conservation science, and law enforcement expertise to create a tool for the automatic gathering of relevant online information to be used for research, intelligence, and investigative purposes. The article also discusses the ethical standards applied and proposes the concept of “artificial intelligence (AI) review” to provide a sociotechnical solution that builds trustworthiness in the AI approaches used for this type of cross-disciplinary information and communications technology (ICT)-enabled methodology.

Studying Illegal Online Trades in Plants: Market Characteristics, Organisational and Behavioural Aspects, and Policing Challenges

“…In a way, some collectors seem to rely on what we might consider techniques of neutralisation-that is, rationalisation offenders use to convince themselves that it is admissible to transcend dominant norms of conduct and commit deviant behaviour (Sykes and Matza 1957)-to deviate and justify their deviation from the environmentally responsible norms of conduct. For instance, reportedly, many collectors "deny the injury" as they look after and bread the poached plants with care, or "deny the responsibility" as in their view any responsibility should be limited to the vendor (Lavorgna et al 2020).…”

“…If an online advertisement is placed, this generally occurs in closed social media pages (which are not reachable by standard law enforcement monitoring or investigation) viewed by those in their social circle. Indeed, law enforcement agencies in the area of illegal wildlife trade are not legally permitted to access what is not available to them through the open webpages unless they obtain separate authority, such as a search warrant, which is very hard to obtain for this type of illegal activity (Lavorgna et al 2020, details to be added after peer review).…”

“…Plant crime is a major environmental problem that over the years has received attention in the area of conservation science (for example, Sajeva et al 2013;Phelps and Webb 2015;Vaglica et al 2017;Hinsley et al 2017aHinsley et al , 2017bHinsley and Roberts 2018) and, more recently, also in the field of green criminology (Arroyo-Quiroz and Wyatt 2019; Lavorgna et al 2020), a fast developing field of criminology focusing on the harms and crimes committed against the natural environment and non-human animals and plants living in it (Sollund 2019). It has been recognised that the illegal plant trade threatens and destroys numerous species and important natural resources, and can cause phytosanitary risks (Kaminski et al 2012;Phelps and Webb 2015).…”

“…The studies briefly surveyed to recognise the need to better monitor both online markets and social media (Hinsley et al 2016;Krigas et al 2017), but they do not specifically consider how to translate this need into implementable policies or linger on specific policing aspects. Nonetheless, there is consensus that online trading should become a priority for law enforcement improvement (Kretser et al 2015;Hinsley et al 2017a), and that interventions for capacity-building of enforcement personnel are needed to increase the quality of market surveillance for illegally traded wildlife (Lavorgna et al 2020). Within this context, it is recognised that the policing of wildlife trafficking is still restricted and poorly resourced, with law enforcement agencies having limited training opportunities, often with no specific expertise on board to be effective in their job (Nurse 2015;CITES 2016a;Runhovde 2017).…”

New Methods to Enhance the Study of Environmental Crimes and New Instruments to Strengthen Crime Prevention

“…The sixth article utilizes a cross-disciplinary approach (i.e., computer science, criminology, conservation science, and law enforcement expertise) to analyze online marketplaces for the illegal trade of endangered plants and to explore strategies for developing digital resources to assist law enforcement in countering and disrupting this criminal market. The article discusses the conceptualization of a tool capable of automatically gathering relevant online information to be used for research, intelligence, and investigative purposes (Lavorgna et al, 2020). The seventh article emphasizes the importance of being creative when extracting data to study corporate environmental crimes.…”