The London-based Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) is a campaigning organisation like no other, and on September 17, 2014 it marks 30 years of working on the front lines to expose environmental crime and exploitation.
It began with three young activists seeking to make a difference and has grown into unique, manoeuvrable and hugely effective organisation, driving changes in international law and putting the concept of organised transnational environmental crime onto political agendas around the world.
Carving out a solid reputation for investigations and campaigns, EIA works on a wide range of environmental crimes including illegal wildlife trade (tigers, elephants and cetaceans), illegal logging, hazardous waste and trade in climate- and ozone-altering chemicals.
EIA differs from other NGOs in its strong focus on environmental criminality, dispatching investigators to work undercover with hidden cameras, false-front companies and assumed identities, often in harrowing and potentially dangerous circumstances
Its findings are shared with appropriate enforcement authorities for action, and used to highlight issues and bring pressure to bear on them.
“EIA has been the boots on the ground in this effort way before we came to the fight … in the environmental movement, EIA is the equivalent of Her Majesty’s Secret Service” – Louie Psihoyos, director of the Oscar-winning documentary The Cove
“The reason for their success is not just the information gathered, it is the way they use it as a political lobbying tool. One of Britain’s most effective conservation groups” – BBC Wildlife Magazine
“EIA performs an extremely important role in investigating various abuses of the natural world. I believe it deserves support from anyone concerned about the future of the living world” – Sir Peter Scott, conservationist and WWF founder
As well as investigations and campaigns, EIA also shares its skills and donates equipment to individuals and groups around the world to help train effective local voices for change.
EIA’s major successes in the past 30 years include:
• playing a pivotal role in securing the worldwide ban on ivory trade in 1989;
• dramatically reducing the international trade in wild caught birds;
• exposing the largest rhino horn poaching operation in the world;
• significantly reducing the demand for whale and dolphin meat in Japan and successfully campaigning for leading internet marketplaces Amazon, Google and Rakuten to stop selling such products;
• highlighting the illegal trade in big cat skins and exposing the trans-Himalayan trafficking routes for big cat body parts;
• contributing to the closure of 53 illegal mines in prime tiger habitat in India;
• exposing rife elephant poaching in Tanzania and Zambia in 2010 and so directly defeating their bids to sell stockpiled ivory;
• playing key roles in achieving the 2010’s European Union Timber Regulation and 2011’s historic Voluntary Partnership Agreement between the EU and Indonesia to help safeguard Indonesia’s forests.
EIA has an extensive archive of stills and footage from its 30 years of investigations, which can be made available to the Media on request.
Undercover investigation into illegal logging in Laos (c) EIA
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Potential hooks from which to hang features on EIA at 30
EIA has so many interesting and unusual stories for you to share with your readers and viewers. Here are just a few you could use …
Changing the game
When EIA started out in 1984, the very concept of organised transnational environmental crime barely existed and certainly wasn’t taken seriously – 30 years of investigations and campaigns later and the issue is now recognised around the world and by the United Nations as the planet’s fourth largest crime stream, worth billions a year and sustaining organised crime, fuelling corruption and conflict, and financing other forms of serious crime.
Going undercover
EIA pioneered the use of undercover investigations in the environmental movement, a technique now a vital tool employed by other NGOs around the world. Over the years, its investigators have posed as illegal timber buyers, CFC brokers and international ivory dealers, catching criminals on hidden camera and building a comprehensive picture of sprawling criminal networks.
A proud track record
In three decades of work, EIA has amassed an impressive series of exposés and victories, from its key role in securing the 1989 international ivory trade ban and helping bring in legislation to protect the world’s precious forests to exposing the horrors of China’s tiger farms and pushing whale meat off the menu in Japan.
A risky business
There’s nothing glamorous about working undercover – in fact, most of the time it’s stressful and potentially very dangerous. Despite meticulous planning and risk calculation, things can always go wrong – Forests Campaign leader Faith Doherty and her Indonesian colleague were taken hostage by a timber baron’s thugs and assaulted for several days while working undercover in Indonesia, and a key undercover operative has found himself briefly jailed in South-East Asia on several occasions.
Training tomorrow’s investigators
Sharing its campaigning skills and knowledge has become a cornerstone of EIA’s work. Individuals and groups as far afield as Indonesia, Tanzania and Vietnam have undergone training and received equipment from EIA, helping them to protect and monitor their natural resources, press for better policies at local, regional and national levels, and in some cases using their new skills to raise awareness about domestic issues as diverse as gender, HIV, human rights and industrial pollution.
The women of EIA
As well as being a unique environmental organisation, EIA must also be quite unusual in the often macho world of environmental campaigning in that the heads of its key campaign areas, recognised authorities in their respective fields, are all female. Debbie Banks (Tigers), Faith Doherty (Forests), Clare Perry (Cetaceans, Global Environment) and Mary Rice (Elephants) are complemented at EIA’s London office by Anna Cairns (Head of Fundraising) and Jean Kamugasha (Head of Finance) – and all are available for interview.
