Government in Preventing Environmental Crime Essay

Government in Preventing Environmental Crime - Essay Example South & Brisman (2013) state that some of the environmental protocols set by the international bodies include the banning of wildlife trade in endangered species under the CITES stipulations. It has been an instrumental international law that did shape the UK Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 amendments. Secondly, the illegal logging Act that protects forests from unthoughtful exploitation. Besides, the international protocols on the environment include banning of dumping hazardous wastes in water as provided in the Basel Convention on the Control of Tran boundary Act 1989. Committing any of the above crimes is liable to prosecution in accordance to international law; this should be seen being enforced by the individual government. Overview of UK Environmental Act Today, United Kingdom is among the countries that have signed several environmental and wildlife conventions are a renewed commitment to protect the environment from crime. Some of the provisions in the Countryside and Wildlife Act 1981 include banning of poaching, illegalizing unplanned logging and prevention of endangered species as provided in the CITES 1975 international protocol (Reins 2012). Since the Committee inquiry of 2004, the government commitment to protect the wildlife increased substantially, this was seen when the house of common began to deliberate on numerous amendments of the Countryside and Wildlife Act 1981, resulting in the more recent Wildlife Act 2012 Amendment. However, wildlife has been amended many times to respond to new crime threats that has become complex to non-specialist police. The year 2006 saw the enactment of law that prohibits the poisoning of birds because there were increased threats posed by poaching through poisoning. Moreover, the formation of the National Wildlife Crime Unit (NWCU) is a living testimony of the framework created by the government to enforce and repeal numerous Acts of the wildlife (Stewart 2012). However, some critics argue that wildlife crime enforcement has been greatly undermined by lack of definite sentencing guidelines for wildlife judges.