CIEL Director to provide expert testimony on the intersection of illegal logging and criminal activities during upcoming House Subcommittee hearing
November 3, 2021
Washington, DC — Carla García Zendejas, Director of People, Land, and Resources at the Center for International Environmental Law, will provide expert testimony on the illegal timber trade during an upcoming House Subcommittee on National Security, International Development, and Monetary Policy hearing, “From Timber to Tungsten: How the Exploitation of Natural Resources Funds Rogue Organizations and Regimes.” She will appear alongside expert witnesses from the Illicit Trafficking Working Group, Global Financial Integrity, Center on Illicit Networks and Organized Crime (CINTOC), and Section 2 Financial Intelligence Solutions.
García Zendejas’s testimony will focus on how illegal logging and related international trade, now considered the third-largest crime in the world, is committed by criminal networks made up by public officials and private companies who launder illegally felled timber with impunity. . Using illegal logging and forest degradation in the Peruvian Amazon as a case study, her remarks will explain how deforestation is being used to prop up structures and organizations that range from mining to coca production, agriculture, and non-metals extraction, often at the expense of landowners, environmental defenders, and Indigenous Peoples.
WHAT: House Subcommittee on National Security, International Development, and Monetary Policy hearing, “From Timber to Tungsten: How the Exploitation of Natural Resources Funds Rogue Organizations and Regimes.”
WHERE: In-person: Rayburn Office Building, Room 2128; Virtual: Watch the live stream of the hearing
WHEN: Thursday, November 04, 2021, 10:00 am EDT
RELEVANT PUBLICATIONS:
- CIEL, “Continuous Improvement” in Illegal Practices in the Peruvian Forest Sector,” November 2017
- CIEL, “Authorized to Steal: Organized Crime Networks Launder Illegal Timber from the Peruvian Amazon,” July 2019