Financial Transparency Coalition

Who really benefits from illicit deforestation?  Who is behind the profits generated by illicit deforestation, and crops like soy and pasture for beef production grown on illicitly deforested land.

Our launch event of the ‘Financial Secrets of the Forests’ on 20 October, 2026, explored these questions.

This session analysed illicit financial flows in the forestry sectors where we saw high levels of IFFs in both countries studied, Cameroon with losses up to US$289 million per year from illicit logging, and Brazil losing an estimated US$1.28 billion every year as Alfonso Daniels from the FTC presented the findings of the report ‘Financial Secrets of the Forests’.  In particular he highlighted the lack of beneficial ownership information concerning companies in this sector, and the lack of public information about forestry concessions.  In comparison to mineral extractive sectors, there are relatively few initiatives at the moment for forestry transparency.

Including forestry in the EITI is advancing in Cameroon as the national EITI committee has validated this proposition of the inclusion of the sector.  This will also be part of the proposed Finance Law of 2027.  CRADEC in Cameroon has taken the initiative as part of the EITI Cameroon. Simone Haysom from GI-TOC presented how ]forestry crimes are also money laundering crimes, and explains how ‘elite networks’ are behind forestry crimes in Cameroon, and bringing some of the companies and individuals accountable.  This is also taken to the UN Transnational Organised Crime (TOC) meeting of the Conference of Parties (COP) where discussions on how environmental crimes should be tackled as money laundering crimes took place.

Leonardo Stanley took the view from Argentina, and showed how forestry crimes there are also common place in the north of the country with extensive forestry coverage, with similar issues as the Brazilian Amazon concerning illicit logging that is driven by commodity agriculture.  To stop it, most NGOs in Argentina are trying to look at the financial links behind deforestation to put an end to financing of companies linked to deforestation.  Victor Galaz finally presented the different approaches that thus far have been used to hold accountable those linked to deforestation, both the financial links and the links to tax havens as facilitating factors.  He concludes that the problem persists, and exploring ownership links in addition to finance and tax haven links could bring much needed accountability and political will to end illicit deforestation.

In this panel, moderated by the FTC Executive Director, Matti Kohonen, we had:

• Alfonso Daniels, Financial Transparency Coalition
• Jean Mballa Mballa, Director, CRADEC, Cameroon
• Simone Haysom, Global Initiative -Transnational Organised Crime
• Leonardo Stanley, CEDES, Argentina
• Victor Galaz, Stockholm University, Resilience Centre