Speaker Bio & Abstract

Davyth Stewart Manager, Global Forestry and Pollution Enforcement
INTERPOL
France

BiographyDavyth Stewart is the Coordinator for Natural Resources with INTERPOL’s Environmental Security Programme.

His is responsible for the management of Project LEAF (Law Enforcement Assistance for Forests), including the specialised teams based in South east Asia, the Amazon region and at the INTERPOL headquarters in France.
Davyth has over 20 years experience working for governments, private sector and NGOs. His experience includes working as the Senior Legal Officer at the NSW Crime Commission (in Sydney, Australia) and the Serious and Organised Crime Agency (in London and Northern Ireland), where he was responsible for investigating organised crime and tracing criminal proceeds. He has worked on environmental crime issues through a number of UN conventions and international environmental forums, including UN-REDD, UNFCCC and CITES. He has worked in Australia, the United Kingdom, Africa and is currently based in France. AbstractEnvironmental crime is a serious and growing international problem, increasingly being carried out by organized criminal networks. Environmental crime is not restricted by borders, meaning that there is a need for an international strategy to deal with this type of crime. As the only organization with a mandate to share and process criminal information globally, INTERPOL is uniquely qualified to lead these efforts.

As organized crime groups become more sophisticated and interconnected, INTERPOL is supporting the world’s police forces to benefit from the latest technical innovations in order to detect, prevent, tackle and investigate international crime. INTERPOL seeks to anticipate future policing needs, situations and scenarios, and adapt and advocate for fresh policing strategies.

Through promoting the use of earth observation technology (such as satellites and drones) to monitor remote areas, INTERPOL seeks to enhance the capacity of law enforcement to prevent the illegal exploitation of the world’s wild flora and fauna or the illegal disposal of waste and hazardous substances.