Seminar: Environmental Crime – From micro victims to macro harms

Wednesday 9 September 2026 from 10:00 to 15:00

In this year’s GREEN WG pre-ESC conference meeting, we put the spotlight on insects. They are key ecological actors and are used to measure biodiversity decline due to their sensitivity to cascading environmental harm. As food, pollinators, pest control and nutrient recyclers, insects are vitally important to the functioning of our ecosystem – even more so than large animals. On this page you will find more info about the green criminological perspective on insect decline, the programme, and how to register for the seminar.

Despite their microscopic scale, the presence or loss of insects has far‑reaching, planet‑wide implications for human life and ecosystems. In stating “we are witnessing the largest extinction event on Earth since the late Permian”, Sanchez-Bayo & Wyckhuys (2019) note a 2.5 percent yearly decline in insects, with 41 percent of insect species threatened with extinction.

In the keynotes and panels (see the programme below), we pay attention to the institutional and political-economic conditions that shape both insect decline and our responses to it. Corporate actors—particularly within agri‑business, chemical industries and globalized food production—play a central role in generating the structural pressures that erode insect life. Government policies, whether through permissive regulatory frameworks, limited enforcement capacity or subsidy regimes that might normalize and reproduce these harms. Moreover, the illegal wildlife trade in insects is linked to organized crime groups (Doornbos & Nurse, 2025), adding further pressure to some insect species, due to consumer demand for exotic pets, traditional medicines, and food.

Three levels of insect victimization

From a green criminological perspective, these arrangements are not neutral: they reflect specific value hierarchies in which certain forms of life, including insects, are seldom recognized as direct or indirect victims of abuse (e.g., in insect farming, pest control). It is debated whether insects are conscious and suffer from pain, and so their suffering is often not recognized in key animal welfare legislation. However, insect welfare is an evolving area of study (Gibbons et al., 2022) and should be part of the discussion on species justice.

In making sense of the crimes and harms against insects, we focus on three levels of victimization: (1) Insects as direct victims of crime – trafficking as pets (spiders, beetles, stick insects), for medicine (leeches), as ornate items (beetles, butterflies) and food; (2) Insects as indirect victims of human-made environmental decline – illegal and legal pesticide use (neonicotinoids), legal and illegal habitat loss (forests, wetlands, and farmlands), climate change (heat/flooding), water and soil pollution, legal and illegal plant and animal harvesting, and the introduction of invasive species; (3) Insects designated as ‘pests’ and the cause of environmental decline (insect-borne disease, invasive species) and insects demonized as monstrous, reinforcing a cycle of revulsion and misunderstanding.

Programme

10.00 – 10.15	Welcome Lieselot Bisschop & Joanna Narodowska
10.15 – 11.00	Plenary 1 Angus Nurse, Anglia Ruskin University Rogue Colonialists and Butterfly Collectors: A Green Criminological Exploration of Insect Trafficking
11.00 – 12.00	Panel 1: Local strategies for insect protection Chair: Joanna Narodowska Šimon Pepřík, Czech Public Prosecutor The Convention on Protection of the Environment through Criminal Law Hanna Mamzer, Ministry of Justice Cooperation or Exploitation: Mussels and Human Affairs Marcin Czoznek, Head of Economic Crime Division at National Police National Park: Microorganisms as Indicators of Environmental Change
12.00 – 13.00	Lunch break
13.00 – 14.00	Panel 2: Insect heroes and villains Chair: Lieselot Bisschop Aitor Ibáñez Alonso, KU Leuven From Black Death to West Nile Virus: Rethinking Insects and Vector-Borne Disease through One Health Green Criminology Nigel South, University of Essex Monstrous Insects Dina Siegel, Utrecht University Gambling on insects
14.00 – 14.45	Plenary 2 Tanya Wyatt, UNODC Crimes and Harms of Illegal Pesticides
14.45 – 15.00	Closing Remarks Daan van Uhm & Monica Pons Hernandez

ESC conference in Warsaw

The seminar is planned prior to the start of the main European Society of Criminology conference (Warsaw, Poland) for scholars to be able to attend both events without extra travel expenses and carbon footprint.