Environmental Investigation Agency

The Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) is an NGO founded in 1984 by Dave Currey, Jennifer Lonsdale and Allan Thornton, three environmental activists in the United Kingdom. Its stated goal is to investigate and expose crimes against wildlife and the environment. Full-time EIA investigators work undercover gathering film, photos and information from around the world. The evidence they collect is presented to the media, government and policy makers in order to inform and persuade that action must be taken in order to protect the planet's most precious species, habitats and vital ecosystems.

EIA also campaigns to prevent environmental crime. Currently EIA is working to:

In April 2012 the IPS reported that the Environmental Investigation Agency found over 20 U.S. companies who imported illegally logged timber worth millions from the Peruvian Amazon. The EIA multi-year investigation discovered at least 112 shipments of protected cedar and mahogany were illegally laundered with fabricated papers and imported by U.S. companies between 2008 and 2010.

EIA's Forest Team carried out a scoping project in South East Asia, where the wooden garden furniture industry is booming. Undercover EIA investigators, posing as timber traders and furniture buyers, documented evidence of illegal timber feeding furniture factories on a large scale. EIA published its evidence in April 2008 with the aim of raising awareness of cross-border timber smuggling among both consumers and the international community. Similar work in Indonesia has successfully reduced the amount of illegal timber leaving the country and led to international action to protect endangered species.

In November 2007, Indonesian NGOs launched a set of films, made with Papuan villagers, to tell the stories of how their communities had been adversely affected by destructive logging and oil palm plantations. By training the local NGOs in research, filming and editing skills, EIA and their Indonesian partner, Telapak, were able to empower those most vulnerable to the threats of deforestation - the forest-reliant communities themselves - and enable them to have their voice heard internationally.

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