Environmental crimes are now being fought with a camera too. An indiscreet and immediate eye, capable of showing the world terrible truths and unknown dangers, pinning those responsible to their actions and forcing governments to respond. This is why a "simple" documentary can become a formidable ally for those who dedicate their entire lives — and above all their "intelligence" — to safeguarding the Earth.

That is the case of Andrea Crosta, founder of the first intelligence agency for the planet: Earth League International – ELI (formerly known as Elephant Action League). Not a classic environmental organisation, but a one-of-a-kind NGO made up of security experts, analysts and agents from some of the most renowned investigative agencies (CIA, FBI). All of them committed to advancing the most urgent mission of our era: stopping the environmental crisis by stopping the criminals who profit from it and feed it with impunity.

Without intelligence work there is no hope of truly changing things, because the criminal groups exploiting nature are too powerful and right now we are fighting like boy scouts

Andrea Crosta

An ambitious objective for ELI, which aims to "solve problems at the root" and which in less than ten years has already achieved hugely important milestones. This is also thanks to the media attention drawn by two of the most significant environmental documentaries of recent years: Caccia all'avorio (The Ivory Game, 2016), distributed on Netflix, and Sea of Shadows: trafficanti di mare (2019), distributed by National Geographic. This was recounted by Andrea Crosta himself during a masterclass organised by the Riviera International Film Festival 2021 in Sestri Levante, entitled Documentari e film, strumenti per migliorare il mondo.

What Earth League International does, the first intelligence NGO for the planet

Retracing the stages of his life and career, Andrea Crosta in Sestri Levante also described the intelligence activities carried out by Earth League International and by WildLeaks: the first online environmental whistleblowing platform, which allows anyone to anonymously report illegal activities carried out against nature. "To put it simply, we can say it is the first CIA for planet Earth. Our operations last years and our agents, whom I call ghosts, work undercover, providing an enormous amount of information that is then processed by our analysts using specific software." Highly sophisticated activities, in which "the data collected in the field are cross-referenced with those gathered online and on social media, through what is known as cross intelligence, which also includes geo-spatial intelligence operations."

The result of this effort leads ELI to produce crime maps that are then handed over free of charge to law enforcement agencies and governments. "Our reports are so detailed that the FBI itself told us they are of the same quality as their internal reports," Crosta admitted with pride, also speaking of the difficulty, in certain countries with high levels of corruption, of identifying trustworthy people within those same governmental and police forces to turn to. A process that carries risks, but which has played a fundamental role in finally bringing to light the convergence of environmental crimes with other crimes: from terrorism, to drug trafficking, to human trafficking and money laundering.

Crimes against the environment are worth almost 260 billion dollars a year and are defined by Interpol as the fourth largest crime in the world by scale, after drugs, weapons and people. In many countries they also rank first or second.

Andrea Crosta

A highly attractive market, given the imbalance between the level of earnings and the level of risks that a wildlife trafficker faces today, which has drawn in "increasingly prominent figures, increasingly connected to organised crime and terrorist groups."

The incredible impact of Caccia all'avorio and Sea of Shadows

Both produced by Terra Mater (in association with Leonardo DiCaprio's Appian Way), Caccia all'avorio and Sea of Shadows achieved such success and popularity that, in the first case, they prompted the Chinese government to ban the legal ivory market, and, in the second, the Mexican government to intervene in an attempt to save the vaquita from extinction, an extremely rare species of porpoise.

Caccia all'avorio

At the heart of Caccia all'avorio is Operation Game Over, which was "the first ever investigation into the link between ivory trafficking and the Somali terrorist group Al-Shabaab, and the most significant investigation ever conducted into the international ivory trade from Africa to China, passing through intermediate countries such as Vietnam and Laos," explained Crosta, who at the time also took part in the field investigations as an undercover agent. Today (now that his face and name are well known) he coordinates the NGO's operations, pursuing the outreach and fundraising activities needed to sustain ELI.

The first major result achieved by the documentary was not only being invited to the Beijing International Film festival, but even winning it. "Something unthinkable, especially because it received no censorship of any kind, except for a scene in Tiananmen Square where we had not obtained the necessary permits. Today this would no longer be possible."

But the most striking effect that Caccia all'avorio helped bring about was, after years of international pressure, "the decision by China to ban the legal ivory market." A fundamental step in curbing the slaughter of elephants in Africa, given that the legal sales channel "was used for decades to launder enormous quantities of illegal ivory."

Caccia all'avorio is an example of how a documentary can insert itself into the broader context of an international effort, managing to change something.

Andrea Crosta

Tracing criminal networks back to the top has been ELI's objective from the outset. "Arresting poachers is pointless. We want to reach the traffickers, the businessmen, the brokers and the traders who run the supply chain," Crosta reiterates, pointing his finger at a narrative that uses the last links in the chain as scapegoats, diverting attention from the real culprits.

Sea of shadows: trafficanti di mare

The documentary Sea of shadows: trafficanti di mare (winner of the audience award at the Sundance Film Festival) tells the story of Operation Fake Gold, through which ELI, together with other environmental organisations and the Mexican Navy, attempted to save the vaquita, a small porpoise that is today the rarest mammal in the world. Crosta explains: "The vaquita is found only in the Gulf of California, and in the late 1990s there were only around five hundred of them." What put its survival at risk was a truly chilling development: the interest of Chinese traffickers in the totoaba, a fish that lives in this area, very similar to another fish that went extinct in Chinese waters, whose swim bladder is particularly sought after in traditional Chinese medicine. So precious — worth around 40,000–50,000 dollars per kilogram — that it has been nicknamed "the cocaine of the sea".

To sell it on the market, traffickers managed to corrupt the local social fabric — made up largely of humble fishermen — and began filling the sea with fishing nets so deadly that within just a few years they brought the hapless vaquitas to the brink of near total extinction. Here too, ELI's efforts were directed at identifying those who ordered the killing at the top of the chain. Hope now hangs by a thread: "We currently have two major operations under way with certain governments, and we hope to be able to stop the traffickers. If it weren't for this film, which we showed to the United Nations and to the Mexican and American governments, there would have been no hope at all for the vaquita."

The first fiction series on environmental crime in the pipeline

"I watch an incredible number of environmental documentaries, and what I'm looking for today, in particular, are films that tell original stories or that try to tell them in a different way — and above all to reach people in a new way." This is the epochal challenge Crosta sets for contemporary filmmakers: "Not to speak to those who are already aware of and close to these issues, but to find an appeal for a broad, cross-cutting audience. Many documentaries tend to repeat themselves, even when they're saying the right things. Now is the moment to engage people who have never cared about the environment at all."

"Our work is worth little without the work of the media," Crosta admitted, also announcing two new projects that move precisely in this direction. "We are working on a documentary series and a fiction television series, both produced in partnership with Cross Creek Pictures, the same company that made The Trial of the Chicago 7 and Black Swan." The first project will tell the story of ELI's intelligence work, while the fiction series will be the first dedicated to environmental crime. "A kind of Narcos, but centred on the billion-dollar trafficking operations that threaten nature."

The goal, in short, is to create high-impact storytelling capable of engaging new generations and the widest possible audience. Because, by now it is clear, the most important mission of our era does indeed begin in the offices of intelligence agencies — but it also passes through the living rooms of our homes.