More than 100 participants from Europe, Australia and China participated in the ENPE Annual conference 2018 under the title “Protecting habitats and endangered species in Europe through tackling environmental crime” which took place in Heraklion, 23-24 October 2018, in the Exhibition Halls of the Natural History Museum of Crete.

The conference was organized in the framework of the LIFE Natura Themis project, in cooperation with the European Network of Prosecutors for the Environment (ΕΝΡΕ), the European Union Network for the Implementation and Enforcement of Environmental Law (IMPEL) and the LIFE Reason For Hope project.

The topics of the conference included the constitutional and legal tackling of crimes against wildlife in Europe, Australia and China, the scientific and technological tools that are readily available and can support the prosecutors and the investigators, as well as the judges dealing with environmental crimes and the new challenges that prosecutors face.    

The LIFE Natura Themis project was represented by Mrs Maria Maniadaki, coordinator of the West Crete Observatory, and Mr Christos Georgiadis, the coordinator of the project from the Hellenic Society for the Protection of Nature. They presented a) the use of GIS and of databases for tackling environmental crime and b) the LIFE Themis smart devices app which is a tool that citizens can use in order to report directly and anonymously crimes against wildlife.

Moreover, Mrs Stavroula Pouli, coordinator of the project from the Ministry of Environment and Energy, presented the implementation of the Environmental Liability Directive in Greece.

Finally, Dr. George Sbokos, coordinator of the East Crete Observatory, presented the ineffective implementation of the Greek environmental laws because of contradictions and shortcomings in the legislation.

The presentations and selected interviews from the participants will be included in an electronic magazine that will soon become available in the website of the LIFE Natura Themis project.