Finland's law should be changed to make it easier to prosecute anyone causing damage to the environment, according to a new proposal backed by cabinet ministers.
Finnish Interior Minister Päivi Räsänen has lent her support to a call from Environment Minister Ville Niinistö to lower the threshold for police involvement in cases of environmental damage.
"In Finland we have chosen to direct resources towards pursuing serious cases. We should refine the legislation and try to improve the environmental authorities' capacity for enforcement, so that borderline cases can be properly dealt with," Ville Niinistö said.
Räsänen said: "We receive very few reports of environmental crimes. We need a lower threshold so police can be informed of possible criminal environmental breaches."
Dumping with impunity?
Supporters of the proposal argue that the risk of being brought to justice over environmental offenses needs to be increased, with Niinistö claiming the law change would deter anybody from knowingly committing criminal environmental damage.
"If the chances of being caught are small, some individuals and groups who operate in grey areas accept that chance as the price of making economic commercial gains," Niinistö said.
Currently around 500 reports of environmental crimes are received by Finland's environmental authorities every year. In neighboring Sweden, the number is 10 times higher, with significantly more resources dedicated to investigating the reports than Finland.
Environmental crime researcher Iina Sahramäki says that the situation in recent years has improved, although a large proportion of breaches remain hidden. She called for more training to better allow officials to recognize, uncover and investigate this sort of offense.
This story is posted on Alaska Dispatch News as part of Eye on the Arctic, a collaborative partnership between public and private circumpolar media organizations.