Scholars have defined environmental crime from various perspectives. For instance, from a legal perspective, environmental crime consists of harmful acts (or attempted acts) against the environment that violate statutorily defined laws. Philosophical views of environmental crime could include harms to the environment not covered by legislation, for instance, the destruction of wetlands for the sake of industry. Diverse in nature and scope, environmental crime includes acts that range from the illegal dumping of hazardous materials to the emission of unlawful amounts of air pollution. The multidimensional nature of environmental crime, which generally falls under the rubric of white-collar crime, creates special challenges for groups such as politicians, industry leaders, lobbyists, environmentalists, and researchers.

The study of environmental crime is multidisciplinary in nature, as biologists, criminologists, psychologists, ...

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