Julia Yansura, program director for environmental crime and illicit finance at the FACT Coalition: “Secretary Yellen’s announcement sends a strong signal that the U.S. Treasury is taking environmental crime seriously, as well it should. Studies show that environmental crime is one of the largest and fastest growing illicit economies in the world, and in fact represents the single largest source of funding for non-state armed actors, including terrorist organizations. Over the past few years, there have been indications that the U.S. Treasury is looking more closely at this issue, such as a slight uptick in environmentally related sanctions as well as the creation of a task force with South Africa focused on wildlife trafficking. However, the newly announced Amazon Region Initiative is a big, ambitious step forward; it involves…”