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Associated Press

The environment is under threat from organized crime, said Britain's deputy prime minister at the end of two-day meeting with Group of Seven counterparts from the United States, Japan, France, Italy, Germany and Canada. Russia also participated.

We have agreed that we should start holding public awareness events in each country (of the eight), said Prescott, who is also Environment Secretary.

The illegal trade in endangered and rare species is estimated at dlrs 5 billion a year, in cash terms second only to the international drugs trade.

The Environmental Investigation Agency estimates that up to 6,000 tons of ozone -damaging chloroflourocarbons, or CFCs, are traded illegally each year.

Among the other measures ministers plan is more help for developing countries complying with international environmental agreements and in tackling environmental crime, ministers said.

Ministers also pledged to push for more officials to be trained in environmental enforcement and to share information about environmental crime.

Environmental crime is big business. The same criminal organizations who deal in drugs, arms trading or corruption are also involved in environmental crime because the profits are so great, said British environment minister Michael Meacher. He cited recent consignments of live snakes stuffed with cocaine found by U.S. customs officials. In another case, he said, illegally-traded turtles were found on the same ship as significant quantities of marijuana.

According to the environmental group Greenpeace, Sicilian mobsters from Cosa Nostra are heavily involved in illegal dumping of hazardous waste in Eastern Europe. Ministers said there is recent evidence that the Naples Mafia is behind illegal trade in endangered parrots.

Out of the 350 million animals and plants traded worldwide each year, it is estimated that 25 percent are sold illegally.

Each year, as many as 5 million birds caught in the wild, up to 30,000 primates, 15 million furs, 12 million orchids, 8 million cacti and countless other species are sold on international markets in contravention of the Convention of International

Trade in Endangered Species, or CITES, which regulates the wildlife trade. A total 143 nations have now signed up to CITES.

According to the Environmental Investigation Agency, between 1994 and 1996 10,000 tons of illegal CFCs entered the United States through southern Florida; almost all passed through Europe first.

More than 160 countries have now signed the Montreal Protocol to the Vienna Convention on Substances which Deplete the Ozone Layer, which controls production of chemicals that damage the ozone layer.

The Basel Convention, which provides controls on international movement of hazardous wastes, has been ratified by 113 countries.

The ministers also debated climate change, the oceans and the creation of jobs as new green technologies come on stream. Ministers said climate change remains the greatest global environmental threat to the world's sustainable development, public health and future prosperity.