About

"Pauline is an expert researcher with great analytical skills and an excellent eye for detail. She knows how to elevate the results to the best possible quality, contributing constructive criticism and helping with practical insights."

“Pauline’s thorough understanding of wildlife crime; the laws governing wildlife trade; and the parties involved in tackling the illegal trade in wildlife is excellent.”

Pauline Verheij is an independent consultant with 25 years of experience tackling environmental, wildlife and forest crime.

Trained as an environmental lawyer, Pauline works at the intersection of research, law enforcement, and policy on wildlife, forest, and environmental crime. Over more than two decades, she has specialised in investigating and analysing these crimes — combining field-based intelligence, open-source research, and legal expertise to understand how they operate and how they can be effectively addressed.

Pauline has worked across law enforcement and conservation organisations, including the Dutch Police, the Dutch Public Prosecution Service, TRAFFIC, IFAW, and the Wildlife Justice Commission, which she helped establish. Through her consultancy EcoJust, founded in 2012, she provides technical assistance to NGOs, intergovernmental organisations, and institutional clients across Europe, Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

Her work has spanned wildlife and forest crime investigations, policy analysis, and capacity support — consistently focused on producing evidence-based insights that strengthen prosecutions, inform enforcement strategies, and translate into practical impact.

EcoJust’s clients include the UNODC, World Bank, the European Commission, the Dutch police, WCS, WWF, IFAW, the Wildlife Justice Commission and IUCN National Committee of the Netherlands.

Clients

Al Jazeera documentary about rhino poaching featuring Pauline

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Pauline is a member of the Network of Experts of the Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime and a correspondent for INECE (International Network for Environmental Compliance and Enforcement).

Pauline is also a member of the IUCN Commission on Environmental Law and the IUCN Commission on Education and Communication and was a board member of the Moroccan Primate Conservation foundation from 2013 until its dissolution in 2019.

In July 2019 Pauline received an award from the IUCN Commission on Education and Communication for her efforts to highlight the nature, scale and impacts of environmental crime.