A scientific understanding of human behavior is critical for improving humans’ ability to predict and adapt to global environmental change. The type of behavior that society defines or perceives as driving illicit global environmental change can be omnipresent, but we have mostly lacked an effective mechanism for thinking and talking about, and addressing, the problem. The emerging field of conservation criminology offers a model for understanding the types of illicit human behavior and the emotions, cognitions, and institutions that are a cause and a consequence of illicit global environmental change. I will introduce key dimensions of conservation criminology and provide three widely different examples of how interdisciplinary intelligence mapping can engender enhanced scientific understanding of illicit global environmental change, based on recent fieldwork: illegal rosewood logging in Madagascar’s northeastern rainforests; urban wildmeat trafficking into Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and sea cucumber trafficking (illegal fishing) in Yucatan, Mexico.