LAUSR

Abstract Environmental forensic examinations are a pivotal element of environmental crime investigations. Environmental forensic experts assist fact-finders in reconstructing the event timeline, estimating the size of the damage and causality. Their opinions are of fundamental relevance to environmental criminal cases. Thus, it is crucial to ensure that expert examinations are conducted following scientific standards providing relatively more accurate and reliable results. In the article, two different approaches to the organization of environmental forensic inquiries were compared. In Russia, the centralized and more rigid model has been applied regarding environmental forensic studies, while in Poland such examinations are conducted by decentralized forensic laboratories and independent specialists. The authors discussed existing differences and similarities between those two approaches. Noteworthy shortcomings and challenges within each model were considered as well.