ENVIRONMENT: ASEAN to Hunt Wildlife Syndicates

By Marwaan Macan-Markar Reprint | | Print |

Marwaan Macan-Markar

BANGKOK, Oct 31 2005 (IPS) - South-east Asian governments are setting up cross-border traps to nail the gangs that have raked in profits from an illegal wildlife trade estimated to run into billions of dollars and, in the process, decimated several endangered species.

The planned ASEAN Wildlife Enforcement Network (ASEANWEN), due to begin operations towards the end of November, is already being billed by international conservation groups as ”the world’s largest wildlife law enforcement network”.

”This will be the largest such network in terms of countries involved, more than the three others we have in Europe, Africa and wildlife enforcement network linking South America, Central America and North America,” Tim Redford, Thailand country director for WildAid, told IPS.

The ten members of the Association of South-east Asian Nations (ASEAN) are Burma, Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

Under the planned network, national police teams investigating wildlife crimes in their respective countries will be able to work directly with their counterparts in the region on the illegal trade of wild animals, birds and reptiles.

”This would reduce the constraints placed on the police investigating wildlife crimes, which is the case at the moment,” adds Redford. ”The prevailing practice is for police to work through the ministries of foreign affairs to communicate with their counterparts in another country.”

Also included in the planned crackdown is a commitment to increase the profile of these crimes with customs officials. Within six months of a regional meeting planned in late November, ”there will be new barriers placed in the way of the illegal wildlife trade in ASEAN,” says Redford.

The need for such an initiative comes at a time when a range of animal and bird species in the forests of this region are under threat of extinction due to greed of the wildlife crime syndicates that have been active for years.

”The people doing it are not simply locals but gangs from outside,” Jeffrey McNeely, chief scientist of The World Conservation Union (IUCN), told IPS. ”Right now there is more pressure on the wildlife (in Vietnam) than during the war.”

”There is a large market in China and South-east Asia is the most important supply point for the Chinese demand for wildlife,” he added.

The World Bank drew attention to this thriving – yet disturbing – supply chain in a study that was released recently. ”Illegal trade and poaching have reached crisis levels as traditional Chinese medicines’ popularity has expanded, in part supported by the rise in personal wealth and the status gained by consuming rare and exotic species,” revealed the study, ‘Going, Going Gone: The Illegal Trade in Wildlife in East and South-east Asia’.

Wildlife has been sought as ‘bush meat’, for traditional medicine, as pets, for live animal collections, as trophies, decorations, jewellery and pieces of ivory and ornaments one encounters in shops that cater to tourists in the region.

In Vietnam, the wildlife trade in 2002 was estimated at 66.5 million U.S. dollars, while in early 2004 Chinese law enforcement seized the skins of 31 tigers worth more than 1.2 million dollars, according to the study. ”Today there are only 50 tigers estimated to be in the wild in China.”

In Indonesia, over 50 tigers were killed on average every year in Sumatra from 1998 to 2002, adds the study.

At the same time, pangolins have been in heavy demand in markets in the Americas, the study notes. Between 1993 and 2003, over 80 pangolin skins were illegally exported from Laos to international markets, ”primarily in the United States and Mexico.”

On Monday, a new report released by IUCN confirmed a number of animal species on the verge of extinction, despite warnings that they were endangered nearly three decades ago.

”The Sumatran rhinoceros and the kouprey are almost gone,” said McNeely, adding that the Javan rhinoceros and the wild water buffalo have been ”seriously reduced.”

Currently, the remaining population of the kouprey, a wild forest ox, is less than 250 animals, states the IUCN’s most recent ‘Red List of Threatened Species’, an index that monitors animals, birds, fish, reptiles and plant species on the verge of extinction. ”Hunting, both for subsistence and for trade (meat and body parts, especially horns and skulls), is the major threat throughout the kouprey’s range.”

No wonder conservationists are welcoming the new cooperation across South-east Asia to save the region’s threatened wildlife. ”The criminal elements that control illegal wildlife trade have held the upper hand for too long,” says John Sellar, an expert on anti-smuggling, fraud and organised crime at the body implementing the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).

By focusing on wildlife crime, the ASEANWEN has the potential to ”lead a co-ordinated response that may indeed dismantle these illegal trade syndicates,” he asserted.