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| Working together to combat wildlife trade | |
| In South-East Asia, illegal
wildlife traffickers run a massive syndicate that operates across
Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia, Singapore and Laos. But law enforcement
officers who try to nab these criminals cannot exercise their authority
across borders due to the lack of agreement between countries.
WildAid's Steve Galster and his team want to get countries to form task forces to combat nature crimes. They want to support the police and customs, and put nature crime on law enforcers’ radar screens. WildAid also hopes to link up these forces across the region so that they can operate effectively. “If logs are smuggled through the country to Phuket via Malaysia, Thai officers will know who to call in Malaysia and work together to catch these guys,” said Galster. “It's all about catching them and publicising it. This has the most effective impact on reducing nature crimes.” The good news is that the 10-member Asean organisation announced its first coordinated effort against illegal wildlife trade at the recent Convention on Trade in Endangered Species (Cites) meeting in Bangkok in October. The countries pledged to share intelligence, review weak laws and tighten the borders in a region that accounts for a quarter of the global illegal trade in animals and plants. “The latest I heard, the first meeting will be held in early 2005 in Jakarta,” said Galster in a phone interview. “And the Thai government has offered to use Khao Yai’s facility as a regional training centre. Most likely, WildAid will be involved in designing and running the programmes.” Director of the law and enforcement division of the Wildlife and National Parks Department (Perhilitan), Misliah Mohamed Basir, first met Galster in 2003 when she attended the Wildlife Crime Investigation course run by WildAid and WCS at Bangkok’s International Law Enforcement Academy. “It’s a good move for NGOs to get involved directly in wildlife protection and work hand in hand with the government, rather than produce report after report,” said Misliah, commenting on WildAid’s programmes. As part of the course, Misliah went to Khao Yai to look at the ranger training facility run by WildAid. “They have an interesting programme there, and I can see Perhilitan working with WildAid to stop Thai poachers from coming to Malaysia,” said Misliah. “Perhaps, we can also run a border-control training programme under WildAid in future. But at the moment, we have budget constraints.” Well, if Perhilitan can draw up a proposal for a joint programme, WildAid will help to get funds from their donors, Galster offered. |
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COPYRIGHT © STAR PUBLICATIONS (MALAYSIA) BERHAD. ARTICLE REPRODUCED HERE FOR THE PURPOSE OF NATURE CONSERVATION AND EDUCATION |