The Star, Malaysia : Ongoing wildlife trade woes

Wednesday February 11, 2004

Ongoing wildlife trade woes

UNCONTROLLED wildlife trade can cause Asia to lose much of its unique biodiversity, said experts of the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) on Sunday.

Dr Melvin Gumal, WCS scientist and director of WCS’s Malaysia Programme said the population of many species is declining or facing local extinction as Asia’s wildlife is being sold on a massive scale for food, medicine and the pet trade.

Species that were once common are becoming rare as they are being snared and sold in the marketplace, said WCS experts.

Another COP-7 delegate, Dr Kent Redford, WCS Conservation Institute director said that it was easier to see animals in the marketplace than in many Asian forests.

“When animals that perform vital roles as predators, pollinators and seed dispersers disappear, other species will also go,” warned Dr Redford.

Citing Sarawak as an example, Dr Elizabeth Bennett, WCS Hunting and Wildlife Trade Programme director, said commercial wildlife trade could be curtailed through education, strong laws and effective enforcement.

“In the last six months, the Sarawak government has seized 457kg of wild meat and 165 live animals such as birds, primates, reptiles and fish,” she said.

Singapore and Kuala Lumpur airports have also stepped up efforts to curb transit of illegal wildlife.

Some WCS statistics on hunting and the wildlife trade in Asia:

Up to 90,000 mammals and 1.5 million birds are sold yearly in a single market in North Sulawesi and in Java respectively.
Between 1970 and 1993, key East Asian countries imported a minimum of 10 tons of tiger bones, representing 500 to 1,000 tigers.
Wildlife such as pangolins, cats, bears and primates worth US$3.6mil (RM13.68mil) were exported annually from a single province in Laos.
In May 2003, 4.5 tonnes of pangolins were seized from Hanoi traders.
In 2000, 25 tons of turtles were exported weekly from Sumatra to China