Southeast Asia hunts wildlife poachers

Saturday, December 23, 2006 · Last updated 6:41 p.m. PT

Southeast Asia hunts wildlife poachers

By MICHAEL CASEY
AP ENVIRONMENTAL WRITER

HUA HIN, Thailand -- Brandishing pistols, a half dozen Thai police
officers jump out of a pickup truck and surround the house of an
alleged international wildlife trafficker.

"Open the door. We want to search your house," yells one agent.

The team storms, arresting the Filipino suspect and confiscating boxes
full of ivory from Africa destined to be sold across Asia. They also
find 20 pangolins, armadillo-like animals that could have been killed
to supply the traditional medicine markets of China.

The arrest would seem to be a rare success for authorities - except
that the undercover operation was just for show, part of a two-week
training course conducted for the newly formed Thai anti-poaching task
force in this town 90 miles south of Bangkok.

Still, it was one of the first signs Southeast Asia is finally taking
seriously wildlife crime that supplies exotic pets to Japan, Europe and
the United States and the ingredients for costly, elaborate meals and
traditional medicine in China, Taiwan and Hong Kong.

Long outgunned and outmaneuvered by smuggling gangs, the 10-member
Association of Southeast Asian Nations agreed last year to form the
Wildlife Enforcement Network to combat a black-market trade in plants
and animals that generates $10 billion in revenue each year - third
behind illicit dealings in weapons and drugs.


"We're not only talking small-scale poaching here but organized crime
that threatens biodiversity, global health and regional security," said
Winston Bowman, regional environmental director for the U.S. Agency for
International Development in Bangkok.

Bowman noted that since the United States is one of the largest
importers of wildlife, it wants to ensure the animals landing on its
shores are legal. Thus the U.S. is providing $2.7 million over three
years to the anti-smuggling groups WildAid and Traffic for training and
technical support in Thailand and eventually in the Philippines,
Indonesia and Vietnam.

To understand the extent of the illicit wildlife trade across Southeast
Asia, a good place to start is one of the hundreds of teeming markets
that serve as key transit points for illegal animals throughout the
region and beyond.

Most - like Bangkok's Chatuchak Weekend Market or Jakarta's Pramuka
Market - are filled with parrots, lizards and turtles that are sold
illegally for the pet trade. Behind closed doors, buyers can find
everything from cuddly creatures to black bears, elephants and
orangutans that often end up in safari parks or circuses.

Farther afield and even more brazen, remote markets along Thailand's
borders with Myanmar and Laos specialize in animal parts - furry bear
claws, bloody tiger skins, mountain goat horns - destined for Chinese
consumers looking for a miraculous cancer cure or special aphrodisiac.

A recent visit to Chatuchak revealed cages of illegal Thai birds known
as red-whiskered bulbuls, fish tanks full of endangered, radiated
tortoises from Madagascar and furry, mouse-like marsupials from
Indonesia called sugar gliders. All were being sold illegally into the
international pet trade.

"We were in here five minutes and we saw illegal wildlife," Chris
Shepherd, senior program officer for Traffic, said as he walked past
aquariums filled with fist-sized radiated tortoises, which are among
the rarest reptiles.

"Nothing in here is legal," he added. "No one is checking. If they were
checking, how could this place exist?"

Traders say much of their success lies in bribing officials and forging
documents to trick customs agents into thinking an animal was bred in
captivity or can be sold legally - an easy task since officials have
little experience identifying rare species.

"Before I reach a ferry, I make a call. I tell them, 'You didn't see
anything,' and I leave an envelope" full of money, said a Filipino
trader, who agreed to explain how the business works on condition of
anonymity. "You know, in our government, nothing is impossible as long
as there is money."

Dealers said they also advise customers on how to smuggle small animals
without getting caught. "My customers put them in suitcases, in socks.
.... They wear loose paints, and put them in their underwear," said a
Thai trader who identified himself only as An.

"No problem. Thailand is not strict," he added.

But traders in Thailand and the Philippines say business has become
more difficult in recent months as authorities step up monitoring and
increase raids at markets and air and sea ports.

In November, Thai authorities arrested a Japanese trying to smuggle out
nine slow lorises, furry primates from Southeast Asia. Over the summer,
they closed down a Bangkok store selling shawls made from the
endangered Tibetan antelope and confiscated 245 pangolins and 64
freshwater turtles bound for Laos.

"The situation at the market is much better," said Thai police Lt.
Thanayod Kengkasij, whose beat includes Chatuchak. "But we can't expect
all the traders will disappear. Some are already shifting to other
locations."

Trainers, including some from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service,
taught Thai officers about surveillance and interviewing as well as
identifying illegal animals and plants.

They also encouraged creative thinking in charging traffickers,
avoiding weak wildlife laws and instead using statutes with tougher
sentences such as money laundering, weapons possession and tax
violations.

WildAid's Steve Galster, who helped train Thai officers, said that
despite increased efforts, authorities in Southeast Asia still have
failed to break up the gangs involved in wildlife smuggling because
they usually only go after small-time poachers or dealers.

"What they need to stop the trade or curtail it significantly is go
undercover and get close to the major dealers and find out all about
them and catch them red handed," he said. "They can then publicize the
arrest and spook the rest of them out of the business."

Galster also said countries need to put more money into state-of-the
art weapons and strengthen wildlife laws.

Under a new law in Singapore, traders face fines ranging from $32,000
per specimen to a maximum of $316,000, along with a jail term of up to
two years.

Galster noted the region's typical $1,000 fine isn't much of a
deterrent for a dealer who can make $10,000 selling a tiger and said
animal traffickers rarely get jail terms.

"Judges won't hear the cases because they don't think these people are
a threat to society," he said.

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Associated Press writers Oliver Tees in Manila and Robin McDowell in
Jakarta contributed to this report.

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