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| Home > Issue 15 > Scaling-up pangolin trade enforcement efforts |
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Scaling-up pangolin trade enforcement efforts –
multi-stakeholder workshop points the way
James Compton and Chris Shepherd
TRAFFIC East Asia & TRAFFIC Southeast Asia
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Photo : EW-Traffic |
Despite being protected by national and international laws and conventions, pangolins Manis spp. are still heavily traded in Asia for their meat, scales and blood, consumed largely as tonic foods and traditional medicines. This fact has been highlighted by several recent and significant seizures, including two in Viet Nam during 2008 in which nearly 24 tonnes of pangolins originating from Indonesia were confiscated, and another in Indonesia that resulted in the discovery of nearly 14 tonnes of frozen pangolin.
The current protected status for Asian pangolins is simple, at least on paper. The four Asian species M. culionensis, M. crassicaudata, M. javanica, and M. pentadactyla are protected at national level throughout their range, which extends from India eastwards to China and Southeast Asia, including some islands of Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines. At international level, all four species are listed in Appendix II of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) and since 2000, a zero quota qualification to the CITES Appendix II listing has been in place. This means that no international commercial trade should be taking place.
Yet still the smuggling continues at alarmingly high volumes. Seizures occur regularly, involving pangolins in various forms – live, dead (often frozen, descaled or vacuum sealed), quantities of scales only, or as packaged medicines. All pangolins in trade are harvested from the wild, with the difficulty of captive breeding making commercial farming operations a non-viable option.
Devising an appropriate ‘menu' of responses to this ongoing crisis is a challenge which many conservationists have been interested to address, but until recently, there had been no forum to pool ideas on prioritizing what needs to be done.
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| Photo : EW-Traffic |
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In July 2008, TRAFFIC, the wildlife trade monitoring network, in collaboration with Wildlife Reserves Singapore, brought together multiple stakeholders for a Workshop on Trade and Conservation of Pangolins native to South and Southeast Asia, which was held at the Singapore Zoo. Over 75 participants from sectors of government, academia, conservation and veterinary science from 15 countries came together to identify ways to reduce the illegal trade of pangolins, share more information about pangolin behaviour and conservation needs, and how to deal with confiscated live animals.
Government representatives from all 10 member countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), plus China (including Taiwan), described illegal wildlife trade in their countries, highlighting the successes and obstacles they face in combating such trade. Other institutions provided technical inputs on specific aspects related to the trade and conservation of Asian pangolins, including information on feeding habits and behaviour, available population assessments, and trade dynamics.
Top priorities for future research and action were grouped into four major sectors: biology and ecology; trade and law enforcement; husbandry and rehabilitation; and education and awareness. Recommendations coming out of the workshop focused on the need to gain further information about pangolin population status and rehabilitation requirements; develop a trade monitoring network and centralized reporting system; build law enforcement capacity; and improve educational materials for law enforcement agencies, children and the media.
A major output of the workshop was the agreement among participants to create a Pangolin Working Group that will be responsible for coordinating follow-up action and finding ways to improve the co-ordination of research, fundraising, exchanging information and supporting enforcement activities. Improving co-ordination of national and international efforts on this heavily traded group of species was determined to be of paramount importance to arrest further declines in wild populations. This directly complements the current focus within the ASEAN Wildlife Enforcement Network to increase law enforcement action against pangolin smuggling.
Proceedings of this workshop will soon be available via http://www.traffic.org/proceedings/, and for more information, please contact Chris Shepherd from TRAFFIC's Southeast Asia team at cstsea@po.jaring.my.
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