ENVIRONMENT-BRAZIL: Wildlife Trafficking Eludes Authorities

By Mario Osava Reprint | | Print |

Mario Osava

RIO DE JANEIRO, Apr 11 2001 (IPS) - Brazil is having a tough time in the fight against wild animal trafficking – a 10-billion-dollar annual business worldwide – because authorities fail to share information on the activity and society tends to have a tolerant attitude toward the crime, say experts.

The story of Marc Baungarten, a German citizen, is emblematic. He was arrested for the first time in 1997 at the Rio de Janeiro airport for attempting to board a flight back to his country with 112 rare spiders in his possession.

Baungarten, who was quickly released from custody, was arrested a year later in Belem, capital of the northern state of Pará, for sending 42 spiders by mail.

Then, last month, the police caught him again, this time with five arachnids, in the city of Curitiba in southern Brazil. But, once more, the authorities let him go.

Impunity is the norm in this country when it the crime is animal smuggling. This is partially due to the fact that there is not enough information shared between government agencies in order to put an end to this kind of recidivism, lamented Dener Giovanini, director general of the non-governmental National Network against Wild Animal Trafficking (RENCTAS).

Baungarten is evidently a supplier for laboratories interested in spider venoms as raw material for certain pharmaceutical products, commented Giovanini. Smugglers like him profit from the lack of coordination among Brazil’s security forces and their failure to take decisive action.

Animal trafficking is the third leading illicit trade in the world, surpassed only by drugs and weapons, according to international law enforcement reports. But it is an activity that does not awaken proportional interest in fighting it.

The German animal smuggler went so far as to justify his actions with the argument that he was sending the spiders overseas in order to protect them from Brazil’s negligence in taking care of its flora and fauna.

Most traffickers are engaged in supplying a large global market with wild and exotic animals that are turned into household pets. The animals are mostly taken from tropical countries and sold to buyers in the industrialised nations of North America, Asia and Europe, says RENCTAS.

Brazil, with its enormous biodiversity, is a major source of the animals. The country is estimated to represent at least 10 percent of the global trade, or one billion dollars.

The Brazilian Environmental Institute (IBAMA), which carries out the government’s environmental policies, launched a new campaign last month against the illegal domestic and international fauna trade.

The preparation for this offensive involved drawing up a map to coordinate anti-trafficking efforts by indicating the points of capture and sales of the animals, and the roads, airports and border crossings most used by the smugglers.

The campaign has already led to confiscations – mostly of birds – at informal markets throughout the country, but its focus is to eliminate trafficking at the source, in the environmental conservation areas where the animals that smugglers seek are concentrated, explained Hamilton Casara, IBAMA president.

Officials are working with local communities to try to persuade them to stop capturing animals for the smugglers, Casara said.

Specialists are providing environmental education and suggesting alternative and sustainable sources of income to replace the money these mostly poor populations receive for capturing wild animals.

The trappers are paid a relatively insignificant amount. Traffickers sell the animals to their overseas clients for prices as much as 100 times higher than what they pay the suppliers.

For example, the ‘mirlo,’ a black-feathered bird, can be purchased for 150 dollars in the markets of southern Brazil and sold in the United States for 13,000 dollars, said RENCTAS chief Giovanini.

Though profits are enormous, losses also run high. Of every 10 animals captured, nine die during transport, he explained, underscoring the perversity of the illegal trade.

The live cargo is often shipped in life-threatening conditions because the smugglers must hide the animals from authorities. Often, the animals are anaesthetised so that they do not give away their presence in the traffickers’ luggage.

Airports and highways near border crossings are the main targets of the fight against animal trafficking. The efforts involve the police, tax authorities, port administrators and post office staff.

IBAMA is lobbying Brazil’s parliament to raise the maximum sentence for this crime from three to five years, Casara announced.

One of the problems authorities face is that the public is reticent to help eliminate the illegal trade, largely because people are accustomed to having a pet in the house, and the more exotic or beautiful the better, Giovanini indicated.

The population is generally unaware of the environmental damage caused by wild animal trafficking, he said. Nor do people realise the great risk involved in the wild animal trade of the spread of viruses and other microorganisms that are dangerous to human health.

Animals taken from Brazil’s forests can be carriers of serious illnesses, such as yellow fever, which caused by a virus present in monkeys and transmitted by the ‘Aedes Aegypti’ mosquito.

Yellow fever, which had been limited to the Brazilian Amazon region, has now expanded westward the state of Minas Gerais.

In some cases, animals not normally affected by disease-causing microorganisms become ill because the stress suffered in capture and transport depresses the immune system.

This increases the risk of infecting humans and of mutations of a virus, for example, making the disease even more aggressive, warns RENCTAS, an organisation that is preparing an Internet database on wild animal trafficking.