THAILAND: Official Breathes Life into Crackdown on Wildlife Trade

By Marwaan Macan-Markar Reprint | | Print |

Marwaan Macan-Markar

BANGKOK, Nov 6 2003 (IPS) - A stocky Thai police officer is gradually becoming the rage here for his mission – to destroy a melange of restaurants, tourist shops, markets and slaughterhouses where dead or caged wildlife is prized.

Since the last week of October, the 58-year-old Sawaek Pinsinchai has given those who have been openly profiting from the illegal wildlife trade a reason to shudder.

That is because Sawaek, a major general in the Thai police, has led three raids into the world that reaps a wealthy harvest from the skins, horns, bones and paws of wild animals.

On Monday, a police raid on a house north of the Thai capital resulted in the seizure of over a hundred wild animals and birds, including the frozen body of a baby orangutan. The raiding party also stumbled upon three stuffed baby tigers and one stuffed hog deer.

The day before, police officers and forest department officials swooped down on a sprawling Sunday market in Bangkok and arrested traders trying to hawk protected wildlife.

This haul, which ranged from snakes and turtles to hornbills at the Chatuchak Market, was valued at close to 50 million baht (1.2 million U.S. dollars).

But it was the first raid that Sawaek spearheaded in his capacity as the newly appointed commissioner of the forestry police that got the media in this South-east Asian nation buzzing. On Oct. 28, the forestry police stumbled upon a gruesome sight when they raided a slaughterhouse.

This house in Nonthaburi, on the northern outskirts of Bangkok, had within its premises tiger skins, both dried and fresh, 225 kilogrammes of fresh tiger meat and six live tigers – three adults and three cubs – in cages, the local media reported.

The house also had the hacked limbs of the Asiatic black bear – 21 paws – in addition to a live adult and two cubs of the same species and two live sun bears.

”The tiger joints with skin were packed in ice,” stated the English-language daily ‘Bangkok Post’ newspaper. ”(The flesh of the animals) were believed to be destined for local restaurants.”

”I was quite shocked with what we saw, because I did not believe some of this was still happening in Thailand,” Sawaek told foreign correspondents here this week.

That, however, has not dimmed the commitment he has set for this mission. ”I am determined to stamp out this trade in the next three months,” he asserted.

But the challenge before Sawaek is daunting, given both the range and scale of the illegal trade in endangered wildlife. Thailand has already been taken to task for failing to abide by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).

”In 1991, Thailand was subject to a CITES trade ban because the wildlife trade was so bad,” Robert Mather, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) representative in Thailand, told journalists this week.

Research done by the WWF about the ivory trade in this country shows how the illegal trade continues to flourish.

”Thailand (has been identified) as the major centre of African ivory trade in South-east Asia, with almost 80 percent of over 105,000 ivory items seen for sale in eight countries being seen in Thailand,” states ‘Ivory Trade in Thailand’, a report that surveyed the trade between September and October this year.

In areas that have gained notoriety for the ivory carving industry, visitors have had little problem witnessing carvers at work, with some ”openly offering the information that 90 percent of the ivory they are carving is African”, the report adds.

The Thai arm of the WWF has detected an abundance of trinkets and ornaments carved out of ivory filling the shelves of souvenir shops in popular tourist areas of Bangkok.

By the end of October, the value of the ivory pieces sold in the souvenir shops that dot the capital’s streets was in the neighbourhood of 78 million baht (1.9 million dollars), which was marginally different than the value of ivory pieces sold in December 2000, says Mather.

Tourists from East Asia make up ”the bulk of the buyers,” Mather told IPS. ”Japanese buy ivory name seals while the carved Chinese gods are popular with tourists from China and Taiwan.”

However, a look at hotel shops in Bangkok offers an improved picture. The WWF study notes that the number of establishments guilty of perpetuating the ivory trade in the shops that fill their lobbies has decreased from 35 in December 2000 to 17 in October 2003.

Environmentalists attribute that drop to a successful drive to pressure hotels into seeing the merits of protecting wildlife, rather than killing them for souvenirs.

Yet, officials like Sawaek can take little comfort in such achievements given reports from WWF about Korean restaurants serving dishes with bear claws and shops selling products made out of other wildlife skin, horns and bones.

The Thai government is well aware of the embarrassing consequences it may face next year if it fails to eradicate the pervasive trade in illegal wildlife. On Monday, the country’s natural resources ministry announced that it would push for tougher penalties for violators, including mandatory prison sentences and the seizure of assets.

In October 2004, Thailand will be hosting the 13th international conference of the countries that have endorsed CITES. This convention, which entered into force in July 1975, and currently has the backing of 164 countries, including Thailand, aims to curb the international trade in wild animals and plants that threatens their survival.

”Next year, the attention of the world will be focused on Thailand. Tourism authorities need to be concerned if the wildlife trade could end up damaging Thai tourism,” said Mather.