Thailand seeks regional help to fight wildlife trade
Updated
Thailand is looking for broader regional support in the fight against the multi-million dollar illegal trade in wildlife.
The call for more support, including from Australia and New Zealand, came as the government announced the training of 250 Bangkok airport personnel to assist in the recovery of wildlife trafficked through the international gateway.
Presenter: Ron Corben
Speakers: Suvit Khunkitti, Thailand's Minister for Natural Resources and the Environment; Steve Galster, a senior member of the ASEAN WEN force; Eric John, U.S. Ambassador to Thailand
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CORBEN: The new training program at Bangkok's international airport was launched by the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) wildlife enforcement network. The network fosters cooperation among regional law enforcement forces against wildlife trafficking in South East Asia.
Thailand's Minister for Natural Resources and the Environment, Suvit Khunkitti, called for greater regional cooperation.
SUVIT: It's a regional problem. And after you go through it and we set up this ASEAN wildlife enforcement networking four five years already - we've seen within ASEAN it's still need to strengthen the better cooperation among all of us especially cross border areas which we have the law enforcement on both sides. But not only on supply side that we are looking at also the demand side. How could we cut off the demand; that's very important without demand there would not be supply?
CORBEN: In recent years the illegal wildlife trade has also grown rapidly, driven on by economic growth. Buyers are largely wealthy customers in China, Europe and the United States. The global trade in illegal wildlife trafficking is worth up to 20 billion dollars annually. But policing can be effective. In South East Asia in the latter half of 2008 over 25-thousand live animals were saved, and over 4.5 tons of carcasses were seized with authorities made more than 100 related arrests.
Steve Galster, a senior member of the ASEAN WEN force, says more policing can make an difference.
GALSTER: Any time you put a dent in the trade or start to disrupt it you are going to decrease the volume. That's what we're trying to do here. We're not saying we've stopped the trade but as soon as you make it hard that decreases the volume. Volumes are so high to begin with we're still alarmed. I'm talking tons of wild animals. We know that there are thousands of animals being trafficked through airports every day. Some of the wildlife that's going on airplanes or on trucks -say like the scaly ant eater - the pangolin which fetches 175 dollars a kilo now for its meat up in China - that's being smuggled in the tons every day.
CORBEN: The United States is a key financial backer to ASEAN -WEN. U.S. Ambassador to Thailand Eric John says Thailand's transport infrastructure is the drawcard for animal traffickers.
JOHN: Obviously Thailand is a hub for South East and one of the negative aspects of being hub is that you also can have illegal trafficking through here so it's a natural partner to work on this. Thailand taken the lead to pull in all the ASEAN partners and as Minister Suvit mentioned today they are looking beyond ASEAN and to pulling in other ASEAN partners like China, Korea, Japan, Australia to all look at this issue.
CORBEN: For Galster the training program at the airport is an important step.
GALSTER: A bulk of the illegal wildlife trade is actually going through airports on commercial airlines and cargo airplanes and to put a dent in the trade you really have to go after a big part of the trade. And what we need is a model where other airports can look to see how this is done.
CORBEN: Khun Suvit today was talking about this expansion with ASEAN and with ASEAN 3 and ASEAN 6, he was talking about Australia and New Zealand. What would like from Australia and New Zealand?
GALSTER: I think the best thing that Australia and New Zealand could do is what the United States has started to do; which is seconding or detailing agents to be part of ASEAN WEN. The trafficking is international. There's foreigners over here, there's Australians and probably New Zealanders too .but we do know about Australians. There's Americans here, there are Asians who are trafficking into these countries - so the way to defeat this - it kind of like drug trafficking - is you've got to have people at the source helping to catch them before they traffic out getting real time intelligence to pass to your own countries. So you are not just sitting back and defending your borders with late information or no information.
