Thai forest rangers train to tackle wildlife crime

This file photo shows forest rangers from Thailand together with Cambodian and Laos rangers holding two armed "poachers" during a mock raid in Khao Yai National Park, Nakhon Nayok province, as part of training to tackle wildlife rime.

 

Nakhon Nayok - Camo-clad rangers ambush a camp in a lush Thai national park, kicking away a machete and a firearm and pinning two suspected poachers to the ground -- part of a training exercise to counter a lucrative wildlife trade.

"Go!" team leader Kritkhajorn Tangon yells as the group tackles the actors, who had near them sambar deer antlers and a blade covered in fake blood.

Thailand's conservationists are struggling to stamp out the multibillion-dollar black market in animal parts, finding themselves outgunned by illegal hunters and outflanked by courts.

The country is a key transit point for smugglers moving on to Vietnam and China, two of the world's biggest markets for parts from endangered and protected species.

But efforts by its 14,000 rangers to take down illegal hunters and loggers are often stymied by a lack of resources and training, with about 15 rangers killed each year in deadly encounters.

Impunity also reigns for traffickers who are well connected politically and financially, dodging jail time when there is little iron-clad physical evidence to keep them behind bars.

Gathering evidence, protecting a crime scene and using forensic analysis were some of the skills developed by more than a dozen rangers who took part in the training week led by anti-trafficking group Freeland.

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Among the participants in the event at Khao Yai National Park, which culminated in Friday's mock scenario, were four officials from neighbouring Cambodia and Laos.

"Our investigation skills are still weak... when they (rangers) encounter these situations, they leave loopholes in the collection of evidence," Kritkhajorn told AFP.

"It could result in the suspect walking free."

Freeland has emphasised the need for material evidence as "it cannot be manipulated, whereas an eyewitness can retract his testimony", said country director Petcharat Sangchai, a retired police major-general.

- Transnational gangs -

The training, funded by the British embassy in Bangkok, comes the same week a Thai court dismissed charges against a suspected wildlife trafficking kingpin.

He was accused of smuggling $1 million worth of rhino horns to Thailand but the case unravelled when the sole eyewitness changed his testimony.

A successful conviction has to be handled "correctly from the forests to the courts", said Freeland's program director Tim Redford, adding that widespread wildlife poaching and smuggling involves transnational organised crime rings.

"These criminals are exploiting loopholes in the law, they are exploiting weakness of understanding in judges and prosecutors, and that's why they are winning," he said.

One case which left the Thai public incensed involved construction tycoon Premchai Karnasuta, who was arrested last February after rangers stumbled on his camp in a national park in Kanchanaburi province.

Animal carcasses -- including a rare black leopard -- and guns were found, but Premchai, one of Thailand's wealthiest moguls, denied he was poaching and was released on bail.

Investigation is pending and a court verdict is expected in March.

The tycoon's case was at the forefront of all the participants' minds on Friday as the clearest example of what the rich and powerful could get away with in Thailand.

"If you know who my boss is, you'll get shivers! My boss is Premchai!" shouted one of the "poachers" during the exercise, as the rangers laughed in a moment of levity.

Sourse - TheNation

Exotic pet cafes in #Thailand cause delight and concern.

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Visitors enjoy experience; critics fear trend will feed illegal wildlife trade

It is a Sunday afternoon and a sunlit cafe on Bangkok's outskirts is buzzing with patrons. The air smells of french fries and disinfectant. Kittens and corgis are darting around between the legs of customers, who are trying to poke at two parakeets shuffling warily along the edge of a wooden shelf.

Excited murmurs ripple through the crowd as a waitress announces that the playpen is ready for the next round of customers. One by one, the patrons squirt disinfectant on their palms and enter a glass-walled room to cuddle a squad of meerkats.

Asia may have seen its share of pet cafes, but none quite with the menagerie offered in Thailand. Aided by relaxed laws and a thriving wildlife market, at least four exotic pet cafes have sprung up recently around the capital.

Animal activists, however, fear this trend will feed demand for smuggling and breeding of exotic wildlife purely for entertainment.

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.FOR THE BEST GLOBAL HOTEL & FLIGHT BOOKINGS

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Little Zoo Cafe, with one branch in Bangkok and another on its outskirts, touts raccoons, fennec foxes and silver foxes. The Animal Cafe, tucked in a quiet neighbourhood in Yannawa district, boasts a white-faced owl as well as caracals and a serval - both African wildcats. Zoota Bistro, housed in a shopping mall in northern Bangkok, advertises close encounters with a South American squirrel monkey, wallaby and furless sphynx cat.

Together with the existing mix of cafes nationwide featuring cats, dogs, bunnies, Siberian huskies, parrots and sheep, they are drawing steady interest from both Thais and tourists looking to touch creatures they can usually see only from afar.

"Kawaii (cute)! Kawaii!" Ms Kiyoko Nagashima, a 44-year-old sales executive from Japan, squealed upon entering the Animal Cafe last week, as she spied the exotic cats prancing around two soft-lit glass enclosures.

"I came here because I saw on Facebook that you could hug a raccoon," she told The Sunday Times. "In Japan, you can see them only in the zoo. You can't hug them."

Typically, customers must buy at least one food item and drink before they can interact with the animals. The prices are marked up - one meatball pasta dish at the Animal Cafe, for example, costs 320 baht (S$13).

Customers are made to clean their hands and take off footwear before entering the playpens. "Play" is supervised by staff, who sometimes scoop up the critters and place them on customers' laps.

Some of the more knowledgeable employees explain the animals' behaviour. At the Little Zoo cafe, for example, as meerkats clambered onto their human visitors and tried to search the contents of their pockets, one employee explained that this is how the creatures forage for food in the desert sand.

A Wildlife activist and founder of Wildlife Friends Foundation, is critical of the trend, saying the artificial environments of these mini petting zoos could stress the animals. Owls, for example, are nocturnal by nature, but "if you keep them awake the whole day, they will be so tired they will sleep at night".

According to a 2013 report on the illegal wildlife trade by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Thailand is "mainly a consumer and trans-shipper of pets and high- value luxury items", with the rising sales of illegal wildlife on the Internet posing a challenge to law enforcement. Raids and Customs seizures in the past have turned up everything from pangolins to otters.

While the pet cafes typically do not use endangered animals, activists warn that Thai law provides little protection for non-native species. Also, some wild-caught animals have been known to be passed off as captive-bred.

"It is a bit difficult to differentiate between which is traded legally and illegally," says Ms Nancy Gibson, founder of Thailand-based Love Wildlife Foundation.

Animal Cafe co-owner Athit Samatiyadekul, 36, says his operations are all above board, and he has the paperwork to prove it. One raccoon, he said, was bought from a fur factory in Europe for 35,000 baht.

"We give them food. We give them a job. And we give them love," he told The Sunday Times. He started his cafe last year to showcase some of his personal collection of wildlife, which includes about 300 iguanas, some 80 giant tortoises, arowanas and Alaskan malamutes. He breeds caracals and servals, which he sells for 250,000 baht each.

He said the cafe is not profitable but he keeps it afloat by infusing money that he earns from his job as the marketing director of Sirivatana Interprint, one of the region's largest printing companies. The same applies to his partner, a friend who runs a Thai boxing gym, apparel store and restaurant.

"In other restaurants, people will eat many things," he said. "Here, they come to play with the animals and to take selfies, so they buy the cheapest food."

Yet they keep it running because "we like people to come here to be happy". Unconvinced members of the public have complained about the cafe to the wildlife authorities, he reveals.

On the day he was interviewed by The Sunday Times, officials turned up to check his paperwork - the second time in a year.

UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL

Kawaii (cute)! Kawaii! I came here because I saw on Facebook that you could hug a raccoon. In Japan, you can see them only in the zoo. You can't hug them. - MS KIYOKO NAGASHIMA, a 44-year-old sales executive from Japan, on the exotic cats at Animal Cafe.

CAN'T TELL THEM APART

It is a bit difficult to differentiate between which is traded legally and illegally. - MS NANCY GIBSON, founder of Thailand-based Love Wildlife Foundation, on wild-caught animals being passed off as captive-bred.

BENEFITS FOR ANIMALS

We give them food. We give them a job. And we give them love. - MR ATHIT SAMATIYADEKUL, Animal Cafe's co-owner, on the animals at his eatery.

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Source - TheNation

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#Cambodia / #Vietnam stops nine overloaded trucks with illegal lumber

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Authorities in Vietnam’s Gia Lai province have recently stopped at least nine overloaded timber trucks crossing into the country from the Kingdom, despite the Cambodian government ostensibly banning wood exports to its eastern neighbor, according to a Vietnamese news report.

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The report, published earlier this month by Baomoi.com, which is described online as a government-owned news outlet, complains about the danger of the overburdened timber trucks from Cambodia regularly barrelling down Vietnam’s National Road 19, which connects to the border crossing in Ratanakkiri province’s O’Yadav district, and refers to lax enforcement by Vietnamese authorities of the vehicles exceeding their weight limit.

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Chief traffic inspector for Gia Lai province Nguyen Dang Hung told the outlet that his forces had stopped nine trucks carrying twice their legal capacity. In those cases, Vietnamese authorities unloaded excess wood, temporarily seized the trucks and fined the drivers about $28, it stated.

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Not mentioned in the article is the fact that, since an export ban on timber was announced in January last year, no timber trucks from Cambodia should be present. Cambodian officials have repeatedly asserted that the timber trade with Vietnam has stopped following the ban and subsequent crackdown. 

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The article presents figures attributed to the Gia Lai People’s Committee from late last year stating that 16 companies in the province had been permitted to import 300,000 cubic metres of timber from Cambodia.

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The Post was unable to reach a representative at the Gia Lai People’s Committee to verify the figure or establish its timeframe.

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Recently released Vietnamese customs data collected by the US-based NGO Forest Trends, however, revealed that last year, Vietnam imported 139,306 cubic metres of uncut logs and just over 171,000 cubic metres of sawn wood from Cambodia.

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Ratanakkiri provincial border police chief Heng Ratana, however, dismissed the report and figures. “Through my border there is no [timber smuggling],” he said, in comments later echoed by O’Yadav district police chief Mao Sann.

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“The report is not right. If there were cases of [wood smuggling] journalists would report about it,” Sann said on the phone. “Each month we have cracked down on many cases. This month we stopped about five or six.”

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However, saying timber flows to Vietnam were increasing, long-time anti-logging activist Marcus Hardtke called on the government to clarify its export ban policy and its legal status. “The trade to Vietnam is alive and well. If anything, it’s getting worse this dry season,” he said.

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Source - PhnomPenhPost