Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
ILLEGAL WILDLIFE TRADE
Thailand is a signatory to the UN Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites), but the coun-
try remains an important transport link and marketplace for the global wildlife trade, which is the third-largest
black-market activity after drugs and arms dealing. Endangered animals and animal parts are poached from local
forests or smuggled from neighbouring countries through Thailand en route to the lucrative markets of China or
the US. Despite police efforts, Bangkok's Chatuchak Market contains a clandestine exotic species section.
In 2013, Thailand hosted the UN Cites meeting, where Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra promised tighter
controls on the local ivory trade, which is presently allowed from domesticated stock, and eventually a national
ban though she gave no timeline. Leading up to the meeting, more enforcement efforts were made to curtail wild-
life smuggling, and so many animals were seized that government wildlife centres are now overwhelmed by their
new charges, according to a
New York Times
article.
Though the country's efforts to stop the trade are more impressive than those of its neighbours, corruption and
weak laws hinder law enforcement. Another complicating factor is that Thai law allows the trade of wild species
bred in captivity, designed ostensibly to take the pressure off wild populations. This is especially problematic
with elephants; criminal gangs steal baby elephants from wild herds or smuggle them across Myanmar's borders
and then forge registration papers so that the elephant appears to have been born to a captive mother and can be
'legally' sold to elephant camps.
Most agree that the enforcement alone is not the answer and that the real solution is decline in demand.
Without buyers, there will be no trade. On a small scale, several NGOs work on the attendant problems.
WARF
(Wild Animal Rescue Foundation of Thailand;
www.warthai.org
) was started by a Bangkok housewife who con-
verted her backyard into a makeshift sanctuary for unwanted wild pets some 30 years ago. Today the NGO works
with the forestry department on sting operations, job-skills training and educational workshops in Thai public
schools. Some of the students who attend WARF workshops have parents who are poachers, and WARF hopes
that the message of conservation (and maybe even a little environmental peer pressure) will be brought home to
those students. With better education and job training, WARF hopes to dissuade future poachers and to turn cur-
rent poachers into conservationists.
