Wildlife Alliance

For Immediate Release

Intensive Nature Crime Suppression Training in Central Vietnam

June 9, 2008 

Tam Ky , Vietnam (June 6, 2008) -- Authorities moved covertly through the streets of Tam Ky in central Vietnam on Wednesday before executing a staged bust of trainers posing as international wildlife traffickers. This mock raid was the culmination of an intensive ten-day training course designed to boost capacity to suppress nature crime in this regional hotbed of wildlife trafficking.

Over thirty Forest Protection Department, Police, Customs and Army border patrol officers from Quang Nam, Quang Tri and Thua Thien Hue provinces practiced surveillance, crime scene investigation, interrogations, and raid and arrest procedures, at the Nature Crime Investigation Course (NCIC) in Tam Ky between May 26 and June 5, 2008.

The course is a response to escalating nature crime, one of the biggest threats to global biodiversity.

Nature crime, including poaching, wildlife smuggling, and illegal logging, is increasing across Southeast Asia, perpetrated by organized criminal gangs and trade networks. The scale of this illegal trade, estimated to be worth billions of dollars per year, has attracted the attention of law enforcement and security agencies concerned about linkages between wildlife and forest crime and drug smuggling, gunrunning, and other security threats.

The NCIC equipped law enforcement and forest authorities with the techniques they need to investigate and arrest wildlife and forest criminals and kingpins, not just low-level hunters and middlemen.

Provincial prosecutors and instructors from Vietnam’s Environmental Police Department conducted refresher courses on Vietnamese nature protection laws. Instructors from the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, Wildlife Alliance, PeunPa and WWF also brought international nature crime enforcement expertise to the training.

Inter-agency cooperation was a key theme at the NCIC. Mr. Dang Binh Nguyen, head of Quang Nam’s Forest Management and Protection Department, remarked that the course had “gone a long way to improve cooperation between agencies in Quang Nam and Quang Tri to protect our natural resources.”

Senior NCIC Instructor Special Agent Douglas Goessman of the United States Fish and Wildlife Service added that, “Only by working together at local, national and international levels can we solve the illegal wildlife trade problem.”

Nature Crime Investigation Courses to improve the capacity of law enforcement agencies are a crucial component in efforts to stop the illegal exploitation of forests and wildlife.

Overexploitation of Southeast Asia’s protected areas is driven by a lucrative illegal trade in timber and wildlife. If left unchecked, this trade threatens to devastate the region’s biodiversity and natural resources. The effects of forest and biodiversity loss can compromise water resources, agricultural production, human health and economic security.

“We hope the Tam Ky NCIC will pave the way for more joint trainings that boost the capacity of Vietnamese authorities to suppress nature crime,” said Mark E Grindley, WWF Technical Advisor in central Vietnam.

The Tam Ky NCIC was organized by WWF Vietnam, Wildlife Alliance, and PeunPa, under the Biodiversity Conservation Corridors Initiative (BCI), a project of the Asian Development Bank. The BCI is improving conservation of critical landscapes in the Greater Mekong Subregion through sustainable livelihood interventions and supporting activities.

For more information, please contact:

Mark E Grindley
Central Truong Son Technical Advisor
WWF Greater Mekong Programme
Tel: +84 (53) 554 816
Mark.Grindley@wwfgreatermekong.org

Tim Redford
Deputy Director of Field Operations
PeunPa Foundation (A member of Wildlife Alliance)|
Tel +66 2 2042719-21
tim@peunpa.org

Michael Zwirn
Director of U.S. Operations
Wildlife Alliance
Tel: +1 (202) 223-6350
zwirn@wildlifealliance.org

Notes for Editors

1.    Vietnam is a major international transit point for the illegal wildlife trade. Authorities in Hanoi seized a record 21 metric tonnes of Indonesian pangolins in a single month at the beginning of this year. Major seizures of snakes and other reptiles have also attracted international media attention in 2008.

2.    Central Vietnam is a ‘choke-point’ for wildlife trade passing through the country. National highways connecting the Vietnam’s north and south pass through Quang Nam, Quang Tri and Thua Thien Hue provinces.

3.    Central Vietnam is considered by WWF to be a globally critical conservation landscape. WWF has been working in the central provinces for over ten years and is currently implementing several projects there, including the Vietnam BCI pilot.

4.    The Tam Ky NCIC follows a successful study tour of Cambodia’s best forest protection practices by forest protection officers and police from Vietnam’s Quang Nam and Quang Tri provinces. The Cambodian study tour (April 1-7, 2008) was also organized by WWF Vietnam, PeunPa, and Wildlife Alliance.

5.    WWF, the largest multinational conservation organization in the world, works in 100 countries and is supported by 1.2 million members in the United States and close to 5 million globally. PeunPa is a Thai charitable organization that works throughout Southeast Asia to stop the illegal wildlife trade and protect natural habitats. Wildlife Alliance is an international non-profit conservation and wildlife protection organization, headquartered in Washington, D.C., with field offices and partnerships in Cambodia, Thailand, and the Russian Far East.

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Wildlife Alliance is an international conservation organization whose mission is to protect and preserve wildlife, forests and oceans for future generations. Our field operations, formerly carried out under the name WildAid, train and equip park rangers to fight crimes against nature, and prevent poaching and illegal habitat destruction in Southeast Asia, Latin America, Russia and the Western Pacific through collaboration with governments and communities. We improve the management of protected areas, support sustainable development initiatives, and empower countries to enforce transboundary wildlife regulations. For more information, please visit wildlifealliance.org.