In Vietnam, rampant wildlife smuggling thrives

Unsustainable developmental policies and rising insensitivity towards nature threaten important bird and biodiversity areas in India

Luc Van Ho slips through a tangled thicket of jungle, graceful as a dancer. A blanket of dried bamboo and melaleuca leaves on the forest floor barely crackles beneath his bare feet. Only the smell of cigarette smoke betrays his presence.

A hunter, Luc, 45, set out at dawn from his family’s bamboo-thatched home in Vietnam’s U Minh forest to check a half dozen home-made traps rigged along animal trails in the underbrush and on canal banks frequented by snakes and turtles. He stops at a snare trap made of wood and bicycle brake wire, nearly invisible beneath leaves. The trap is empty, not unusual.

“Before, this forest was very different,” Luc said. “Now, the animals are so few that most hunters are changing their jobs.” Still, previously, Luc had caught nine Southeast Asian box turtles and Malayan snail-eating turtles, five elephant trunk snakes, a handful of water birds and two rare Himalayan griffon vultures. In the past, Luc’s hunting trips often yielded wildlife bonanzas, including prized pangolins. Also known as scaly anteaters, they are among the most trafficked mammals in the world. Luc works with traders willing to buy live pangolins for $60 a pound. Although he caught just two pangolins last year, that price makes it well worth the effort to keep seeking them out.

Luc is one of thousands of illegal hunters draining Vietnam, one of the most biodiverse countries in the world, of its animals. Its rhinoceroses have gone extinct and conservationists estimate that just a couple of its tigers, if any, remain. Even lesser known species like soft-shell turtles and civets are sought out for traditional medicines, food, trophies and pets.

Playing a major role
Illegal wildlife is one of the world’s largest contraband trades, netting an estimated $19 billion a year, not including illegal fisheries and timber. While all Southeast Asian countries and many others outside of the region are involved, Vietnam plays a paramount role. The country is a major thoroughfare for wildlife goods bound for China, which arrive overland from Cambodia, Thailand and Laos; by ship from Malaysia and Indonesia. “After China, Vietnam is the next port of call in terms of where to look to figure out what’s going on with wildlife trade,” said Dan Challender, a co-chairman of the pangolin specialist group at the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Vietnam is also a significant consumer of wildlife, especially those yielding the ingredients for traditional medicine, such as rhino horn, which is used to treat everything from cancer to hangovers. “Pangolin is frequently the most expensive item on the menu, so ordering it is an obvious way to show off to friends and colleagues,” Dan said.

International concern about the illegal wildlife trade has never been greater, but conferences, new enforcement strategies and ivory crushes have yet to make a dent. In February, the Obama administration issued a plan to curb illegal wildlife trade by strengthening enforcement, reducing demand and sending a handful of agents abroad. The United States is the second-largest market for illegal wildlife products, but only an estimated 10 per cent of
traffickers are caught because of inadequate resources supporting enforcement, as well as legal loopholes pertaining to certain products, such as ivory.

While China recently increased its arrests and prosecutions for wildlife crimes, those caught trafficking wildlife in Vietnam or other transit countries almost always escape punishment.
Dealing in protected species is a criminal offence under Vietnamese law, as is selling wild-caught animals of any kind. But even when trafficking kingpins are taken into custody, prosecution often depends on finding unrelated charges that are taken more seriously than wildlife crime, such as car smuggling.

Given the widespread lack of enforcement, grass-roots conservation organisations in Vietnam increasingly find themselves on the front lines. Education for Nature-Vietnam recently conducted a survey of restaurants, hotels and shops in 12 districts in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, recording each violation of wildlife laws and insisting that authorities follow up. Several months later, the group repeated the survey and found the availability of
illegal products ranging from snake “wine” to bear bile had fallen nearly 60 per cent in eight of the districts. “When authorities put us out of work by doing their job effectively and consistently, then we’ll no longer have to do this,” Douglas said.

Save Vietnam’s Wildlife, a nonprofit based at Cuc Phuong National Park, organises training sessions across the country for park rangers and the police, conducts community education programs and operates one of the country’s only rehabilitation centres for confiscated animals. In Vietnam, much of the wildlife intercepted from illegal traders is sold by officials back into the black market. Nguyen Van Thain, Save Vietnam’s Wildlife’s founder, often must race to the sites of recent confiscations to try torecover animals before that can happen.

“Corrupt rangers still want to sell animals back to the trade,” Nguyen said. Even if the animals are not sold, very few return to the wild, because of a lack of rehabilitation facilities. Animals not sent to a specialised rescue centre often “just sit around until they die,” Chris said.

Nguyen says he is not confident that attitudes will change in time to spare his country’s wildlife. “The problem in Vietnam is that conservation is a new way of thinking,” he said.

“Vietnamese people need to learn to take seriously what we have now. We need to take care of our own environment and wildlife if we want it to be around in the future.”