Crackdown on illegal tiger trade

EIA welcomes the recent spate of enforcement activity in Thailand to crackdown on the illegal tiger trade.

Some of you may have read about the recent spate of enforcement activity in Thailand, where a number of high profile raids have revealed a thriving illegal trade in tiger meat and live tigers! Also raided was Sri Racha tiger farm, profiled in our report “Thailand’s Tiger Economy”.

EIA welcomes the current enforcement activity and will be campaigning to ensure that it is not short-lived, but rather forms the basis of long-term institutional change to ensure the effectiveness of Thailand’s multi-agency wildlife crime unit.

Following the release of our report in 2001, EIA’s Tiger Team worked hard to make sure that a special CITES Tiger Technical Mission was dispatched to Thailand to examine the enforcement problems there.

That Mission took place in August 2002 and the report, which corroborated many of EIA’s concerns, was presented at the 12th Conference of the Parties to CITES in November 2002 (http://www.cites.org/eng/cop/12/doc/E12-33A.pdf ). The CITES expert report made several recommendations to Thailand on actions they could take to remedy the situation. This included involving the Thai Royal Police in a multi-agency specialised wildlife crime unit. In March 2003, Thailand announced that they had established a task force to enforce domestic wildlife legislation and CITES.

Thailand is hosting the 13th Conference of the Parties to CITES in October 2004 and it is likely this has contributed to the decision to clean up. It is important that we support the continued efforts of the Commander of the forestry Police Division, who has been leading the recent enforcement activity. It is also vital that the Thai Royal Police continue to play a pivotal role in this multi-agency wildlife crime unit.

Unfortunately, the Commander is reportedly coming under fire from the zoo community who fear that his actions are giving Thailand a bad name and will affect tourists and visitors. EIA feels this is unwarranted and that official zoos should have nothing to fear. In fact, the Commander's enforcement efforts have given Thailand much more credibility and a far better image.