Tigers are critically endangered in the region.
The still lax enforcement of wildlife regulations and uneven endeavors to protect and nurture the ecosystem in Southeast Asian countries will eventually result in the loss of much of its unique biodiversity, according to researchers from the region.
The Southeast Asian researchers expressed these concerns as more than 1,500 delegates from around the world arrived in Doha, Qatar, beginning Saturday for a two-week meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (Cites) to draft new tougher measures to protect the planet’s endangered plant and animal life.
To date, thousands of species of plants and animals are used for food, housing, health care, cosmetics or fashion, stripping forests and other locations of these flora and fauna without a corresponding effort to restock or replant the removed bioorganisms.
The international wildlife trade is estimated to be worth billions of dollars annually and to involve more than 350 million plant and animal specimens every year, according to Cites.
Aside from the wild tigers being on top of endangered species—hunted for their alleged medicinal properties as believed in traditional Chinese medicine—Cites stated that marine species such as sharks, tuna and coral, as well as the great apes, elephants, rhinoceroses, antelopes, and crocodiles, are among the many becoming extinct.
As for coral, the Philippines has reefs considered among the most diverse, providing home to more than 900 fish species and more than 400 coral species, including many that are endemic to the area. The system is part of the Coral Triangle that encompasses, in addition to the Philippines, the countries of Indonesia, Malaysia, East Timor, Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands covering 1 billion hectares and containing 75 percent of the world’s coral species.
Rodelio Subade, a researcher at the University of the Philippines Visayas, said these reefs are seriously threatened with extinction, but no matter how dire the threat, there is still time to save them or at least slow down their destruction, saying the most significant threats in the Coral Triangle are overfishing, destructive fishing practices and coral bleaching, all of them controllable.
This was sometime ago recognized by the countries of the Coral Triangle, and they have come to a formal agreement to protect and nurture the coral reefs. The Philippines is one of the signatories.
In a recent study, Subade found that a large percentage of people are very willing to pay for the conservation of the Philippines’ world-renowned national marine nature reserve, the Tubbataha Reefs Marine Park in Palawan.
Working on the numbers, he concluded that if this mass of willing people is tapped for help, the potential income stream would more than cover the cost of protecting the reserve.
“Lack of funding and effective institutions to implement conservation activities are the main obstacles to implementing conservation programs in the country and elsewhere in the region,” Subade told the BusinessMirror.
The Tubbataha Reefs Marine Park is a Unesco World Heritage Site. It is home to a number of endangered marine life among the more than 350 species of coral and almost 500 species of fish.
“In our study, people were most willing to pay because they thought it was important to conserve the marine park for future generations,” said Subade. He thought the government should step up efforts to increase public awareness of the critical importance to life, in general, of biodiversity in the country.
In Vietnam, on the other hand, despite its international commitments to combat the wildlife trade, Nguyen Van Song of the Hanoi Agricultural University told the BusinessMirror the smuggling of tigers, monkeys, snakes, pangolins, and other animals from and through Vietnam is booming.
“Although many measures have been initiated to crack down on illegal wildlife trade in Vietnam, further tighter steps are needed to better protect the country’s endangered wildlife,” said Song. “Vietnam’s natural environment has been deteriorating rapidly, so the government should strengthen the capacity of agencies responsible for fighting the trade.”
Illegal wildlife trade is a global multibillion-dollar business with estimated annual revenues of $66 million in Vietnam, and it is dramatically reducing the country’s wildlife year after year, according to Nguyen, citing his study, “Wildlife Trading in Vietnam: Why it Flourishes” that he presented at the 2010 Impact Conference organized by the Economy and Environment Program for Southeast Asia in Hanoi, Vietnam, last week.
Song said Vietnam now has 1,000 threatened species from 300 in previous years. On top of the list are wildlife tigers. Hanoi is Vietnam’s largest market for illegal wildlife meat, with trades of $12,270 a day.
The most popular species served in Hanoi are snakes, palm civets, monitor lizards, porcupines, leopards, pangolins, monkeys, forest pigs, hardshell turtles, soft-shell turtles, civets, boas, and birds.
Song said Vietnam has enacted various laws to deal with this problem. Unfortunately, these laws have been ineffective in stopping the trade. He did not elaborate on the reason for the powerlessness of the laws.
To better protect the country’s wildlife, Song urged his government to continuously and intensely implement protection policies and increase funding and provision of equipment to enhance monitoring capacities of concerned agencies.
Song also highlighted the need for education to encourage Vietnamese to stop consuming illegal wildlife products. “Given the scale of the problem, a high level of commitment at all levels of government and the citizenry will be needed to significantly reduce the illegal trade in Vietnam.”
The giant turtles of the region are in danger over in Thailand. Dr. Orapan Nabangchang, associate professor at the School of Economics, Sukhothai Thamatirat Open University in Thailand, said, “The conservation and management of marine turtles is therefore critical if their natural ecology and diversity is to be maintained.”
He added, “However, the principal mission of environmental protection and conservation is too often hampered by lack of funds.”
In Asia, the main threat to turtles is the deterioration of the coastal and coral ecosystems their illegal sale. The turtles are sold for their meat, shells, oil, skins, eggs, and as ingredients in native medicines driving them to the brink of extinction.
A study by Nabangchang and his colleagues was aimed at determining if people were willing to support international or national conservation programs for marine turtles and found the mean average willingness to pay for turtle conservation was about $1.4 dollars but that this was to be voluntary and not government imposed.
“Their willingness to pay was because they thought turtles were special and should be protected. The practical implications of our results imply that the majority of people are not willing to vote to support a policy to impose a monthly surcharge on all urban households to protecting sea turtles for a period of five years. However, 40 percent of the respondents were willing to voluntarily contribute a dollar a month per household,” said Nabangchang.
