07 Jul
2006 - Kaohsiung Harbour, Taiwan – Taiwanese authorities
have confiscated more than five tonnes of ivory
within three days in this southern port city,
marking the largest seizure record of ivory in
the island’s wildlife crime enforcement history.
Hidden in wooden crates, customs
officials discovered 744 pieces of ivory, including
whole elephant tusks, weighing a total of 3,026kg.
Shipping documentation revealed that the illegal
consignment originated from Tanzania in eastern
Africa and was held in transit in the port of
Penang in Malaysia before reaching Kaohsiung.
The ivory was destined for Manila, the Philippines.
“Ivory smuggling is a lucrative
trade handled by highly-organized smuggling rings,
and this can only be combated through increased
intelligence exchange to catalyse quick, efficient
and coordinated responses,” said Joyce Wu, TRAFFIC
East Asia’s Programme Officer in Taipei.
The confiscation took place
just two days after Kaohsiung customs officials
seized two and a half tonnes of ivory, also from
Tanzania and bound for Manila.
The ivory’s routing through
the Philippines, Malaysia and Singapore comes
at a time when Southeast Asian nations have formed
the ASEAN Wildlife Enforcement Network (ASEAN-WEN)
to work more closely together to confront increasingly
sophisticated wildlife crime syndicates.
TRAFFIC hopes that Kaohsiung’s
Customs Department will link up with the ASEAN-WEN,
as well as at the source in Tanzania, to ensure
follow-up investigations.
The route that these shipments
took provides some clues into the intricate workings
of illegal wildlife trade operations. After leaving
Tanzania, the first shipment was routed through
Singapore, where it remained in port transit for
a period of time. It then departed for Manila
and was then re-routed to Taiwan. It went on to
Manila again, but returned to Taiwan without the
contraband cargo being offloaded. It was at this
point that the confiscation was made in Kaohsiung.
Both the shipments were sent by the same exporter,
but were for two different importers in the Philippines.
Since 11000, Taiwan has banned
the trade in ivory. Asian and African elephants
are listed on Appendix I of the Convention on
International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild
Flora and Fauna (CITES), which prohibits all commercial
trade in these species.
END NOTES:
• CITES - The Convention on
International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild
Fauna and Flora regulates international trade
in more than 30,000 species of wild animals and
plants through a system of certificates and permits.
The Convention is currently applied in 169 nations,
including all 10 ASEAN Member Countries.
• Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia,
Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines,
Singapore, Thailand and Viet Nam form the 10 Member
Countries of the Association of South-East Asian
Nations (ASEAN).
• The ASEAN Wildlife Enforcement Network (ASEAN-WEN)
was officially launched in December 2005 at a
ministerial-level meeting held in Bangkok, Thailand.
In May 2006, CITES Authorities from ASEAN member
countries were joined by representatives from
customs and police agencies for the first ASEAN-WEN
meeting, and to broaden inter-agency cooperation
in the development of national taskforces under
the regional wildlife enforcement network.
• TRAFFIC, the wildlife trade
monitoring network, is a joint programme of WWF
and IUCN-the World Conservation Union.
Maija Sirola, Communications Coordinator
