Posted on 06 October
2009 - A five-year-old male Tiger was freed
from a poacher’s snare on Sunday after it
was found by WWF’s Wildlife Protection Unit
(WPU) just off a highway that cuts through
the Belum-Temengor forest complex in the
northern state of Perak.
WPU members, who were
on a routine patrol on Saturday, detected
two men on motorcycles near the site, who
fled upon seeing them approach. When the
WPU checked the area, they found the Tiger
with its right foreleg caught in a wire
snare.
The Tiger was freed
from the snare early Sunday morning by the
Department of Wildlife and National Parks
(Perhilitan) officers who were called to
the scene. The Tiger is being treated by
Perhilitan at the Malacca Zoo and vets are
hopeful that they might not need to amputate
the animal’s leg.
Perhilitan Perak Director
Shabrina Mohd Shariff said investigations
into the case were ongoing and that initial
information showed the suspected poachers
were from Kelantan.
The rescue should set
alarm bells ringing for the remaining wild
Tigers in the Belum-Temengor forests, one
of the last strongholds for this species,
said a WWF Malaysia and TRAFFIC joint press
statement.
View dramatic footage
of the Tiger being rescued and treated
Research carried out
in the area by both groups has indicated
that the rescued Tiger is very likely just
one of many that have been poached in the
area. Illegal hunting in the Belum-Temengor
area is rampant and the demand for tigers
continues to drive criminals into the forest
to kill the remaining ones.
The Belum-Temengor forest
complex is one of three priority areas identified
in Malaysia’s National Tiger Action Plan.
It is also part of an area of global priority
for Tiger conservation. Yet it is highly
vulnerable to encroachment and poaching
for several reasons.
The area lies close
to the porous Malaysia-Thai border and is
easily accessible because of the 80 km long
Gerik-Jeli highway that cuts across the
landscape, providing hundreds of easy entry
points for poachers.
Apart from the Perhilitan-WPU
joint patrols, neither the vast and wildlife-rich
area, nor the highway is systematically
or thoroughly patrolled, making it an open
target for poachers.
In August, a Thai national
was caught by the police with pangolin scales
and agarwood near the highway. He was one
of 10 poachers arrested in the area over
the last nine months. In that time also,
Perhilitan, Police and the WPU removed 101
snares from the area.
“If the WPU rangers
had not spotted the suspected poachers the
story might have been very different for
that Tiger. We were lucky this time. Who
knows how many tigers we have already lost?”
said Dato’ Dr Dionysius Sharma, CEO of WWF-Malaysia.
“This incident clearly
demonstrates the need for a stronger enforcement
presence in the Belum-Temengor area. If
this isn’t enough of a clarion call for
the government to afford more resources
to form an anti-poaching Task Force, I don’t
know what is,” he added.
TRAFFIC Southeast Asia’s
Regional Acting Director, Chris R. Shepherd
said that at the rate Tigers were being
killed throughout their entire range, they
did not stand a chance.
“But here in Malaysia,
there is still hope of saving tigers. It
will mean increasing enforcement efforts
to protect crucial strongholds such as the
Belum-Temengor complex and coming down hard
on poachers,” he said.
“These poachers are
criminals, and are robbing the world of
one of the most amazing species to have
ever walked the earth”.
The official estimate
of the wild Tigers in Peninsular Malaysia
is only 500, a sharp decline from 3000 estimated
in the 1950s, explained wildlife biologist
Dr Kae Kawanishi.
“Snares kill indiscriminately.
This illegal act of cruelty should be condemned
by the whole society. Despite the harsh
penalty imposed by the law, it has been
a major problem to wildlife throughout the
country,” said Kae, a member of the Malaysian
Conservation Alliance for Tigers Secretariat.
“In order for the Malaysia
to realize the goal of the National Tiger
Action Plan, which is to double the number
of wild tigers in the country by the year
2020, poaching cannot be tolerated.”
+ More
Aircraft and shipping
emissions on course for Copenhagen
Posted on 06 October
2009 - Bangkok, Thailand – Negotiations
to bring international aviation and shipping
emissions under a Copenhagen climate treaty
have begun in earnest at UN climate negotiations
now underway in Bangkok, in a signal the
world has lost patience with a lack of serious
action by the international transport sector.
International aviation
and shipping emissions, together more than
one billion tons of CO2 annually and increasing
significantly, were originally entrusted
to the International Civil Aviation Organization
(ICAO) and International Maritime Organization
(IMO) under the Kyoto Protocol.
“In the 12 years since
the Kyoto Protocol gave these emissions
to the ICAO and IMO to manage, they have
failed to pass a single binding measure,”
said Peter Lockley, head of transport policy
at WWF. “The delegates here in Bangkok are
sending a message that these important sources
of emissions need to be addressed.”
The timing is particularly
important as the ICAO begins three days
of meetings in Montreal beginning on October
7th in a last ditch effort to agree to meaningful
measures.
“We expect a blitz of
positive public relations from the ICAO
this week as they attempt to hide the fact
that all proposals on the table have very
weak targets that are voluntary and could
be achieved simply by buying offsets,” added
Lockley. “What we really need are binding
emissions reduction targets with a clear
timetable for delivering policies to meet
them.”
It is estimated that
emissions from aviation and shipping will
double or even triple by 2050 if left unaddressed,
potentially taking up two-thirds of a 'safe'
global greenhouse gas budget calculated
to keeping average global warming well below
the 2 degrees centigrade threshold for unacceptable
risks of catastrophic or runaway climate
change.
As the sectors are international,
developed countries are calling for global
policies. But in order for this to be acceptable
to the developing world, the revenues from
these policies must be spent on fighting
climate change in developing countries.
“European Finance Ministers
are currently considering proposals to use
these revenues as climate finance for developing
countries, but we are hearing strong indications
that some countries would rather keep the
money for themselves,” said Lockley.
"It's vital they
see past their short-term interests and
allow the money to flow, otherwise they
will be wrecking the efforts of their own
negotiators to reach a deal in Copenhagen."
