Jakarta - Senior field officers in the Indonesian National
Police are to undergo training aimed at cracking down on wildlife
smugglers and illegal loggers, who are threatening the country's
biodiversity and natural resources, a regional wildlife alliance said
Monday.
The training over the next two and a half weeks is on how to
detect and arrest members of organized crime syndicates looting the
nation's forests, the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN)
Wildlife Enforcement Network said in a statement.
'It's great news for Indonesia that the police have committed to
work with other agencies to protect the country's wildlife and
forests,' said Steve Galster, director of field operations for PeunPa
and the Wildlife Alliance, conservation groups that support the ASEAN
network. 'Laws exist to protect endangered species and ecosystems.'
The fate of Indonesia's wildlife and forests has been in the
global spotlight in recent weeks after the discovery that the
population of critically endangered Sumatran tigers had plummeted
because of poaching and illegal wildlife sales.
Researchers had found tiger bones, claws, skins and whiskers being
sold openly in eight cities on Sumatra despite laws banning such
trade.
The Sumatran tiger is the world's most endangered tiger subspecies
with fewer than 500 of the big cats remaining in the wild.
To improve capacity to detect and prevent these and other crimes
involving wildlife and forests, Indonesian police officers are to
join forestry and customs officers for nature crime investigations
training at the National Police's criminal investigations training
centre in Bogor, West Java.
Galster said officials hope the intensive Wildlife Crime
Investigation Course would pave the way for more joint training to
help the government tackle poaching and smuggling networks.
The ASEAN wildlife network involves the law enforcement agencies
of all 10 ASEAN countries and facilitates cross-border collaboration
in the fight against illegal wildlife trade in the region.
Indonesia is a global hotspot for trade in wild animals and
plants. It is second only to Brazil in richness of biodiversity. Its
forests are also under threat from illegal and unregulated logging.
Once abundant in Indonesia, species such as tigers, orang-utans
and rhinoceros are now close to extinction because of a lethal
combination of habitat destruction, persistent poaching and
smuggling, weak enforcement and lack of public awareness.
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