BANGKOK TIGER TRACKER:
Police and customs chiefs from 13 countries around Asia convened in Bangkok for a two-day seminar on combatting tiger crime on Feb. 14.
The summit was held at the Plaza Athenee Hotel on Wireless Road and organized by the International Consortium on Combating Wildlife Crime (ICCWC), the World Customs Organization (WCO), the World Bank, the CITES secretariat, and Interpol.
Some interesting facts revealed at the conference:
– Wildlife crime is a US$10 billion dollar a year industry
– Asia is home to many of the main source, transit, and destination countries for illegal wildlife
– Thailand itself is a source, transit, and destination country
– Justin Gosling from Interpol’s Environmental Crime Program, said that cracking down on transit countries may be the most important way to fight environmental crime.
When asked by Coconuts Bangkok how important Bangkok is as a global hub of wildlife crime, officials sidestepped the question, saying that it is just one of the many cities involved. We suspect though – with everything from exotic wildlife slaughterhouses to lorises for sale at Chatuchak Market – that Bangkok is perhaps the global hub of wildlife crime.
Probably the most interesting part of the seminar was a presentation from Indian tiger conservation expert Valmik Thapar who showed rare photos and footage of tigers in the wild. “It took me three years of studying tigers before I saw one drinking water,” he said. Thapar injected emotion into the staid seminar, reminding attendees of how spectacular tigers are and why they must be saved.
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Bangkok Tiger Tracker is Coconuts Bangkok’s regular round up of tiger-related news from Thailand and around the continent. Asia’s biggest cat is one of the most ecologically and culturally important animals in the world, but is facing extinction due to poaching and loss of habitat. It is estimated that there are only about 3,200 tigers remaining in the wild today in Asia, down from nearly 100,000 a century ago.
