Myanmar elephants under threat from smuggling - more censored articles

THE illegal smuggling of Asian elephants out of Myanmar into Thailand and China is posing a threat to the long-term viability of Myanmar’s elephant population, according to a report published last week by TRAFFIC, a wildlife trade monitoring network based in Malaysia. It said that in the past decade more than 250 live Asian elephants have been smuggled illegally out of Myanmar into the two neighbouring countries. The main threats to Myanmar’s elephants – the largest population of wild Asian elephants outside of India – were the international demand for ivory and the high demand for live animals for Thailand’s tourist trekking industry, the report continued. It cited hundreds of cases of both illegal ivory and live elephant trade, despite the fact that such activity contravenes Myanmar law and the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).

As a result of these findings, TRAFFIC and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) have called on Myanmar, Thailand and China to work closely together to tackle the illegal elephant and ivory trade. “Both Thailand and China must do much more to increase enforcement and crack down on this insidious trade,” Susan Lieberman, the director of WWF’s international species program, was quoted as saying in the statement. “The situation is critical,” Dr Chris Shepherd, the senior program manager of TRAFFIC, said in an email interview. “If serious action is not taken immediately throughout Southeast Asia, more populations of elephants are going to vanish and the Asian elephant in the wild is going to be pushed closer to the brink of extinction.” “Of all Southeast Asian countries, Myanmar perhaps has the greatest potential for large numbers of elephants in the wild to survive into the future,” he said. “Myanmar authorities should be encouraged and supported in their elephant
conservation efforts.”

The report, which documents accounts of elephant disappearances and ivory on sale in Myanmar’s border regions, has fuelled fears that an already threatened species may fall into extinction. “Already it is too close. The chances of saving this species are increasingly few,” said Dr Shepherd. The report also presents evidence of corruption in border regions, with border officials said to have accepted bribes in exchange for allowing the illicit transfer of elephants and ivory into Thailand and China. In the past, most elephants taken from Myanmar were used for the Thai logging industry, but after that practice was made illegal, live elephants were taken across the border for use in the tourist trade. “Females and juvenile elephants are particularly targeted to supply the demand from the tourism industry in Thailand, where they are put to work in elephant trekking centres,” said Dr Shepherd.

Meanwhile, at 14 markets and three border marketssurveyed by TRAFFIC in Thailand and China, 9000 ivory pieces and 16 whole tusks were seen for sale, according to the report. Dr Aung Myo Chit from the Myanmar office of the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) – which also contributed to the report – said Asian elephants are classified in Myanmar as a “totally protected species”. He said violation of the government’s Protection of Wildlife and Wild Plants and Conservation of Natural Areas Law is punishable by up to seven years in jail or a K50,000 fine. Dr Aung Myo Chit saidthat ivory from privately owned and government elephants, if registered properly, can be sold when the animals die. “It is stockpiled and sold by the Myanmar Timber Enterprise (MTE) every few years,” he said.

At the same time, it is technically illegal for the ivory to sold outside the country. But the MTE loophole can make it easier for illegally acquired ivory to be sold under the guise of legal stock, according to the TRAFFIC report. “As soon as [ivory] crosses a border and becomes international trade, it is in contravention of CITES and hence illegal under that convention,” said Dr Richard Thomas, TRAFFIC’s communications co- ordinator. Myanmar, Thailand and China are all parties to the convention.

Dr Aung Myo Chit said there are an estimated 4000 to 5000 wild Asian elephants in Myanmar, the largest population in Southeast Asia. “But part of the problem is that hard data on the remaining populations in Asia are difficult to come by. More information would reveal just how urgent the need to act is,” said Dr Thomas.