New research has revealed the role the fishing industry plays in illegal wildlife trade, including the smuggling of tiger body parts, in Malaysia and Vietnam.
Based on hours of rare interviews with more than 50 poachers, transporters, brokers and traders involved in the wildlife trade chain and boat operations, the study shows the fishing industry has created a ‘pipeline’ between Vietnamese poachers in Malaysia and an active black market in Vietnam.
Boats would meet at rendezvous points in the sea to resupply, offload products, and circumvent maritime patrols. Wildlife products were often hidden under fish and ice onboard, places that authorities would rarely check, the study found.
“In Malaysia, we know tiger products are also smuggled overland through Thailand, flown by commercial airlines and shipped by logistics companies,” says Dr. Robert Pickles, lead author and Panthera’s Counter-Wildlife Crime Research and Analytics Lead.
"But there was a massive absence of information about wildlife-trafficking on fishing boats. From what interviews described, wildlife products are easily hidden under ice - when authorities do intercept and impound these vessels, they’re not looking for wildlife.
"As soon as we started scratching the surface, we found evidence there were well-established wildlife- and people-smuggling operations within the fishing industry, with risk of detection on the open sea much lower compared to moving products through other methods.”
The study, from wildlife charity Panthera, the Jeffrey Sachs Center at Sunway University and the Zoological Society of London, found both small local fishing boats and larger industrial vessels were involved in the illegal wildlife trade.
"We found several different schemes to circumvent controls by marine authorities,” explains Pickles.
“Smuggling people, wildlife or fish involved a carefully brokered agreement between Malaysian and Vietnamese fishing boat owners, generally with a deep-sea fishing licence, which allowed them to operate as far as the limit of the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) between Vietnam and Malaysia and arrange a rendezvous for transhipment (moving cargo from one boat to another).
"Boat owners or cooperatives owned multiple vessels, sometimes including large industrial factory ships that could stay months out at sea and were fed by smaller fishing vessels. However, we also found that smaller inshore fishing vessels were used to transship to vessels within Malaysia’s EEZ.”
Poverty was also seen to be a driving factor in the illegal wildlife trade. With the collapse of fish stocks, declining profits for fishing boat owners have incentivised other activities to make money, with loose regulations of migrant workers in the region creating conditions for forced human labour onboard fishing vessels in the South China Sea, and boat owners diversifying into both people-trafficking and illegal wildlife-trafficking.
"What really surprised us as we began trying to learn more about patterns of wildlife exploitation was we ended by learning more about the exploitation of people,” says Pickles.
"Exploited people were not purely victims - they endured hardships, but then seized opportunities to make money and improve their lot, in some cases through exploiting other people and wildlife themselves. Indentured migrant workers sometimes became poachers; prostitutes sidelined as wildlife traders; illegal fishermen sidelined as people- and wildlife-smugglers.”
Interviewees also explained that Vietnamese specialist poachers who enter Malaysia for a limited series of poaching expeditions also often incurred significant amounts of debt, forcing them to go through several expeditions into the forest before breaking even, which further incentivises the killing of tigers.
With fewer than 150 Malayan tigers left in the wild today, the researchers hope the study will lead to government authorities making interventions at different points along the supply chain.
“Maritime security has improved - both Malaysia and Vietnam have implemented measures to reduce illegal fishing,” says Pickles. “We now need to close the loopholes that are exploited by the criminal networks.”
It’s likely this specific example of fishing boats being involved in illegal wildlife-trafficking is part of much wider issue. "I think this is the tip of the iceberg, not just Asia but globally,” says Pickles.
“Globally, oversight and regulation of fishing vessels is substantially lacking, with illegal, unauthorised and unreported fishing estimated to account for 30% of the world’s fisheries sector. While the financial rewards for rule-breaking are huge, risks of detection and sanctions are relatively low.
"Deep-sea fishing vessels can operate for months at sea, travel huge distances and easily camouflage consignments of illegal commodities, while a vast number of smaller coastal craft can easily travel between small ports and cross-national borders or link up with deepwater vessels.
"We knew fishing vessels have long been used to smuggle drugs and people - we just hadn’t really been looking for wildlife products. A fishing vessel is just a form of conveyance that can transport any kind of commodity, and as we see from seizures, fishing boat owners and smugglers can switch commodity when the opportunity arises,” concludes Pickles.
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