WORLD Wide Fund for Nature-Malaysia (WWF-Malaysia) congratulates the Department Of Wildlife And National Parks (Perhilitan) Perak on the arrest in Gopeng, Perak, of an individual transporting a poached tiger, following a tip-off from a member of the public (“Man arrested while carrying tiger carcass on motorcycle” — NST, Feb 2).
This highlights the importance of public support and swift action taken by Perhilitan to stop the exploitation of natural treasures by unscrupulous people.
Local and foreign poaching syndicates are emptying our forests of tigers, their prey, and other wildlife.
Most of these poachers are armed, and they enter the forests without any fear of getting caught. The case of the offender transporting the tiger carcass on his motorbike indicates the lack of fear of being apprehended.
The fact that this is the second case of tiger poaching over the past two weeks paints a bleak picture of the Malayan tiger’s survival.
The first line of defence in protecting tigers is ensuring that our forests are well managed and patrolled frequently to stop poachers from entering.
This is not the case in Malaysia.
Some of the best-protected areas for tigers in India and Thailand for example, have a minimum of one anti-poaching ranger for every 10 square kilometres.
In comparison, Malaysia has less than 10 per cent of these gold-standard specified rangers in most of our forests.
If the nation does not have enough resources to have anti-poaching patrol rangers, then, in the meantime, inter-agency cooperation to curb poaching needs to be increased.
Recognising the lack of anti-poaching enforcement personnel in the forest, WWF-Malaysia calls for joint army patrol initiatives, such as 1Malaysia Biodiversity Enforcement Operation Network (1MBEON), to be carried out with greater intensity, scale and consistency to combat wildlife crime.
As the current case also highlights the importance of informant networks to combat the illegal wildlife trade network, WWF-Malaysia calls for more funding allocations to establish, maintain and boost such intelligence-driven enforcement efforts.
In the past, poor sentences meted out to tiger poachers and low prosecution rates of wildlife criminals have been highlighted as stumbling blocks in the fight to save the Malayan tiger.
WWF-Malaysia reiterates the call for strong prosecution with the highest penalties to be imposed on these offenders, and we believe that this is needed to deter poachers.
It is high time we acknowledged that wildlife crime is dead serious, as we are running out of time and losing the war against poaching.
Datuk Dr Dionysius Sharma,
Executive director/CEO,
WWF-Malaysia