Guest guest Posted August 13, 2004 Report Share Posted August 13, 2004 This message was forwarded to you by yitzeling. Comment from sender: This article is from The Star Online URL: http://thestar.com.my/lifestyle/story.asp?file=/2004/8/10/features/8468647 & sec=f\ eatures ________________________ Tuesday August 10, 2004 The stench of greed <b>The core of some Aquilaria trees bears fragrant heartwood that is used in perfumes and incense. The wood is so highly prized that poachers are willing to risk arrest to poach the valuable material from Malaysian forests. Hilary Chiew has the special report</b> A “FEVER” is raging in Malaysian forests, one that is fuelled by the soaring price of a high-value aromatic wood – agarwood or as locals call it, gaharu. The price of top-quality agarwood, the resinous heartwood of Aquilaria trees, has soared from RM500 to RM8,000 per kg over the past few years. The lucrative price meant that traditional collectors, the orang asli, now have to compete with Thai poachers. In Taman Negara, 50 Thai poachers were caught in 2002 and 2003. They were jailed as they couldn’t pay the fine. In 1999, several Thais were prosecuted in the Ranau district court for stealing agarwood in Mount Kinabalu National Park. The spate of encroachment by poachers at the Endau-Rompin National Park which straddles the states of Johor and Pahang reveals the seriousness of the situation and the boldness of the intruders. Early last month, two poachers were arrested by the police General Operation Force around Sungai Taku, not far from the park’s centre at Kuala Jasin. Several of their accomplices escaped. Police seized 5kg of agarwood chips and three passports. The intruders, armed with axes, parang and firearms blatantly lit fires and built tents on visitors’ trails. The two poachers pleaded guilty to charges under forestry and immigration laws at the Mersing magistrate’s court last week and will be sentenced on Thursday. The police were called into the park after Johor National Parks Corporation (JNPC) rangers stumbled upon three Thai poachers on June 23. JNPC director Mohamed Basir Mohamed Sali says the Thais had disclosed that they were part of a 50-men party spread out in 10 groups in the park. “One was armed with an axe. My men were not armed and they had to consider the safety of guests. They decided not to get tough with the poachers and just told them that their activities were forbidden.” Police patrolled the park for two weeks before moving to its borders to seal off exit points. But they were too late. Shortly after the arrests, orang asli of Kampung Selai at the western entrance of the park, near Bekok, reported that a van came to pick up some Thais who emerged from the jungle. Police patrols were called off at the end of July. Basir believes the encroachment is not an isolated case as rangers have also encountered Thai poachers at the Gunung Ledang National Park a week before the Endau-Rompin incident. In the latest encounter there on July 22, two locals were caught passing foodstuff to two Thai poachers. JNPC rangers arrested the locals but only seized the poachers’ knives. The two men have been handed over to the police. <b>Paper park</b> The poaching of agarwood is just the latest in a succession of bad news coming from Endau-Rompin, the second largest block of virgin forest in the peninsula after Taman Negara. In April, the JNPC received news that three tigers had been killed but found no traces. The animals’ meat, pelts and body parts such as claws and penises were purportedly sold to restaurants and buyers in nearby Kahang and Singapore. Shortly after, a baby elephant was snared and died. These incidences threaten the biological integrity of the park and create doubts over the ability of the park to protect endangered species such as the Sumatran rhinoceros and Malayan tigers. The park management plan may look impeccable on paper but implementation is another story due to staff shortage and lack of funds as well as poor co-ordination among agencies. The park is now managed for eco-tourism, with little thought given to enforcement to curb poaching. An extensive road network surrounding the park allows easy access, further straining enforcement efforts. At present, the park can be accessed via Kahang, Kampung Selai at Bekok, Kampung Juaseh and Kampung Tenang at Labis, Felda Selancar at Segamat and across the Sungai Rompin. Visitor collections were expected to support operational costs but after a decade, the income is merely RM500,000 per year while expenditure is RM3.6mil. Even with a state allocation of RM2mil, funds are still short. Mohamed Basir says JNPC is beefing up its enforcement capacity and until then, needs the assistance of other agencies such as the Forestry Department and Perhilitan. He is contemplating arming his small patrol team with two shotguns. Department of Wildlife and National Parks (Perhilitan) protected areas director Sahir Othman says as Endau-Rompin was enacted as a state park through the National Park Corporation Enactment (Johor) 1989, enforcement responsibilities have been assigned to the JNPC. Furthermore, the park does not enjoy manpower allocation from the Public Services Department. JNPC staff is on contract and this has compromised its ability to sustain trained personnel. Sahir says Perhilitan is not ready to expand its enforcement role in Endau-Rompin due to budget constraints. But since the state park overlaps with the Endau-Kluang Wildlife Reserve, he says it benefits from patrols regularly conducted by Perhilitan rangers within the reserve. Perhilitan enforcement director Misliah Mohd Bashir acknowledges the need for a co-ordinated enforcement programme, but reveals that discussion has yet to start. Forestry Department director-general Datuk Abdul Rashid Mat Amin confirms the problem posed by Thai poachers, and says enforcement is being tightened and the informant network expanded. Forestry patrol teams made two arrests last year, in Perak and Pahang. The court cases are pending. “We require the co-operation of all agencies. It’s difficult to trace the poachers because they travel light,” Rashid says. He is considering a meeting between relevant groups to stem gaharu poaching. He, however, refuses to confirm the existence of a local agarwood syndicate linked to Thailand, where the region’s biggest agarwood processing centre can be found, ironically, next to Khao Yai National Park which has battled agarwood theft for years. Conservation group WildAid says a significant amount of agarwood processed in distillation factories around Khao Yai, about 250km north of Bangkok, originated from neighbouring countries, including Malaysia. “We have video of Thai poachers explaining how they have moved to Malaysia to collect agarwood as the best quality ones in Thailand have all been harvested and increased forest protection has made collection more risky. Poachers regularly go to jail here,” says WildAid activist Tim Redford. Internal Security and Public Order deputy director (I) Deputy Commissioner Datuk Arthur Edmunds who chaired a meeting in Johor Baru after the encroachment in Endau-Rompin dismisses the incident as a breach of national security. “There’s a bit of concern on our part but I don’t think it warrants further discussion at a higher level. We believe there is local assistance (to the intruders) and I have directed the state’s Criminal Investigation Department to conduct an investigation as it is a criminal matter,” he says. Investigations by the Mersing police indicates that a local in Segamat has been supplying food to poachers holed up in the jungle since mid-June. <b>Worthless chips</b> The scant attention paid to agarwood thefts is probably because it is not taxable. Unlike sawn timber, fragrant agarwood chips are categorised as wood waste; hence no export duties are levied. “Under the Custom Code 401, there is no need to determine the species of agarwood exported as wood chips because it is described as wood waste,” says Norchahaya Hashim, director of licensing and enforcement of the Malaysian Timber Industry Board (MTIB). MTIB is the management authority for the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) for plants. From March 2002 until June, MTIB issued 75 CITES export permits for 601,174 cu m of agarwood chips. Of the eight valuable Aquilaria species, only the trade in one, the Aquilaria malaccensis, is regulated by CITES. The species was listed in Appendix II of the convention in 1995 because of concerns over unsustainable harvest and trade. With the listing, range states (where the species occur) must issue CITES documents for export, import and re-export of the plant’s parts and derivatives like chips and oil, as well as ensure that the products were obtained legally and in a manner that does not threaten the species. A recent proposal by Indonesia for trade in all species of Aquilaria and a species of Gyrinops that also produces aromatic resins, to be regulated will be discussed at a CITES meeting in October in Bangkok. A report released by wildlife trade monitoring programme Traffic International in 2000 named Indonesia and Malaysia as main sources of agarwood of all species traded between 1995 to 1997. It said Indonesia exported 920 tonnes and Peninsular Malaysia, 340 tonnes. Sarawak exported 530 tonnes in 1998 alone. Norchahaya says there is no quota on extraction and export of any species of agarwood. She says it is up to the Forestry Department to monitor if agarwood is being harvested sustainably. Traffic research revealed that several species of Aquilaria are being traded and it was difficult to differentiate between the species. Wildaid’s Redford says deliberate mislabelling of agarwood by traders and difficulties in identifying wood species have resulted in losses of millions of dollars as governments were unable to collect tax. Back at Endau-Rompin, there is another concern – besides the illegal poachers, orang asli are also collecting agarwood, which are then sold to middlemen. Centre for Orang Asli Concern director Colin Nicholas asserts that the orang asli are not overexploiting agarwood because collection is done in rotation with petai, rattan and bamboo. “The intimate knowledge of this tree among the orang asli means they don’t cut immature trees like the Thai poachers who are strictly profit-driven,” he says. He argues that more gaharu trees are lost to logging but concurs that harvesting may be unsustainable with both the Thais and orang asli doing it. He proposes that the authorities reward orang asli who report foreign intrusion. “There must be incentives as well as education. These are the problems that the government is not addressing.” For now, the “fever” looks like it is being contained within Endau-Rompin but given the lure of gaharu and the lackadaisical response of authorities, it may well rage on until the last standing Aquilaria is chopped down. <A HREF= " /lifestyle/story.asp?file=/2004/8/10/features/8571664 & sec=features " >The Thai link in poaching</A><BR> <A HREF= " /lifestyle/story.asp?file=/2004/8/10/features/8591383 & sec=features " >From poacher to farmer</A><BR> <A HREF= " /lifestyle/story.asp?file=/2004/8/10/features/8504528 & sec=features " >High volume of trade in agarwood</A><BR> <p> ________________________ Your one-stop information portal: The Star Online http://thestar.com.my http://biz.thestar.com.my http://classifieds.thestar.com.my http://cards.thestar.com.my http://search.thestar.com.my http://star-motoring.com http://star-space.com http://star-jobs.com http://star-ecentral.com http://star-techcentral.com 1995-2003 Star Publications (Malaysia) Bhd. 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