Guest guest Posted August 13, 2004 Report Share Posted August 13, 2004 ***************************Advertisement*************************** eCentral - Your Entertainment Guide http://www.star-ecentral.com ***************************************************************** This message was forwarded to you by yitzeling. Comment from sender: This article is from The Star Online (http://thestar.com.my) URL: http://thestar.com.my/lifestyle/story.asp?file=/2004/8/10/features/8571664 & sec=f\ eatures ________________________ Tuesday August 10, 2004 The Thai link in poaching By HILARY CHIEW THONG De, one of the two Thai poachers caught stealing gaharu at the Endau-Rompin National Park last month, is no ordinary poacher. The 44-year-old hails from Prachantakham district of Pachinburi province in central Thailand – a place notorious for its agarwood poachers. As enforcement tightened at the Khao Yai National Park, poachers like Thong headed for the kingdom’s southern national parks and Malaysian forests. Established in 1962 and covering 2,168sqkm, Khao Yai is Thailand’s third largest national park, and has been the epicentre for illegal agarwood extraction for some 15 years. But with the exodus of poachers to Malaysia, agarwood harvesting in Khao Yai has declined. ”There are at least 1,000 Thai poachers in Malaysia. About 80% of poachers in my village are working there and four more are leaving for Malaysia today,” says former poacher Sompong Prajobjan. He says Thai poachers have entered Malaysian parks since the 1980s, but their numbers and the pace of extraction have escalated in recent years. “The syndicate makes all the preparation like arranging transportation, lodging along the way and the immigration and custom clearance. I was told that rangers avoid and ignore the poachers. So it is easy for them to operate as long as they want in the forests. They know that the penalty (in ringgit) is higher than in baht but that has not deterred them as there have been hardly any arrests,” says Prajobjan. He doubts that the recent arrests in Malaysia would stop the poachers. “They’re not afraid of jail or fine. Some have been jailed many times.” Khao Yai authorities last year detected eight middlemen who organise trips to Malaysia, Laos and Cambodia. The middlemen either work for distillation facilities around the park or own the plants. Park protection division chief Prawatsart Chanteap says one factory owner claimed to have imported agarwood from Malaysia but could not produce any importation documents. “Intelligence gathered showed that he is involved in sending poachers to Malaysia and that his wife often travels there to handle the customs procedures.” He says the operator was fined 50,000 baht (RM5,000) and is standing trial for illegal factory operation. Following government raids, Chanteap says some distillers have gone underground, further complicating enforcement. He says the law requires registered factories to use only legally-imported Aquilaria as raw material and distillation facilities cannot be set up near national parks and protected areas. However, conservation group WildAid claims that inspecting officials made visits only to collect bribes; which explains the continuous presence of these factories around Khao Yai. A Wildaid report last year found three registered factories in Nakhon Nayok province while the park management says there are 11 distillers in Prachinburi and Nakhon Rachasima provinces. These provinces around Khao Yai form the biggest agarwood processing centre in the region. A joint survey by Wildaid and the Wildlife Conservation Society on the agarwood crisis in Khao Yai indicates that in the past, collectors took only high quality agarwood which middlemen sold to dealers in Bangkok. When factories began operating near villages, it became easier for collectors to sell low-grade wood, causing indiscriminate tree-cutting. As high-grade wood grew scarce and Malaysian middlemen were sending mostly agarwood in low quality powder form, distillers decided to get the valuable wood themselves by sending poachers to Malaysia. Chanteap says the syndicate operates with little resistance at Thai border checkpoints. The importers run the risk of being fined a mere 10,000 baht but there have never been any seizures. Over at the Malaysian side, Chanteap says he was told that little attention is paid to the woodchips. He says the Thailand Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment and the Thai Customs have been alerted of the illegal trade. He believes the syndicate can only be stemmed with co-operation between both countries. <A HREF= " /lifestyle/story.asp?file=/2004/8/10/features/8468647 & sec=features " >The stench of greed</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. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission of Star Publications is prohibited. 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