New Straits Times 24 May 11;
KUCHING: The indigenous people, who mostly rely on forest resources to survive, are helping to protect Sarawak's wildlife from poachers.
They are doing this under the Tagang (which means "to stop" in Iban) and the Pemakai Menua (territorial area) systems.
Both these systems have helped the authorities such as the Forestry Department and the Sarawak Forestry Corporation to keep the problem in check.
At present, the wildlife trade is not alarming in Borneo.
However, Traffic, a wildlife trade monitoring network, believed that syndicates were working their ground in Sarawak.
"There have been reports of pangolins, geckos, reptiles and tortoises being smuggled across the border to China.
"And most of these are intercepted along the Thai-Malaysia border," said Traffic's Transnational Investigation head Derek Anderson.
Despite the self-sustaining system that Sarawak has, he feared that the syndicates would use the natives to do their bidding.
"It is not happening yet, but it will happen if nothing is done."
At the Hornbill workshop in Miri last year, the Sarawak Forestry Corporation proposed arming its enforcement team to combat wildlife trade and illegal logging.
However, there has been no decision on the matter.
"Arming an enforcement unit is the best way as criminals in this trade will also be armed, but that should be the last resort," Anderson said.
"Countries such as Africa and India have gone to the extent of shooting on sight.
"The first thing that should be done to tackle this issue is to look at it as a criminal offence.
"Wildlife trade is as dangerous and harmful as human and drug trafficking. The contraband is different but the methods are the same.
"Wildlife trade involves billions of cash and there are syndicates running the show."
The Sarawak government has targeted to gazette 1 million hectares of forest, or 10 per cent of its land mass, as national parks, wildlife sanctuaries and nature reserves.
Another strategy used in the state's wildlife conservation effort is providing the legislative framework for the protection of rare and endangered species.
Sarawak has nine ordinances to protect and conserve its wildlife.
They are The Forest Ordinance, Forest Rule 1962, The National Parks and Nature Reserves Ordinance 1998, The National Parks and Nature Reserves Regulation 1999, The Wildlife Protection Ordinance 1998, The Wildlife Protection Rules 1998, The Wildlife (Edible Birds' Nests) Rules 1998, The Forests (Planted Forests) Rule 1997 and The Sarawak Forestry Corporation Ordinance.
