Wildlife trade is also transcending national boundaries and to counter this ever increasing threat, wildlife conservation agencies in South Asian countries met recently with the aim of collaborating in wildife law enforcement in the region.
The meeting was held under the aegis of the recently setup South Asia Wildlife Enforcement Network (SAWEN) at the University of Forensic Sciences, Gujarat. The Department of Wildlife Conservation (DWC) has represented Sri Lanka on this forum by the ex-Director General Dr.Chandrawansa Pathiraja. He said the meeting has become a sharing of experience among wildlife officers in the region on how to confront wildlife crime in the South Asian way and getting to know of new tools that can be used in fighting wildlife crime.
Because of this richness in biodiversity, South Asia has been one of the prime targets of internationally organized wildlife crime networks and to curb this ongoing trend, it become necessary that the existing conservation measures and enforcement strategies are reinforced through regional cooperation. With this aim, the South Asia Wildlife Enforcement Network (SAWEN) has been set up for the development of regional programmes through networking, sharing and effective dissemination of knowledge and information.
Trade Records Analysis of Flora and Fauna in Commerce (TRAFFIC) - the world's largest wildlife trade monitoring network - has been a cornerstone of SAWEN helping to set it up and providing technical support. TRAFFIC carries out research and provides analysis, support and encouragement to efforts aimed at ensuring that wildlife trade is not a threat to conservation of nature and wants to strengthen the same in the region.
Setting up its own network to fight wildlife crime, Sri Lankan experts too get together and setup the Sri Lanka Wildlife Enforcement Network (SLaWEN) last January. Representatives of the Sri Lanka Wildlife Enforcement Network with those from international agencies involved in regulation of wildlife trade, including INTERPOL, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Red List of Threatened Species (IUCN), Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) and TRAFFIC.
Addressing this forum chaired by Minister Basil Rajapaksa, Dr. Pathiraja said that in an era where the country's economy is moving forward, the Department of Wildlife Conservation has a major role to play in developing the ecotourism industry which has the potential to be one of the county's main foreign revenue earners. This will be nullified if the biodiversity, including wildlife, is not conserved properly and stressed the need to curb wildlife crime.
The workshop held in Gujarat two weeks ago mainly aimed at strengthening wildlife forensics. Wildlife forensics is concerned with the use of technology like DNA profiling (‘DNA fingerprinting') and DNA sequencing and using this information to fight wildlife crime. Read the full report here.
Source: by Malaka Rodrigo, Sunday Times.
