LETTER | The Wildlife Conservation Society Malaysia Program (WCS Malaysia) is heartened by the news that the Wildlife Conservation (Amendment) Bill 2021 was passed by the Dewan Rakyat yesterday, which provides heftier punishments for wildlife offenders.

Some of the notable amendments include an increase in fines of up to RM1 million for certain offences, and an increase in jail terms of up to 15 years for others.

WCS Malaysia commends the Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources and Department of Wildlife and National Parks for spearheading the passing of this bill, and looks forward to it being formally gazetted to potentially further deter poachers from carrying out their illegal activities.

In tandem with this, there is also a need to increase the number of enforcement personnel to patrol forests, beef up intelligence gathering and increase capacity building on gathering evidence to be able to prosecute wildlife offenders.

This is particularly critical, as we can have the best laws and yet still lose this fight to conserve wildlife if we don’t have sufficient enforcement capacity and resources to enforce the laws.

In the past couple of years, the government had initiated a couple of major initiatives to curb poaching and wildlife crime. The Biodiversity Protection and Patrolling Programme has been set up to mobilise hundreds of patrollers consisting of veteran army personnel and Orang Asli. This is one of the most significant initiatives for on-the-ground protection of wildlife, and also has active participation by environmental NGOs.

Sufficient boots

However, this needs to be sustainable over the long term with enabling permanent hired positions to not only ensure consistent and sufficient boots on the ground but also as a means of sustained livelihood and empowerment for the Orang Asli as stewards of conservation.

Another notable initiative is Operasi Bersepadu Khazanah, led by the Royal Malaysian Police and the Department of Wildlife and National Parks with participation by other enforcement agencies and environmental NGOs.

Earlier this year, Operasi Bersepadu Khazanah won international recognition by being one of the winners of the 2020 Asia Environmental Enforcement Awards for its role in the arrest of 87 wildlife offenders, destruction of 460 wire snares and seizures worth RM2.7 million.

This is another commendable initiative, but to further strengthen these efforts, WCS Malaysia hopes that the formation of a Wildlife Crime Unit within the Royal Malaysian Police can be enabled to further aid enforcement as well as intelligence gathering on wildlife poaching and trade syndicates in which the Royal Malaysian Police is well equipped and trained to carry out.

No less significant is the announcement by Energy and Natural Resources Minister Takiyuddin Hassan about the formation of a National Conservation Task Force (MyTTF) that would be chaired by the prime minister.

This is exactly what environmental NGOs in Malaysia have been advocating for the past decade, and comes at a critical time when preliminary results from Malaysia’s first National Tiger Survey have shown that there are less than 200 Malayan tigers remaining in the wild.

National symbol

The formation of a Tiger Working Group (MyTWG) at the state level was also announced which is very much welcome, as land is a state issue and the action to save tigers would need to include efforts to halt habitat loss of tigers and restore connectivity in which states have the authority to do so.

Ultimately, how MyTTF and MyTWG structure themselves and work together will be crucial to ensure executive decisions on policy, allocation of resources, enforcement, and land management favourable for tiger conservation can be made and implemented.

Our national symbol is on the line, and we must pull out all the stops to protect them from going extinct.

Through the various government-led initiatives rolled out over the past two years and recent announcements, Malaysia seems to be headed in the right direction in making a strong stand that we will not tolerate wildlife poaching and illegal wildlife trade.

WCS Malaysia is hopeful that through these efforts we stand a chance to halt the decline and eventually recover our tiger population.

But these initiatives must be backed up with committed political will, sufficient funding and resource allocation, continued multi-agency cooperation particularly from the Royal Malaysian Police, stepped-up intelligence on wildlife poaching and trade syndicates that can lead to arrests and prosecution, as well as unwavering commitments from states in halting natural forest clearing and fragmentation.

And so, there is hope, but time is of the essence and how well we maximise recently announced initiatives and plug in the gaps will dictate how our wildlife will fare in the near future.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.