No slowing down in illegal trade of endangered animals

Indra Harsaputra, The Jakarta Post, Surabaya

The trade of protected animals is still flourishing in the country, despite warnings from environmentalists that certain species could become extinct due to the activity.

Chairman of ProFauna Indonesia Rosek Nursahid said on Monday that the illegal trade of endangered animals, as well as illegal logging, were posing serious threats to the environment and urged the government to take immediate action.

He said that 95 percent of endangered animals traded on the illegal market were captured in the wild.

Also, all primates offered on the market had not been bred but captured in their natural habitat, he said.

"We predict that in the next 10 years, many more endangered animals will be made extinct," he said.

For instance, he said, some 100,000 cockatoos are captured in Papua every year, including kakatua raja (Probosciger atterimus) and yellow-crested cockatoos (Cacatua galerita).

He asserted that military officers were often involved in the transportation of the birds.

In Maluku, he said, 15,000 birds -- including white cockatoos (Cacatua alba) and the rare kakatua seram (Cacatua molucensis) from Seram Island -- were captured in the wild every year. The birds were then shipped to illegal bird traders in Jakarta or smuggled to Singapore.

ProFauna also reported that around 1,000 orangutans are captured in Kalimantan annually, before being shipped to Java or smuggled overseas.

On Java, 2,500 black or gray long-tailed monkey lutung jawa (Trachypithecus auratus) are killed for their meat every year, the organization said.

Rozek said the government had not paid enough attention to the issue, urging President Susilo to show the same commitment to the protection of wild animals as he had shown to combating illegal logging.

"Their protection has been neglected ... They're not only losing their habitat due to illegal logging but, in many cases, wild animals are also hunted for their meat," he said.