Press Release: Online Wildlife Trade is Still Raging in Indonesia
Entering the year of 2014, online illegal wildlife trade is apparently still raging. ProFauna Indonesia notices that in January 2014 only, there were at least 220 advertisements offering protected wildlife species and body parts in Kaskus (an Indonesian online forum). There were no less than 22 rare wildlife species offered for instance mounted Hawksbill Sea Turtle, Elephant ivory, Slow Loris, Javan Leaf-monkey, Javan Hawk-eagle, Tiger skin, Birds of Paradise, Flat-headed Cat, Surili, Palm Cockatoo, and Pangolin.
The protected wildlife species were sold for various prices. Slow Lorises worth IDR 200,000 , Siamang is sold for IDR 3 million, Javan Hawk-eagle for IDR 2-5 million, and the Black-capped Lory for IDR 1 million. The dealers come from different cities such as Jakarta, Bandung, Surabaya, Yogyakarta, Banten, Solo, Batam, Semarang, Banda Aceh, and Medan.
The raging practice of online wildlife trade is very alarming because it has become one of the most serious threats for the species. It was a good progress that Kaskus finally agreed to cooperate with ProFauna by removing advertisements offering protected wildlife species. ProFauna Indonesia's campaign officer, Bayu Sandi, claimed "ProFauna warmly welcomes Kaskus' consent to block such advertisements. However, this kind of illicit practice appears not only in Kaskus but also in other open online forums or social networks like the Facebook, which makes it difficult to control."
Trade of protected wildlife species and its body parts violates the Law no. 5 of 1990 Concerning the Conservation of Living Resources and Its Ecosystem, and the malefactors are subject to 5 years of prison and IDR 100 million fines. "ProFauna demands the government to take this seriously and to proactively find the solution by reinforcing the law enforcement," concluded Bayu Sandi.
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