ASEAN WILDLIFE ENFORCEMENT NETWORK LAUNCH: AN

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 BANGKOK 007802 SIPDIS OES FOR ASTEWART, DGRIER KATHMANDU FOR REO KOCH E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: SENV PREL KCRM XC TH SUBJECT: ASEAN WILDLIFE ENFORCEMENT NETWORK LAUNCH: AN EARNEST BUT HESITANT BEGINNING TO REGIONAL COOPERATION ¶1. (U) Summary: On December 1, representatives from nine of the ten ASEAN countries and the ASEAN Secretariat approved the launch of the ASEAN Wildlife Enforcement Network (ASEAN-WEN),a regional law enforcement network to combat illegal wildlife trafficking in Southeast Asia. The launch provides a real beginning to structured information exchanges and cross-border cooperation between national environmental and law enforcement agencies where no previous structure existed. A draft MOU on ASEAN-WEN remains unsigned, however, and key players -- national law enforcement agencies -- have yet to be brought into the network. The United States, which has been an important behind-the-scenes supporter of the creation of ASEAN-WEN, will need to remain fully engaged in order to encourage the members of ASEAN-WEN to follow up in forming a fully functional law enforcement network that gets results. End summary. An Earnest Beginning... -------------- ¶2. (U) On December 1, Yongyut Tiyapairat, Thailand's Minister of Natural Resources and Environment, hosted a special meeting of the ASEAN Ministers responsible for the implementation of CITES (Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species of Fauna and Flora). The meeting culminated in an ASEAN statement officially launching ASEAN-WEN. The statement said that "membership of the network is open to officials from CITES Authorities, Customs, Police, Prosecutors, Specialized Governmental Wildlife-Law Enforcement Organizations, and other relevant national law enforcement agencies." The statement also noted that "the first meeting of ASEAN-WEN will be held in early 2006 in Thailand." ¶3. (U) In his welcoming address, Minister Yongyut called the December 1 special meeting a "historic event" and distilled into one phrase the central aims of ASEAN-WEN as "...increased involvement of law enforcement agencies and better cross-border government-to-government collaboration." U.S. Ambassador to Thailand, invited to speak because the USG funded the meeting, added, "Southeast Asia will no longer consist of ten different countries acting independently of each other in attempting to stop the trade in animals and animal parts. Instead, each of your countries will have the benefit of the knowledge, training, and resources of an entire region, a region united to end this corrosive activity." At the conclusion of the meeting, the heads of delegations to the December 1 special meeting issued a joint press statement expressing "full support for the establishment of ASEAN-WEN." ¶4. (U) The December 1 special meeting was the culmination of a series of ideas and activities that started with a speech by Thailand's Prime Minister Thaksin at the 13th CITES Conference of the Parties held in Bangkok in October 2004, in which he called for the creation of "a sort of wildlife Interpol" to combat wildlife trafficking in Southeast Asia. At the same CITES Conference, ASEAN issued a statement calling for further regional cooperation and coordination, and noting the importance of strengthening the law enforcement agencies and their integration into CITES implementation. At an ASEAN meeting in May in Indonesia, these two ideas were married with the approval of a six-point ASEAN Regional Action Plan on Trade in Wild Flora and Fauna in which Thailand was designated to take the lead in achieving the second point -- improved collaboration among relevant law enforcement authorities in ASEAN member countries for wildlife law enforcement. ¶5. (U) The USG endorsed these activities and funded a Thailand-hosted workshop held in October at Khao Yai, Thailand's premier national park, that brought together environmental agencies from the ten ASEAN nations, along with representatives from the CITES Secretariat, the ASEAN Secretariat, the CITES Management Authority of the Republic SIPDIS of China, and officials from the U.S. Department of State, Department of Justice, and the Department of Interior's Fish and Wildlife Service. The delegates, including the Chinese delegate, presented an overview of the wildlife trafficking situation in each of their countries. The Senior Enforcement Officer of the CITES Secretariat presented an overview of the global situation with special emphasis on Southeast Asia as a region. The U.S. Justice Department representative spoke about U.S. laws relevant to Southeast Asia and the essential role of informed and motivated prosecutors. "It is not enough to confiscate contraband," he said, "You must capture, arrest, and prosecute the smugglers." The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) representative presented details on best practices and on examples of how the agency has cooperated with foreign governments in the past, as well as on FWS resources available to foreign governments. The State Department representative provided information on the USG's global Coalition against Wildlife Trafficking (CAWT). WildAid and TRAFFIC, two NGOs intimately involved in assisting governments to curb the illegal wildlife trade in Southeast Asia, also provided valuable presentations. WildAid and TRAFFIC were instrumental in the conception, design and launch of ASEAN-WEN. On the final day of the three-day workshop, the delegates drafted an MOU for the creation of ASEAN-WEN and agreed to convene a ministerial level meeting one month later at which the MOU would be signed and ASEAN-WEN officially launched. ...But Hesitancy behind the Scenes -------------- ¶6. (SBU) Inexplicably, however, Thailand delayed sending out invitations for the ministerial until one week before the special meeting. In the meantime, there was no communication between the relevant agencies of the ASEAN governments, with the result that except for the host country Thailand's Minister of Natural Resources and Environment, no other ministers showed up for the December 1 "ministerial." In addition, although ASEAN-WEN is meant to be an integrated network among law enforcement agencies, none of the environment ministry representatives who attended the Khao Yai workshop appear to have communicated with their national law enforcement agencies in the interim, with the result that no national law enforcement agencies were represented at the December 1 meeting. Although these failures in communication were disappointing, in fact, they only served to call attention to the utter absence of inter-governmental and intra-governmental inter-agency communication and coordination that ASEAN-WEN seeks to address. (Note: In the days immediately preceding the December 1 meeting, the Thai environmental ministry requested the U.S. Embassy in Bangkok to inquire through other U.S. embassies in the region whom the ASEAN governments planned to send as delegates to the meeting -- again demonstrating the total lack of a mechanism for environmental ministries in the region to communicate effectively with each other.) ¶7. (SBU) The U.S. State Department's regional environmental hub based in Bangkok tried to convince the Thai hosts to invite both environmental ministries and law enforcement agencies from ASEAN countries to both the Khao Yai workshop and to the December 1 special meeting. That would not be possible as it would go against protocol, the hub was told. When the hub tried to persuade the Thai hosts to invite China and India, key actors in international wildlife trade and important partners in any eventual expansion of ASEAN-WEN, to the December 1 meeting as observers, the Thai environmental ministry again pleaded "protocol," and invitations were never issued. ¶8. (SBU) Because of the short notice given to governments for the December 1 special meeting, Laos was unable to send any delegate at all. Indonesia, Burma, and Singapore were represented only by their ambassadors based in Bangkok. During closed door sessions at the December 1 meeting, moreover, Malaysia, backed by Brunei Darussalam, said that signing the MOU would be impossible to achieve at the moment because it needed more time to review its provisions. Reportedly, Malaysia, Brunei and other country representatives expressed reservations about clauses in the draft MOU that called for the governments of ASEAN member countries to "allocate the financial and human resources necessary for the effective enforcement of legislation governing the conservation and sustainable use of wildlife" and to "allocate the necessary financial resources to ensure effective implementation of this Memorandum of Understanding," as well as to "create a fund known as the Southeast Asia Wildlife Enforcement Group Fund for programs and projects associated with the activities of this Memorandum of Understanding." The representatives opted to sign a Terms of Reference in lieu of a MOU. The representative from Malaysia was not even authorized to join the press statement expressing full support for the establishment of ASEAN-WEN issued at the conclusion of the December 1 meeting. Where Do We Go from Here? -------------- ¶9. (U) Thailand offered to host the first meeting of ASEAN-WEN in "early 2006." At a press conference following the December 1 special meeting, Minister Yongyut confirmed that this will be the first of what are expected to be a series of regional law enforcement planning meetings and training courses involving environmental, police, and customs officers from each ASEAN member country. He did not explain, however, how the "protocol" issues that kept law enforcement agencies away from the Khao Yai workshop and the December 1 special meeting would be dealt with to allow them to participate in the forthcoming meeting. ¶10. (SBU) Comment: The delegates who attended the Khao Yai workshop and the December 1 special meeting worked hard and in earnest to create ASEAN-WEN. Implementation of ASEAN-WEN's goal of developing a collaborative network of regional environmental and law enforcement agencies to combat illegal wildlife trafficking will be ineffective, however, unless bureaucratic and protocol obstacles can be overcome. The NGOs WildAid and TRAFFIC will be valuable in helping to surmount these obstacles, and are being supported financially in these efforts by a multi-year grant from USAID. Continued engagement by the State Department's regional environmental hub and by U.S. missions in the region will be indispensable. ARVIZU