ASEAN Wildlife Enforcement Network Status Way Forward 1

ASEAN Wildlife Enforcement Network Status & Way Forward 1

Background… 2

• Thailand hosted the CITES COP 13 in October 2004 and introduced the concept of a new Southeast Asian Wildlife Enforcement Network • A side Ministerial meeting was held to declare support for this concept. 3

Thailand then hosted an ASEAN Workshop in October 2005 to design the network, which became known as “ASEAN-WEN” 4

The ASEAN-WEN: • Facilitates cross-border collaboration in the fight against the region’s illegal wildlife trade. • Involves law enforcement agencies of the 10 ASEAN countries, including police, Customs and CITES officers 5

ASEAN SEC. Chairman of ASEAN-WEN CITES INTERPOL Program Coordination Unit NGOs (PCU) Other countries Focal Point Focal Point Thailand Malaysia Singapore Indonesia Cambodia Vietnam Task Force Task Force Focal Point Brunei Task Force Focal Point Laos Myanmar Philippines Task Force 6 Task Force

December 1, 2005: ASEAN Senior Officers Meeting to Launch ASEAN-WEN 7

May 2006: First ASEAN-WEN Meeting in Thailand 8

Since then, Indonesia, Laos and Malaysia have hosted the 2 nd, 3 rd and 4 th annual ASEAN-WEN Meetings 9

ASEAN-WEN Support Program

Capacity Building 11

Strengthening the ASEAN-WEN 12

Civil Society Outreach 13

ASEAN-WEN’s Progress is Significant ASEAN-WEN Working Groups have been formed: • Special Investigation Group • Capacity Building Group • Communications and Fundraising Group 14

ASEAN-WEN Achievements in First Three Years l l l Trained more than 1, 400 personnel from various agencies; Creation national task forces in Thailand, Philippines, Indonesia, & Malaysia (Cambodia, Laos and Viet Nam in development); 67 new cross-border enforcement actions against wildlife traffickers; 15

Strategic Links to countries and regions outside ASEAN including: United States China 16

South Asia 17

Interpol Analyst will begin supporting wildlife crime investigations in October 18

Taking it Forward… 19

Main Challenges Now: Sustainability: Keeping the momentum and making ASEAN-WEN Permanent and Strong. ASEAN Secretary General Dr. Surin Pitsuwan recommended we hold a workshop and develop a manifesto to get started. Demonstrate genuine connections between nature crime and climate change and the economy 20

An April 2009 international workshop in Pattaya pulled together over 130 experts from 21 countries, including 12 governments and 29 NGOs. 21

Participants came to a consensus on the challenges, as well as a strategy to take wildlife conservation to a new level. They agreed that wildlife conservation is relevant to two priorities of our region’s leaders: the financial crisis and global warming 22

They agreed that a joint strategy to curb wildlife crime must be structured on 3 levels: • Prevention • Detection and Suppression • Consumer Demand Reduction and Political Will Building 23

These points and overall recommendations were captured in this “Manifesto on Combating Wildlife Crime in Asia” 24

Next: • Kathmandu (October 2009): Countries to come prepared with their draft national action plans • Asia Ministerial Conference (Jan 2010): Ministers to finalize national action plans in preparation for endorsement from heads of state • Heads of State Summit (2010): Heads of States to endorse national action plans. 25

Working with our partners, the US Government and World Bank, to capitalize on these high level meetings and strengthen ASEAN-WEN, help replicate it in South Asia, and scale these efforts across Asia 26

ASEAN+9 (USA, Russia, Nepal) T-FES l An Asia wide high level forum that strengthens national and regional organizations to protect wild animals, plants and eco-systems Based also on UN Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime l 27