VietNam Society: 9/12/10

Saturday, September 18, 2010

More Da Lat elephants lose their tails

More Da Lat elephants lose their tails Two elephants in the central highlands resort town of Da Lat had their tails illegally cut Tuesday in the third such case reported in the province over the past four months.

According to forest rangers in Lam Dong Province, where the town is located, the elephants were attacked at around 3 a.m. when they were in the Prenn Falls tourism area.

They are two of three elephants that the area’s management board hired from Phan Dac Mau Dai in Duc Trong District three years ago.

Dai said usually the animals would be brought to the area in the morning and back to his house some 800 meters away at night, but he had let them free in the area recently as they were in their reproductive season.

“Losing their tails won’t affect their life, if the wounds are treated properly, but it would greatly affect their beauty,” Dai said, adding that the cut tail sections were about 30 centimeters long each.

Lam Dong’s forest rangers said local agencies had recently arrested four people on suspicion of cutting elephant tails.

Central highlands provinces lately have reported many cases where elephants' tails have been cut because of beliefs that hairs from the pachyderms' tails bring good luck in love and business.

A tail hair can be sold for up to VND400,000 (US$20.52), local reports say.

Three arrested for dumping mud, burying tombs in Hanoi

Three arrested for dumping mud, burying tombs in Hanoi Police in Hanoi have taken three men into custody for allegedly dumping construction waste in a graveyard.

Initial reports showed that, on August 21, Pham Hong Ky, an executive from An Thanh Traffic Mechanism Joint-Stock Company, ordered his drivers to discharge mud at the Dong Trua Graveyard in the Duong Noi Ward.

Duong Van Son and Nguyen Van Duong, a pair of security guards contracted to watch construction sites along Le Van Luong Street, were also arrested.

Tests carried out by police in Duong Noi Ward traced the mud back to the sites. Several truck drivers who had previously been arrested told investigators that security guards had told them to unload at the graveyard.

In addition to the arrests, police confiscated ten trucks, including four belonging to An Thanh Company.

In the meantime, a search team including hundreds of workers spent nine days digging through nearly 1,000 cubic meters of earth to uncover the tombs.

Their search efforts were hampered by continuous rains and mud up to four meters thick.

Workers had to uncover 36 tombs, which are old and in a delicate condition, very carefully and without machinery, the search party leader, Nguyen Xuan Ben, told local news website VnExpress.

Trinh Nhu Ha, vice chairman of Duong Noi People’s Committee, said it will take between two and three days to clean up the mud and get the graveyard back to normal.

Affected locals will then hold a ceremony to apologize to the dead with local authorities’ support, according to Ha. He estimated that the search and repair operations will cost hundreds of millions of dong.

While investigations are ongoing, locals are outraged.

“I feel so indignant!” local Dang Ba Hai told a VnExpress reporter. “I couldn’t do anything but ask for help from ward authorities and then keep an eye on the search.”

Hai said five of his family’s burial sites were covered in the thick mud.

“This is not only against the law; it’s downright immoral,” he said.

According to Le Khanh Dong, chairman of Duong Noi Ward’s People’s Committee, local people all expect related agencies to severely punish the perpetrators.

Duong Thi Hoa, whose younger brother’s tomb was buried in the mud, said, “It’s lucky that the tomb wasn’t damaged. I hope agencies will punish those people who have committed such a heinous act.”

Desecrating a burial site in Vietnam carries a penalty of up to five years in prison.

Throw book at wildlife trader: conservationists

Throw book at wildlife trader: conservationists Environmentalists have called on Da Lat authorities to make an example of Tu Loan, a prominent wildlife meat trader that was implicated in last week’s restaurant raids.

“We urge the Lam Dong courts, Procuracy [prosecutor’s office] and police to carry out detailed investigations, prosecute and punish Tu Loan and her associates to the full extent of the law,” said Dr. Scott Roberton, Wildlife Conservation Society’s Country Representative for Vietnam.

On August 26, seized hundreds of kilograms of wildlife meat during a raid on 12 restaurants in Da Lat. About two-thirds of the meat, weighing more than 200 kilograms, was found at the restaurant run by Tu Loan, who also owns the eponymous zoo in town.

“We would specifically recommend that her zoo [be] closed down and the animals placed in legally operating and conservation-focused facilities; for Tu Loan and her associates to lose their license to operate restaurants in Lam Dong,” he said.

Roberton called for a coordinated national campaign to expose and prosecute the international wildlife trafficking ring that Loan is believed to be a part of. Failure to do so would have even more harmful consequences, he said.

“Lam Dong Province has just lost what was probably Vietnam’s last rhino to the illegal wildlife trade. If strict and effective deterrents are not given to a known rhino horn trader in the province, what hope does any wildlife have in the country?” he asked.

THE HIT LIST

The Lam Dong Forest Protection Department led an enforcement campaign on August 26 targeting restaurants suspected of selling illegal wildlife dishes in Da Lat. They seized over 300kg of butchered wildlife in the action.

The meat included wild pig, civet, pangolin, porcupine, mouse-deer, monitor lizard, bear paw, bamboo rat, snake, sambar, stuffed skins of black-shanked douc langur, wild cat, clouded leopard, Oriental small-clawed otter, serow, muntjac, flying squirrel, common palm civet, binturong and masked palm civet.

About 200kg out of total 300kg of confiscated meat were seized at the Tu Loan Restaurant on Hai Ba Trung Street.

Subsequent raids by the Lam Dong Forest Protection Department were conducted on September 1 at 17 restaurants in Lam Ha, Duc Trong, Di Linh and Bao Loc districts. Park rangers seized around 30kg of wildlife meat and 12 live wild creatures, including one leopard cat.

Following the bust on August 26, the Lam Dong Forest Protection Agency instructed its Da Lat branch to continue their investigations before taking further measures. An unnamed source said police could press criminal charges in the Tu Loan Restaurant case.

Roberton said that Loan represents a very well-known wildlife trading family that has links to wildlife trafficking rings stretching to Africa, Myanmar and America.

“Studies also suggest [...] her family operates wholesale wildlife trading activities directly from her house including rhino horn trade, illegal wild-meat restaurants, and a zoo that launders protected species,” he said.

Hailing the recent wildlife bust in Lam Dong, he also called for stronger commitment by provincial authorities in tackling illegal wildlife trade.

“Our experiences have highlighted that it is not really an issue of low staff capacity, inadequate equipment or finances, weak legislation or any of the other excuses we regularly hear. It comes down to a lack of commitment by many agencies and provincial governments throughout the country to take wildlife violations seriously and focus their attention and resources to addressing them.

“The commitment shown by Lam Dong Forest Protection Department should be celebrated. They are role models to wildlife protection agencies across the country. However, it begs the question why other provinces aren’t also doing this and what needs to be done to catalyze similar campaigns in every town and city in Vietnam,” he said.

Steven Galster, director of the Freeland Foundation – an international conservation and human rights organization working across Asia, also expressed his concern over private zoos getting involved in the illegal wildlife trade.

“There have been several trends in wildlife crime, including traffickers using private zoos and captive breeding facilities as laundering facilities.

“We have also noticed more and more regional cross-border trafficking connections to Vietnam, where various wild animals such as pangolins, turtles, snakes, tigers and other species are consumed or transported onward to China,” he said.

Throw book at wildlife trader: conservationists

THE HIT LIST

About 200kg out of total 300kg of confiscated meat were seized at the Tu Loan Restaurant on Hai Ba Trung Street.

Roberton said that Loan represents a very well-known wildlife trading family that has links to wildlife trafficking rings stretching to Africa, Myanmar and America.

Hailing the recent wildlife bust in Lam Dong, he also called for stronger commitment by provincial authorities in tackling illegal wildlife trade.

“There have been several trends in wildlife crime, including traffickers using private zoos and captive breeding facilities as laundering facilities.

Hanoi-Amsterdam school upgraded to regional level

Hanoi mayor Nguyen The Thao pinned a plate “Project in celebration of Thang Long-Hanoi millennium anniversary” to the gate of the Hanoi-Amsterdam High School on the inauguration of the 2010-11 academic year on September 4.

The school has been reconstructed as the most modern in Vietnam and put on a par with other leading schools in the region.

Thao, whose official title is the Hanoi People’s Committee Chairman, said the project was an evidence of the municipal administration’s thoughtfulness and sense of responsibility to the school in an effort to nurture young talents for the capital city and the nation as a whole.

He expressed thanks to the Dutch people, especially Amsterdam citizens, for their assistance to the development cause in Vietnam, especially Hanoi.

“May such a friendship and cooperation, especially in education and training, further develop, thus contributing to improving the educational quality of the Hanoi-Amsterdam school to a new height,” said the municipal leader.

The Dutch Ambassador said he would do his best to boost the student exchange programme between the Hanoi-Amsterdam and a school of gifted students in the Netherlands .

He also presented five scholarships for a study visit to schools in Amsterdam in next summer.

The Hanoi-Amsterdam High School was first built in September, 1985 as a gift of the Dutch capital city to Hanoi . The school has contributed over 100 international prize winners to the nation.

In 2000, the school was awarded the title “Labour Hero in the Renewal Period”, a high State honour.

The school embarked on reconstruction on May 19, 2008 at a cost of 429 billion VND. It now houses 45 classes capable of accommodating some 2,000 students.

Its campus, covering 5 ha of land in the downtown street of Tran Duy Hung, includes nine classrooms specialising in fostering talented students and physical and hobby training such as music, a gymnasium, a swimming pool, football and basketball playgrounds./.

Prospectors flood into Central forests in search of precious wood

Prospectors flood into Central forests in search of precious wood Hundreds of people have headed to the central highland province of Gia Lai seeking a rare aromatic lumber.

Early this month, police confirmed that a group of Vietnamese timber harvesters netted VND30 billion (US$1.54 million) from the sale of a few kilograms of Agarwood.

The increasingly rare commodity forms during a parasitic fungal attack on several sub-species of Aquilaria trees. The trees exudes an aromatic resin while fighting off the fungus. It may take years for Agarwood to form in an infected Aquilaria tree, making commercial cultivation extremely difficult.

According to a 2007 report issued by the Agroforestry Division of the Hanoi-based Secoin CO. LTD, "not all Aquilaria trees produce agarwood, only approximately 10 percent of wild mature Aquilaria trees (from the age of 20 years onwards and with above 40cm diamater at breast height) can naturally produce resin."

Nguyen Van Bac, chairman of Lo Ku Commune People’s Committee, said over the past few days, nearly 300 people from central provinces like Quang Nam, Da Nang, and Phu Yen have come to the commune in search of agar.

Under current Vietnamese law, trade in natural wood is banned. Agarwood can be sold by private plantation owners.

Fortune hunters from all over Gia Lai have swarmed the commune, Bac said, adding that authorities called in reinforcements from the Kbang District to guarantee security and to protect the woods from destructive behavior.

Despite the efforts by the forest authorities, several prospectors did manage to make it into the woods. Authorities reported that many of these intrepid souls, wandered back hungry or addled with disease.

Nguyen Manh Hung, one of hunters from Quang Ngai province, said he headed to Lo Ku with four people nearly one week ago, but found nothing.

“As rains in the forest were so heavy, my group decided to come back,” Hung said.

A sweep conducted by the Kbang District’s forest rangers in cooperation with related agencies failed to turn up any trace of the precious wood in the forests.

Last week Nguyen Van Quy, deputy chief of Dai Nghia Commune’s police in Quang Nam Province, confirmed that nine local men early this month found 13 kilograms of agar in a Gia Lai forest and earned over VND30 billion from selling them to a dealer.

Usually found in Aquilaria Agallochea trees in Vietnam, the fragrant resinous heartwood is a prized component of traditional medicine, and expensive cosmetic products.

Experts say that most agarwood is now poached from natural forests. The species is potentially threatened with extinction in many parts of the world thanks to habitat destruction and unsustainable harvests.

A kilogram of wild agarwood is estimated to sell for more than $10,000.