Project Background

The Combatting illegal and unsustainable trade in endangered species in Indonesia or called Combatting Illegal Wildlife Trade (CIWT) is project to help Government to reduce the volume of unsustainable wildlife trade and the rate of loss of globally significant biodiversity in Indonesia and East and South-East Asia.

Wildlife crime has reached critical proportions and is threatening numerous species with localized extinctions. The illegal trade in fauna and flora (other than fisheries and timber) has been estimated by different sources to be worth US$ 7-23 billion dollars annually and US$ 2.5 billion in East Asia and the Pacific alone. The value of the illegal trade in Indonesia alone is estimated at up to US$ 1 billion per year. Factoring in the unsustainable legal trade, the value rockets, representing an enormous economic, environmental, and social loss. This trade has already caused the decline and local extinction of many species across SE Asia. Much of the trade is highly organized, benefits a relatively small criminal fraternity, whilst depriving developing economies of billions of dollars in lost revenues and development opportunities. Within SE Asia, a significant amount of this trade starts from Indonesia, one of the world’s top 10 ‘megadiverse’ countries and the largest supplier of wildlife products in Asia, both ‘legal’ and illegal.

The key barriers are:

· The weak policy and regulatory framework and insufficient information and tools to understand, regulate and combat illegal wildlife trade;

· Suboptimal institutional capacity for compliance monitoring and enforcement;

· Ineffective enforcement at the site and landscape levels;

· Inadequate information sharing mechanisms to support responses to IWT.

These barriers will be removed through the implementation of the project’s four components:

1. Effective national framework for managing wildlife trade.

2. Institutional capacity for implementation and enforcement at the national and international levels.

3. Scaling-up improved enforcement strategy at key trade ports and connected ecosystems.

4. Knowledge Management, Monitoring and Evaluation and Gender Mainstreaming.