note from the editor
Group Director Sales & Marketing / Director Vietnam: Jonny Edbrooke jonny@asialife.asia Managing Editor: Chris Mueller chris@asialife.asia
Regional Creative Director: Johnny Murphy johnny@asialife.asia Photo Editor: Fred Wissink fred@asialife.asia Production Manager: Nguyen Kim Hoa nguyenhoa@asialifehcmc.com
Deputy Editor: Lien Hoang lien@asialife.asia
Photographers: Alex McMillan and Linh Phanroy
Contributing Editor: Michael Tatarski michael@asialife.asia Editor-at-Large: Brett Davis brett@asialifehcmc.com
Chris Mueller A couple of years ago I spent a week with a minority tribe in the jungles of Kon Tum province, along the southern Laos and northern Cambodia borders. Civilisation was far away, about a six hour hike through jungle and another three hours by motorbike. These people were almost entirely cut off from the modern world, except for the poachers stalking through their jungles. The tribe made their living off what they could forage, hunt or grow in the forest, but poaching had made sustanable hunting nearly impossible. One of the tribespeople told me he was a hunter and was lucky if he could catch even a lizard. This is despite the fact that the area was once ripe with big game. Tigers, guar, deer and Asian elephants have vanished from the area. The dwindling animal population had made an already harsh lifestyle even more difficult. Seeing the effects of poaching firsthand was an eye opener. The illegal wildlife trade is huge business in Southeast Asia, making up about half of the $10-20 billion global trade. And it’s groups like this small tribe who it affects the most. About 70 percent of Vietnam’s population is rural and much of it still relies on some form of hunting, not as business but as survival. It’s not just the poor populations that are affected by rampant poaching, but entire ecosystems are changing that could leave Vietnam’s environment forever warped. Invasive species that compete with local wildlife are increasingly being introduced and the trade also has direct links to human and drug trafficking. But how can it be stopped? This month we try to answer that in an in-depth look at the wildlife trade across Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand, and what is being done to fight it. Cambodia and Thailand have made significant strides, but Vietnam still lags far behind and has one of the worst records in the world for protecting wildlife. NGOs like Education for Nature – Vietnam, WWF, and Wildlife at Risk are using one of thwe most powerful tools to fight the trade in Vietnam, education, both among the local population and, more importantly, at the government level. But this alone won’t stop it. These organisations say one of the most valuable weapons they have are tips from the public, and expats tend to give better information. So if you see wildlife crimes, a quick phone call could be all it takes to help protect the future of Vietnam's animals.
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