Opinion | Indonesia’s pre-social media laws are no match for animal traffickers
- In just one year, WWF Indonesia identified 2,500 adverts on Facebook and 2,207 ads on Instagram that were selling either animals or their body parts
- Offences against wildlife cost Indonesia, one of the world’s most biodiverse nations, almost US$1 billion a year
Indonesia is one of the world’s most biodiverse nations. It is thought that as many as 300,000 species, or almost one in five of the world’s animals, are to be found in this sprawling Southeast Asian nation.
It is home to 515 species of mammals and 1,539 species of birds, and almost half of all fish species live in its waters. Unfortunately, this biological wealth is not matched by efforts to preserve it.
After drugs and human trafficking, offences against wildlife are the third-most pressing problem facing law enforcers in Indonesia, with criminal cases in 2018 having a combined estimated value of 13 trillion rupiah (almost US$1 billion) per year.
And the problem appears to be multiplying. The Wildlife Crime Unit investigated 451 cases and 657 individuals in the 2015-2017 period, during which time the number of cases featuring protected species more than doubled, from 106 to 225 cases.
Experts warn that poaching and the trade in wild animals – taken alongside deforestation and the deterioration of habitats – are pushing many of Indonesia’s native animals to the brink of extinction.
