Call to stop the trade of slow lorises in Indonesia
ProFauna Indonesia’s activists performed a stunt suspended from a bridge carrying banners calling for the ban of the illegal trade of slow lorises (Nyecticebus coucang).
[UKPRwire, Thu May 10 2007] ProFauna Indonesia’s activists performed a stunt suspended from a bridge carrying banners calling for the ban of the illegal trade of slow lorises (Nyecticebus coucang).
The government has been accused of not taking serious steps to protect wild species and failing to enforce the law adequately.
The slow loris, or locally known as kukang or malu-malu, is a small animal of the primate group. It has large eyes, moves very slowly amongst tree branches and is a nocturnal shy animal. Sadly slow lorises are much hunted for the domestic and international “exotic pet” trade causing further depletion to their population in the wild.
Wildlife traders normally extract their teeth using pliers without anesthesia before selling them, leading to the high mortality due to infection, poor handling and animal cruelty.
ProFauna Indonesia is working with international scientists and other conservationists to increase the protection of slow lorises by listing them in Appendix I of CITES (Convention of International Trade of Endangered Species Fauna and Flora). If this proposal is approved, the international trade could be more tightly controlled. This proposal will be submitted at the 14th CITES conference in The Hague, the Netherlands, from June 3 to 15.
The slow lorises are protected by law in Indonesia, based on a 1973 Agriculture Ministry decree, and further clarified by a 1999 government regulation on preserving flora and fauna species. The sale and ownership of a protected animal is unlawful based on a 1990 law on the conservation of natural resources and the ecosystem; perpetrators are liable to a five-year prison sentence and a fine of Rp 100 million (approx US$11,000). However domestic and international trafficking of protected Indonesian species is still rife.
ProFauna cited a foiled attempt to smuggle 91 lorises from Indonesia to Kuwait through Soekarno-Hatta airport in Jakarta in January 2003. A similar incident occurred in June 2004, when police were able to prevent an attempt to smuggle three lorises to Korea and Japan through the same airport. According to data from ProFauna, around 7,000 lorises have been caught and traded since 2000.
Sold for around Rp 175,000 (approximately US$20) each, the arboreal slow-moving primate, which survives on bamboo clusters, is not only sold in animal markets, but also at shopping malls in major cities, such as Surabaya, Malang, Medan, Banjarmasin and Bandar Lampung.
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