United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime

East Asia and Pacific

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		Project Code and Sector Situation Analysis - "The Why" Project description - "The What" Project implementation - "The How"

Project Training Programme on Wildlife Trafficking for Border Law Officers within PATROL

1. Project Code and Sector

2. Situation Analysis - "The Why"

Export-driven growth in combination with inter-regional competition will result in medium- to long-term reductions in transportation cost.  Anticipated increases in traffic flows in the coming decade will force countries to improve the efficiency of their infrastructure and reduce the transactions costs of lengthy border inspections.   This will further increase cross-border trade.  Major regional infrastructure and development projects will concentrate resources along key zones of movement - the so called "development corridors".  While these trends are positive inprinciple, and will lower costs to consumers, they also portend increased opportunities for organized criminal groups to traffic illicit goods and smuggle people across borders. 

This threat is bound to affect also the already alarming growth of forestry crimes and it is doomed to challenge even further the weak response capacity of the national law enforcement agencies. Environmental crime laws are usually weakly enforced, have low penalties and are not well known among enforcement officers. Crimes like illegal logging, the trafficking in forest products, wildlife and biological resources are a major problem in the region.   Southeast Asia is undergoing the fastest rate of deforestation in the world.  The increasing demand for exotic pets, rare foods, and traditional medicines at global level has fuelled a significant amount of wildlife trafficking in Southeast Asia.  It is estimated that in many countries of Southeast Asia some large animal species, such as elephant, tigers, and wild cattle have become extinct or virtually extinct, due to hunting and wildlife trade. Much of this illicit commerce is facilitated by porous borders

Crimes that cross national boundaries cannot be addressed by individual countries working alone. They require international cross-border cooperation.  The primary responsibility for addressing illicit wildlife trafficking nevertheless still rests with the law enforcement agencies of each member country, working collaboratively with regional and international bodies established to address transnational organised crime (TOC).  The capacity of each country's law enforcement agencies to effectively act varies considerably within the region, depending primarily on their level of economic development and thus the availability of resources to apply to the problem. 

The 16th session of the UN commission on crime prevention and TOC discussed the illicit trafficking in forest products, including timber, wildlife and other forest biological resources. The convention strongly encouraged to take appropriate measures to prevent, combat and eradicate such illicit international trafficking. UNODC, as the custodian of the convention on TOC, seeks to gradually implement its mandate in the fight against TOC. The resolution encourages member states to strengthen law enforcement and to cooperate bilaterally, regionally, and at international levels, and remains convinced that international cooperation and mutual legal assistance can help prevent, combat and eradicate such trafficking.
This project endorses a sub-component (outcome 5: Informed and capable front-line law enforcement officers, prosecutors, judges and other specialised officials) of the 4-year PATROL programme. This programme builds on the diverse and complementary experiences and expertise that the partners will avail. During the last decade, UNODC contributed to strengthen cross-border cooperation through the Border Liaison Officers (BLOs) mechanism, which has increased the capacity of government law enforcement, prosecution, relevant institutions, and civil society to prevent, investigate and prosecute cases of cross-border trafficking of drugs/precursors.

Although it is widely accepted that nearly every country in the world, both industrialized and developing, is touched by this crime, the Asian region in particular has frequently been referenced as a hub for trafficking in human beings both within and between countries. As with other instances of organized criminality and due to its highly clandestine nature, collecting information and producing reliable empirical data on the phenomenon is difficult in any region of the world. Nevertheless, existing reports do reveal undeniable trends and patterns in human trafficking in the Asian region.

To ensure that anti-human trafficking programming has a lasting impact, there is a continuing need to better understand the nature and complex root causes as well as the criminal structures that sustain human trafficking and CSEC in both the Southeast Asian sub-region, as well as in other regions of the world. Among the most pressing activities are the detection, investigation, and prosecution of the perpetrators of these crimes as well as the rescue and rehabilitation of their young victims. This requires, inter alia, significant awareness-raising and capacity-building within the law enforcement and judicial sectors, as well as improved methods of and means for gathering and exchanging crime-related information between stakeholders.

In many countries anti-trafficking and child protection laws are lacking, and where they do exist a lack of awareness, resources, and training have left these laws insufficiently enforced. In addition, widespread poverty, lack of education, and social conditions including pressure on children to contribute to family income, realities in all of the Southeast Asian countries involved in Project Childhood, have sadly secured a steady supply of children who are highly vulnerable to trafficking and sexual exploitation.

2.1    Target groups and ultimate beneficiaries

Immediate target groups are the BLOs of the countries of the Lower Mekong region. The participants to the pilot training course will be 50 from 5 border liaison offices (in case of savings from previous activities a second training course will be organized from 5 additional border liaison offices). From each targeted border liaison office approximately 10 officers will be trained. Indirect beneficiaries will be law enforcement and justice sector officials, such as judges and prosecutors and those responsible for fighting wildlife trafficking will also be engaged through collaborative consultations and, as required, information sharing in order to identify the major needs in the national responses to wildlife trafficking. 
Beyond this, other indirect target groups are NGOs and international organizations working at identified high risk border areas against modalities of TOC.Ultimate beneficiaries will include those communities and individuals impacted negatively by illicit trafficking.  In a broad sense, this includes all members of society given the negative impact of transnational crime on the economy, environment, good governance and the legitimacy of the state.

3. Project description - "The What"

3.1    Programme strategy context
The project will focus on selected border liaison offices in Cambodia (3), Lao PDR (3), Thailand (2) and Viet Nam (2) and (See annex 6). The project will last for 12 months.
The structure of the project aims at the contributing to the achievement of the outcome 5 of the PATROL Programme, with a specific focus on countering wildlife trafficking.
Programme objective:  To reduce illicit traffickin

Output 5.1: Training needs assessments on wildlife trafficking conducted among 4 selected border liaison offices in the Lower Mekong Region
Output 5.2 Training programs developed, including CBT The first draft of the training curriculum, to be tested at field level, will be developed based on the most prominent sources of information on the topic.

4. Project implementation - "The How"

A Programme Steering Committee (PSC) comprised of senior government officials and
The PATROL Programme will be implemented and executed by UNODC through the Regional Centre for East Asia and the Pacific, Bangkok, in close cooperation with UNEP, TRAFFIC and Freeland Foundation, and through the recruitment of programme staff.