LAOS’ SIN CITY IS AN ILLEGAL WILDLIFE TRADE SUPERMARKET FOR VISITING CHINESE TOURISTS

LONDON: A resort complex tucked away in Laos and marketed to Chinese gamblers and tourists is a hub for trade in illegal wildlife products and parts, a new report reveals.

 

In Sin City: Illegal Wildlife Trade in Laos’ Special Economic Zone, the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) documents how the Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone (GT SEZ) in Bokeo Province has effectively become a lawless playground.

 

The complex comprises a casino, hotel, shops, restaurants, a shooting range and massage parlours, and visitors can openly buy endangered species products including tigers, leopards, elephants, rhinos, pangolins, helmeted hornbills, snakes and bears – smuggled in from Asia and Africa.

 

Undercover investigators from EIA and its partner Education for Nature Vietnam (ENV) documented restaurants with endangered species on their menus, from ”sauté tiger meat” and bear paws to reptiles and pangolins; one business kept a live python and a bear cub in cages, both of which were available to eat on request.

 

And the complex has ambitious plans for the manufacture of tiger bone wine. EIA/ENV found four tigers at the GT SEZ in mid-2014 but by February 2015 the number had risen to 35; a senior keeper revealed the goal is to acquire a total of 50 females for breeding to increase the population to 500 tigers within three years and to 1,000 in the long term to produce tiger bone wine for consumption at the GT SEZ and for export to China, via Yunnan.

 

The GT SEZ is run by the Chinese company Kings Romans Group, which has a 99-year lease and an 80 per cent stake in the operation. The Government of Laos has a 20 per cent stake in the GT SEZ, declaring it a duty-free area and giving it political patronage at the highest level.

 

Despite being situated in Laos, the GT SEZ functions more as an extension of China – it runs on Beijing time, signs are in Mandarin, most workers are Chinese nationals and the Chinese yuan is the main currency. Chinese nationals are permitted to visit with just an identity card rather than a passport.

 

The complex is accessed via a purpose-built 30km road from the nearest Laos town of Houaxay and China City Construction Group, a Chinese state-owned company, has been commissioned to build an international airport, a proposal which has created conflict with local farmers over land rights.

 

While Laos’ wildlife law enforcement is notoriously weak, there is not even a pretense of enforcement in the GT SEZ.

 

Debbie Banks, EIA Head of Tigers Campaign, said: “The activities within the Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone constitute an intolerable disregard for international law as it concerns the illegal wildlife trade and endangered species.

 

“The Government of China urgently needs to recognise the immense damage this place does to its international reputation and to take meaningful action to rein in a Chinese company which is, in effect, running amuck with impunity in a neighbouring country with weak governance.

 

“China also needs to understand and accept that its legal domestic trade in the skins of captive-bred tigers is doing nothing but driving consumer demand – whether that demand is thriving at home or, as in the case of the GT SEZ, conveniently shunted into a neighbouring country.”

 

The report calls for the Government of Laos to immediately establish a multi-agency task force to tackle illegal wildlife trade at the GT SEZ and across the country, and to seize all illegal wildlife products at the GT SEZ.

 

It further calls on the Government of China to investigate connections between Chinese businesses and traders operating at the GT SEZ and wildlife criminals operating between Laos, Myanmar and China, and to cooperate with international counterparts to disrupt criminal networks.

 

In addition, Parties to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) should seek CITES trade suspensions until such time as the governments of Laos and China demonstrate that adequate law enforcement, criminal justice and policy measures are being applied towards ending illegal wildlife trade associated with operations at the GT SEZ.

LAOS’ FORESTS STILL FALLING TO VIETNAMESE ARMY AND ‘CONNECTED’ BUSINESSES

LONDON: More than a year after being exposed as major players in the smuggling of timber from Laos, a new report reveals the Vietnamese timber industry, the military and well-connected Lao actors are still profiting from the flow of logs into Vietnam.

As well as the role played by a commercial operation of the Vietnam People’s Army, the report details how Laos’ attempts to protect its forests are being corroded by the circumvention of Lao law by companies with key political contacts.

Checkpoints: How Powerful Interest Groups Continue to Undermine Forest Governance in Laos is released today by the London-based Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA).

Based on months of detailed investigations, its findings update the July 2011 EIA report Crossroads: The Illicit Timber Trade Between Laos and Vietnam which revealed how Laos’ export ban on raw timber was being routinely flouted on a huge scale to feed the timber processing industries of Vietnam, China and Thailand.

The earlier report revealed that one of the biggest loggers in Laos is a company owned by the Vietnamese military – the Vietnamese Company of Economic Cooperation (COECCO).

In March this year, the Government of Laos stated it would implement “serious action” to curb the export of its unprocessed natural resources, including timber, but EIA’s findings show it is business as usual along the country’s border with Vietnam.

Several powerful companies – Phonesack, Nicewood and COECCO – continue to ship thousands of cubic metres of logs from Laos to Vietnam, aided by murky exemptions to Laos’ log export ban and timber export controls which are apparently granted by senior players in the Lao Government.

As well as having a thriving furniture industry feeding markets in Europe, the US and China, Vietnam has also become the principle exporter to China of threatened and protected rosewood – and with no legal domestic rosewood sources in Vietnam, EIA believes most, if not all, of these exports are either illegal or involve illegality at some stage in the supply chain.

“Laos has instituted laws and policies which quite rightly seek to promote development within its borders and relieve the pressures on its forests,” said EIA Forests Campaigner Tom Johnson. “The circumvention of stated controls on timber exports completely subverts this agenda and only benefits a handful of wealthy and connected individuals.

“There’s no justification for the Government of Laos to continue channeling resources into the hands of these individuals at the expense of its people. Equally, the Vietnamese Government, as a professed ‘special friend’ of Laos, must stop the unsustainable pillage of Laos’ forests by its industry – not least by its Army.”

The report also explores the inequitable deals struck between the Government of Laos and the business elite in Laos and Vietnam to finance infrastructure and plantation development.

Both Laos and Vietnam are currently engaged in discussions under the European Union’s Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) initiative, a core aspect of which is signing a Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA) which seeks to guarantee legal timber supplies from producer countries into EU markets – a requirement under the EU Timber Regulation which comes into effect in March 2013.

Faith Doherty, EIA Head of Forests Campaign, added: “It is essential that the current VPA negotiations between the Government of Vietnam and the European Union bring complete transparency and legal certainty to the log trade with Laos. As things stand, European buyers could not conduct credible due diligence on the legality of the cross-border trade from Laos to Vietnam.”

Among EIA’s recommendations in Checkpoints is for the Government of Laos to properly enforce its log export ban, for the Government of Vietnam to investigate the activities of the companies named in the report as well as the multi-million dollar rosewood trade, and for both governments to work with each other and EU to bring full transparency and traceability to the log and wood products trade.