Chinese nationals top the list of foreign poachers caught off the Philippines’ western seaboard, committing the highest number of poaching activities since 1995, according to a government agency tasked to protect the area’s wildlife and other natural resources.
Data from the Palawan Council for Sustainable Development Staff reveals that 56 percent of apprehended foreign poachers since March 1995 up to April this year are Chinese nationals.
They were involved in 45 percent of the poaching incidents recorded in areas around the biodiversity-rich island of Palawan, known as the Philippines’ “last frontier” for being the country’s last unsettled area.
Adelina Villena of the PCSDS told Kyodo News that during the period, her office recorded a total of 91 poaching incidents that resulted in the apprehension of 1,129 foreign nationals, including 41 incidents involving a total of 629 Chinese nationals.
This tally includes last month’s incident in which a Chinese boat with 12 fishermen was found stuck at the Tubbataha Reef, the country’s largest protected marine area, leading to the discovery aboard it of carcasses of an estimated 2,000 pangolins, an endangered species of scaly anteater.
According to Villena, Vietnamese nationals are in second place on the list of foreign poachers. She said 305 Vietnamese, or 27 percent of the total, have been apprehended and charged for involved in 26 incidents, or 29 percent of the total.
Malaysians come in third with 147 apprehended individuals involved in 15 poaching incidents, followed by Indonesian nationals with 38 individuals caught in seven incidents and Taiwanese with 10 individuals nabbed in two incidents.
China, Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan and the Philippines all have overlapping claims over areas in the South China Sea.
Villena said the highest number of incidents within a year, 10, was recorded in 1999 when poachers of all five foreign nationalities, totaling 121 individuals, were caught.
The largest number of apprehensions was in 2002 when 174 Chinese nationals were caught in eight separate incidents, she said, recalling that some Chinese boats at that time went to Tubbataha Reef and poached not just fish but also protected marine turtles.
Villena said that of the 91 poaching incidents since 1995, 52 occurred in internationally recognized Philippine waters around Balabac, an island off the southernmost tip of Palawan, 11 at Tubbataha Reef, located in Sulu Sea southeast of Palawan, and nine in waters off Palawan’s southern towns of Quezon, Rizal, and Bataraza.
Among incidents occurring in contested waters, nine were in the Kalayaan group of islands in the disputed Spratly archipelago.
Villena and her colleagues at the PCSDS admit that Palawan will always entice foreigners because of its rich marine resources, including endangered species that command high price in the international market.
The PCSDS’ John Francisco Pontillas told Kyodo News in an earlier interview that marine species thrive around Palawan because the connection of the South China Sea to its left and the Sulu Sea on its right allows a “dynamic exchange of hydrology.”
Aside from the abundant and varied kinds of fish and the endangered sea turtles, such as hawksbills and green sea turtles, many poachers caught in the area have also been found in possession of giant top shell snails, white lip oysters and helmet shells.
The harvested species are sold in their home countries or in the international market at high prices either for medicinal purposes, for their reputed aphrodisiac properties or for decorative uses.
“I am afraid that these poaching incidents, particularly by Chinese nationals, will continue. In fact, Vietnamese-initiated incidents are notably increasing, too,” Villena lamented.
“I think Chinese fishermen think that these waters are still theirs, that’s why they continue to come. The Vietnamese, on other hand, come because they are aware of the friendly relations between our two countries as proven by the pardon granted by the Philippine government to former Vietnamese poachers,” she added.
She was referring to a case in 2011 wherein the Philippine government granted pardon to 122 Vietnamese poachers on the Vietnamese government’s request.
Villena said a favorable treatment of and lax enforcement of the law against the apprehended foreign poachers will certainly not discourage similar activities in the future, nor will diplomatic approaches being employed by governments of the violators.
“Whatever they earn from harvesting our natural resources far outweighs the fines we impose on them if they are caught. That’s why they continue coming. Our penalties are not a deterrent to them. And then, we accommodate their governments’ appeal for pardon as part of confidence-building measures. I can’t understand that,” she said.
Indeed, the second largest number of apprehensions in a single year was in 2011 when out of the 134 apprehended individuals, 122 were Vietnamese.
Villena cited the compromised fine imposed on the Chinese poachers caught in 2001, wherein the government collected only $100,000 for all six separate but simultaneous incidents, instead of applying said amount to each incident.
“To these poachers, they feel that whatever they can gain from fishing and harvesting endangered species in our territory is worth much more than any risk. If we don’t tighten our enforcement of the law against them, then it’s our natural resources that will definitely be at greater risk,” Villena said.
Her colleague Pontillas also appealed to leaders of the involved countries and to the entire 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations to enforce a more intensive campaign against poaching.
2013 ABS-CBN Interactive