Press Release - Mobile Awareness campaign to help stamp out wildlife crime
April 28 , 2007
Education for Nature – Vietnam (ENV) has taken its wildlife awareness campaign to the road, launching its new Mobile Wildlife Awareness Unit to raise awareness amongst the public about the threats facing Vietnam’s wildlife as a result of illegal hunting and trade. The ENV mobile team will tour throughout the country in a new van, promoting wildlife protection, and hosting a range of events and awareness activities in urban centers, at universities, in National Parks, and at other venues.
In addition to the team’s awareness mission, the mobile campaign will actively encourage the public to become involved in stopping wildlife crime.
In March and April, the mobile team carried out two pilot programs in Bac Giang and Ha Tay Provinces to test a new awareness program for university students, and to practice holding various events over the course of a single week in the field.
Targeting University Students
During the pilot missions, ENV hosted wildlife trade awareness seminars at Bac Giang and Xuan
Mai Forestry Colleges for nearly 400 students and teachers. Each session involved presentations by
ENV on the wildlife trade situation in Vietnam, followed by a lively debate between students groups, arguing either for or against the right to consume wildlife products.
Student volunteers then performed “Especially for Bears”, a comedy skit developed by ENV in 2006 about bear bile consumption in a Hanoi restaurant. The bear performance was followed by a showing of the WWF bear bile awareness film (2007), and brief attitude surveys of the student audience.
More than 150 students signed up to become members of the Wildlife Volunteers Network, a growing national network of volunteers helping to stamp out wildlife crime, through monitoring of business establishments and reporting of wildlife crimes to the ENV Wildlife Crime Unit.
Working in Communities Bordering Parks and Nature Reserves
During the two pilot missions, community awareness activities were carried out in schools and villages bordering Tay Yen Tu Nature Reserve and Ba Vi National Park. Students in middle schools participated in a wildlife trade lesson plan (part of the community-based awareness curriculum established by ENV in 2002). One of the main features of the lesson plan is a film produced by ENV that features a young student’s perspective of the wildlife trade, depicting his efforts to get involved and stop a local wildlife trader.
The mobile team also carried out a day-long training course on environmental communication for Ba Vi
National Park rangers and staff, followed by day spent working with park staff to carry out a Participatory Learning Appraisal in a local village.
Actively Working to Stop the Illegal Trade of Wildlife
During the mission to Ha Tay, the mobile team also conducted a wildlife trade survey in the popular
wildlife restaurant districts of Ha Tay, in cooperation with ENV’s Wildlife Crime Monitoring Unit. Of the 38 restaurants surveyed, 37 were documented advertising or selling wildlife. As a result of the survey, the new National Mobile Enforcement Unit and local authorities raided one restaurant and confiscated a live leopard cat which had been reported by one of the survey teams. ENV continues to track progress on a number of other important cases that came out of the survey.
These two pilot missions were the first in a series of activities that the Mobile Wildlife Awareness Unit
plans to carry out in 2007. In June, the new van will be taken on tour by the mobile team, and additional field events and activities designed and tested.
Working closely with partners within ENV’s national environmental education network, and members of
the new Wildlife Volunteers Network, ENV hopes to generate greater interest and participation in efforts
throughout the country to bring an end to the illegal trade of wildlife.
ENV wishes to thank the World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA) for their generous support
for this innovative program.
