A presentation on religion, communities and tackling the illegal wildlife trade in Bengkulu by Iswaldi from Kerinci Seblat Tiger Protection & Conservation and Lingkar Institute, Indonesia. The presentation was given at the Community Voices: Local Perspectives on International Responses to Illegal Wildlife Trade on Wednesday, 10 October 2018 at the Zoological Society of London. More details: https://www.iied.org/CommunityVoices Also, learn more about the new “People not poaching” online platform that supports communities as the first line of defence against illegal wildlife trade: https://peoplenotpoaching.org

1. Community effort and
initiatives to tackle illegal
wildlife trade
Iswadi
Kerinci Seblat Tiger Protection &
Conservation and Lingkar Institut
Actions in Bengkulu, Sumatera

2. • Conflict mitigation actions by Tiger
Protection & Conservation Units and
human wildlife conflict mitigation
task force teams.
• The community has begun to actively
report when conflicts occur and
provide information when there are
people who commit wildlife crime.
• Snare detection increased by >40% as
a result of information provided by
communities.
Community effort and initiatives to tackle IWT

3. Evidence in 2017, northern Bengkulu. Combined law enforcement
action by police, KSNP, PHS KS acting on information from forest-edge
community. Three prosecuted.
• 2015-18 Evidence of poaching of 12 Sumatran tiger
recorded in national park/park-edge forests in Bengkulu
during a spike in IWT driven threat. Three tigers lost in the
project area in 2015.
• 2015-18 – 8 tiger poachers or traders active in national
park or surrounding area of Bengkulu arrested in four law
enforcement actions, five tigers as evidence.
• Tiger poaching incident fell very sharply from 2016 - but
IWT still posed threat.
• Trialing new approaches required.
• Poachers mainly from forest-edge villages trading wildlife
to dealers in district capitals, market towns for onward
sale
• Tiger (and elephant) poachers rarely very poor but use
hunting as a source of extra money or because habitual
(older, long-time) hunters.
• Tiger, elephant, hornbill poachers frequently known to
fellow villagers but not reported.
Ongoing IWT driven poaching

4. • A National Fatwa 2014, stating “all activities involving
hunting or trading endangered species are forbidden,
unclean”
• Widespread view among communities that "they are more
afraid of sin than the law"
Religious community – our efforts
In 2017 and 2018,with MUI Lebong and
North Bengkulu Regencies, we formed a
Conservation Religious Leader (CRL) team.
In 2017 and 2018 with the Assembly of
Indonesia Ulama (MUI) of North Bengkulu
and Lebong, we conducted nature and
wildlife conservation training for preachers,
religious leaders.

5. • Mainstream the conservation of wildlife in
matter of da'wah in Friday Prayers and regular
Al Quran study meetings conducted in 20
mosques in forest-edge villages introduces
wildlife conservation as an Islamic duty.
• The Fatwa of MUI socialized in key villages
where known or suspected poachers have
been identified.
• Together with Bengkulu province government
formed a human-wildlife Conflict Mitigation
Taskforce to reduce threat to tiger and
villagers.
• With mosque leaders and local communities
established an information network for illegal
trade to warn of suspected poaching to guide
patrols.
Religious community – our efforts

6. • A network of preachers socializing
the MUI Fatwa to mosque
congregations in forest-edge
communities in two districts.
• A telephone hotline active 5x per day
to report wildlife crime.
• 2017-18 - 13 active tiger snares, 28
deer snares ‘made safe’ using
community or preacher information
• A community network acting as a
central point for reporting,
investigation.
• Through actively involving religious
leaders an interface respected by the
community and government has
been formed building support and
collaboration to combat IWT.
Results
Meeting with villagers to discuss progress