Vietnam

The Roles of Government Agencies in Wildlife Protection

What is the role of MARD?

The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development governs the Forest Protection Department (FPD).

What is the role of FPD?

Under Decision No 05/2007/QD-BNN, January 23rd, 2007, the FPD is the state agency that manages forest protection, ensuring the execution and implementation of laws on forest protection and development nationwide.

Regarding its particular role and task: “The FPD is responsible for implementing international cooperation in the fields of forest [protection], of nature and biodiversity conservation, and of trade in international fauna and flora.” (see Article 2, Item 1, Section k, Vietnamese version).

The FPD is also Vietnam’s CITES Management Authority. Under CITES and MARD regulations, all of Vietnam’s wildlife trading and breeding activities in Vietnam are managed and monitored by Vietnam’s CITES Management Authority.

What is the role of Customs?

Vietnam Customs is responsible for the state management over customs for activities of import and export, entry, exit and transit, tax policy for imported and exported goods (see Article 11, Customs Law, Vietnamese version).

What effect does the quarantine process have?

The Department of Animal Health (DAH) implements the quarantine of animals and animal products that are imported, exported, re-exported, or transited at international border gates
(see Decision of No 89/2003/QD-BNN, September 04th, 2003, by MARD, Article 2, Item 5, Section b, Dash 3, Vietnamese version).

The quarantine process, therefore, is applied to the import and export of animals. The import and export of animals can not be permitted until the quarantine process has been completed. Based on such regulations, one can find the real situation of official animal import-export in the data collected for the quarantine process.

CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora)

CITES is an international agreement between governments. Its aim is to ensure that international trade in specimens of wild animals and plants does not threaten their survival.

CITES was drafted as a result of a resolution adopted in 1963 at a meeting of members of IUCN (The World Conservation Union). The text of the Convention was finally agreed at a meeting of representatives of 80 countries in Washington DC., United States of America, on 3 March 1973 and, on 1 July 1975, CITES entered in force.

CITES is an international agreement to which states (countries) adhere voluntarily. States that have agreed to be bound by the Convention ('joined' CITES) are known as parties. Although CITES is legally binding on the parties – in other words they have to implement the Convention – it does not take the place of national laws. Rather, it provides a framework to be respected by each party, which has to adopt its own domestic legislation to ensure that CITES is implemented at the national level.

For many years CITES has been among the conservation agreements with the largest membership, now with 172 parties.

Vietnam acceded to the Convention on 20th April, 1994 and become the 121st party to CITES. The Lao People’s Democratic Republic entered the Convention on 30th May, 2004 and is the 164th party to CITES.

More about Macaques

Long-tailed or crab eating macaques (Macaca fascicularis) are found in Southeast Asia from Burma to the Philippines and southward through Indochina, Malaysia, and Indonesia. They are found as far east as the Timor Islands.

This species has been observed drinking much water and eating crabs, often living near bodies of water. Of the various habitats occupied by long-tailed macaques, swamp forests seem to have the highest density of them.

There are nine national parks, nine reserves, and two sanctuaries in Vietnam in which some long-tailed macaques reside.

The lifespan of this species seems able to reach a maximum age of around 30 years in captivity. Long-tailed macaques live in multi-male groups consisting of about thirty members. They are unique among other non-human primates because of their ability to show learned or cultural behavior, according to the website Animal Diversity (see link below).

They, along with other species of macaques, have benefited humans through their use as research models in immunology, surgery, toxicology, and pharmacology. They are one of the five most used primate species in medical research. Many of these macaques were exported to the United States and Great Britian. They are sometimes still hunted for food.

Source: Animal Diversity Web