Lam Binh community sends strong message to poachers

In February 2013 our partner Save Our Species featured an updated account about PRCF field coordinator Tu Minh Tiep’s role in capturing a wildlife hunter in northern Vietnam.

SOS is a global coalition to conserve threatened species and their habitats. PRCF’s collaboration with SOS to protect the Francois langur’ began in 2011.

The article titled Lam Binh community sends strong message to poachers is featured on the ‘success stories’ page of their website.

Original article below

In July 2012 PRCF Vietnam’s local contacts in Lam Binh, a rural area in  northeastern Vietnam, reported that four Francois’ langurs had been killed by hunters.

In response to this information, PRCF Vietnam’s Tu Minh Tiep devised a role play with local Forest Protection Department staff: A local man would play the role of a wild animal trader. The ‘trader’ would travel to Lung Chu valley in Lam Binh to buy bones for traditional medicine. Some FPD staff would then arrive to check what is being sold and gather evidence of any illegal hunting. While FPD staff carry these actions out, the ‘trader’ would escape into the forest.

PRCF field officer Tu Minh Tiep examining the Francois’ langur bones.

This role play was successful, resulting in the arrest of five hunters in possession of a number of dead animals, including a macaque, serow and small loris. In addition, animal bones and shotguns were confiscated.

Tiep brought the animal bones to Hanoi for forensic identification by experts from the Institute of Ecology and Biological Resources. They identified each set of bones and confirmed the identify of four langurs. This information was documented as official evidence and provided to the Lam Binh District Police and Forest Protection Department.

The endangered Francois’ langur is one of PRCF’s target conservation species. It’s also a Decree 32 species in Vietnam, meaning that anyone caught in possession of, or in the act of hunting, this animal face large fines and even imprisonment. There are precedents for prosecution: In 2009, for example, a man was imprisoned for five years for hunting a Francois’ langur in Tuyen Quang province, northeastern Vietnam.

PRCF thanks Mr Tiep, senior field coordinator, for his commitment to the conservation of Francois’ langur.