Thailand law enforcement support (landscape level)

Freeland

Freeland provides capacity building to rangers, protected area managers, and military through the PROTECT program that combines assessments, strategy design, and training to implement strategies. This program has training programs for front line rangers right up to protected area managers, and is tailored to each audience and their threats, and has a mentoring element that Freeland refers to as “OJT” (On-the-Job Training). The OJTs can include digital forensics training and analytical support. PROTECT has been accredited by the American Council on Education. Freeland also developed FIST-PROTECT (Field Information Support Tool) with Kestrel Technologies to help rangers and their supervisors track, prevent and record poaching through phones or other hand-held devices that link up to satellites. FIST allows information, orders and requests to be transmitted between the field and command centers in real time through an analytical hub that provides user-friendly and useful analysis.

Freeland developed WildScan, a mobile phone application to facilitate species identification. It is produced in Thai, covering species found in Thailand and is free for government officers or the public to download and use to record and report sightings of wildlife or wildlife crime.

Panthera

Panthera is devoted exclusively to the conservation of the world’s wild cat species and their ecosystems. Utilizing the expertise of premier cat biologists, Panthera develops and implements global strategies for the most imperiled large cats: tigers, lions, jaguars, snow leopards, cheetahs, pumas, and leopards. Panthera partners with local and international NGOs, scientific institutions, local communities, and governments around the globe, to ensure a future for wild cats. Due to the nature of threats in Asia, Panthera’s Tiger Program has pioneered solutions to recover tigers in key sites throughout Asia by improving law enforcement capacity to detect, capture and prosecute poachers and secure the most important breeding populations. In Thailand, Panthera works in the southern extent of the Western Forest Complex in partnership with the Zoological Society of London (ZSL), and in the Eastern Forest Complex partnering with Freeland.

In the Western Forest Complex, Panthera has provided ranger training, including on intelligence gathering and conducting intelligence-led operations to address many types of forest poaching and illicit harvesting activities. Panthera also aims to link crime base criminal intelligence on poachers and traffickers to national level investigations with the Department of National Parks. In the Eastern Forest Complex, Panthera has enhanced wildlife monitoring to improve protection of tigers in the Dong Phayayen-Khao Yai Forest Complex.

In the Khlong Saeng-Khao Sok Complex, Panthera is monitoring an isolated population of melanistic leopards in partnership with ZSL, and providing law enforcement data on illegal human activities.

United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)

The UNDP-supported, GEF-financed project titled “Strengthening Capacity and Incentives for Wildlife Conservation in the Western Forest Complex” (also known as Project Tiger), is implemented with the Thai Department of National Parks. The project’s first goal is to develop and test innovative approaches to enforcement and compliance in the protected area in order to reduce the direct threats to tigers and prey, improve effectiveness of wildlife sanctuary management, and enhance the use of data and information to support key management decision-making. To achieve this goal, the project will increase the coverage of ranger patrols and the use of the SMART patrolling system; improve efficiency and response time of ranger staff; bolster rangers’ performance and motivation; improve intelligence-led planning and management; and improve relationships among rangers, the community and other stakeholders. The project will also enhance the DNA analysis of wild tigers to link to the national database of wild and captive tigers in Thailand. The second goal of the project is to link sustainable livelihood development in the enclave and buffer zone villages with specific conservation outcomes; and the third goal is to raise awareness among local communities as to the need to conserve, and the importance of protecting, the forest landscapes and associated wildlife.

UNDP is developing a GEF-financed regional project across tiger range states titled “South-South Cooperation for Sustainability of the Global Tiger Recovery Programme” that will be implemented with the Global Tiger Forum. See section below on national level law enforcement support for details.

Wildlife Conservation Society

WCS assists the government to strengthen protection of endangered species, including tigers and elephants, in national parks and wildlife sanctuaries with a focus on reducing poaching. The organization has been involved for more than a decade in supporting high quality SMART patrol training, long-term support on patrol equipment and supplies, advanced patrol database, and other morale boosting activities. As a result, the performance of park rangers in the Huai Kha Khaeng World Heritage Site and Thung Yai Wildlife Sanctuaries of the Western Thailand next to Myanmar has been exemplified in deterring and arresting serious poachers and saving lives of many endangered species. The ultimate result is that the tiger population has shown a trend of positive recovery and dispersal to repopulate the remaining forest areas both in Western Thailand and Myanmar. In Thap Lan National Park of Dong Phayayen-Khao Yai World Heritage Site, WCS has helped the government to strengthen the SMART patrol system with real-time anti-poaching camera traps to significantly increase the arrest rates of rosewood and wildlife poachers before they either cut the trees or kill animals. The SMART patrol system and anti-poaching camera traps have been adopted by the Thai government to strengthen many protected areas in Thailand.

WCS works with the Department of Wildlife and National Parks (DNP) establishing wildlife crime units through CITES checkpoints at border posts with a grant from the US Department of State Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL). This includes the provision of IBM i2 software and the training of the border crime units on its application, and linking information collected through SMART to i2 to intensify national investigations. Other activities include community engagement to enhance support to law enforcement agencies, and strengthening patrols of protected areas along the borders, as well as promoting local demand reduction for bushmeat. WCS focuses on key checkpoints which are major wildlife trafficking routes at checkpoints between Thailand and both Laos and Myanmar. On the Thai/ Myanmar border WCS is supporting a ‘joint agency wildlife crime enforcement center’ involving customs, police and the DNP.

World Wildlife Fund (WWF)

WWF is involved in an initiative to reduce poaching in the Mekong transboundary protected areas in Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam. WWF provides assistance to enhance government capacities to conduct enforcement work in those areas, which includes working with local law enforcement, mainly wildlife authorities. WWF supports efforts by the Department of National Parks, Wildlife, and Plant Conservation to reduce poaching in Kuiburi, Mae Wong, and Khlong Lan national parks by providing Smart Patrol training, technical assistance, equipment, and supplies for rangers.