Raising awareness on wildlife trade in Indonesia

Our team has some great news to share with you today! For years, we have been trying to raise funds to protect parrots from threats imposed by the wildlife trade. We have recently received funding from the Australian Research Council to study the illegal parrot trade in the next 3 years. As part of this new research, we will be focusing on the region of Indonesia. The illegal wildlife trade is a global threat to biodiversity, affecting numerous endangered species in the Australasian region, and an important public health issue as the trade can facilitate the transmission of zoonotic diseases. Better tools are needed to understand the illegal wildlife market including where animals are captured and sold, and to map the trade routes.

Our project will construct the first ever genetic database of traded wildlife by merging cutting-edge forensic genomic and criminological tools. The genomic methods developed by the project will be low cost, directly applicable to in-situ testing scenarios, and facilitate pro-active countermeasures against the illegal wildlife trade (confiscation, policy, and law enforcement). The outreach plan will be a major element of the project, including audio-visual communication tools aimed at local people, the wider public, and decision makers, and training for law enforcement authorities.

As part of this project, and thanks to the support of Mandai Nature from Singapore, two of our Indonesian project leaders will conduct their corresponding research to gain university degrees at the Universitas Gadjah Mada in Indonesia. Dwi Agustina will be doing a Master of Science degree studying local peoples’ attitude to better understand the drivers behind the parrot trade in the Maluku region of Indonesia. She will aim to use that information to enhance our future conservation communication campaigns. Dudi Nandika will be doing a PhD degree researching the effects of trade on some of the most traded parrot species in the region and developing stable isotope tests to track their provenance.

At Wildlife Messengers, our purpose is to conserve wildlife and habitats through scientific research, on-the-ground action, and communication. In this project, we have a great opportunity to conduct all these activities. Now we have funds for the expensive field research project and the laboratory analyses. So, from now on, we will channel funds from this fundraiser towards the outreach element of this conservation research project. Thanks to your contribution, audio-visual materials will be produced about the research to inform poachers about the newest regulations, the wider public about the most urging issues in the parrot trade, and decision makers about the law-enforcement techniques provided by this study.

We hope that you will embarking with us on this exciting and important new era of our project! For more information, please check out the official project website: stopparrottrade.org

Links:

• Media release
• Official website of the project

Friday, May 31, 2024. In collaboration with the Indonesian Parrot Project (KKI) and the Biology Department of Pattimura University, we held an information campaign in Ambon on the World Parrot Day. We disseminated information on Maluku’s unique parrots and other animals by posters, stickers and leaflets given to local people. The soft campaign was carried out by KKI members near the road of Merdeka Square in Ambon City, wearing paper cockatoo and lory head hats, in order to attract the attention of the local people. The ongoing conservation efforts hope to reduce the illegal trade of parrots and provide benefits to people's lives in Maluku.

Indonesia has been identified as the highest priority country for parrot conservation based on the number of species, endemics and threats (trapping and smuggling). Within the country, the Maluku archipelago has many endemic species, which are often fragmented into their distinct subspecies. Many small populations of these parrots are spread across the islands and are vulnerable to extinction. There are no less than 24 species of parrots that live in the Maluku Islands and 80% of them are endemic species and subspecies to this region. Several islands in Maluku have their own iconic parrots, such as the Salmon-crested Cockatoo (Cacatua moluccensis) in Seram, or the Blue-fronted Lorikeet (Charmosynopsis toxopei) in Buru.

Parrots are iconic assets in Maluku and are always admired by tourists and birdwatchers. In addition, the natural environment and landscape of the sea and mountains on almost every inch of the Maluku islands make Maluku a province an ideal destination for ecotourists. With campaigns like the one we held on World Parrot Day, we aim to disseminate this opportunity among the local population as well. We hope that the future direction of development in Maluku will make biodiversity, especially parrots, one of their priorities.