Papua¹s captive beauty

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http://thestar.com.my/lifestyle/story.asp?file=/2002/6/18/features/birdland

1 & newspage=SearchProbably

 

Tuesday, June 18, 2002

 

Papua¹s captive beauty

By RICHARD C. PADDOCK

 

IN THE dim light of the Indonesian warship, forestry

police commander Otis Howay could hear the rare birds

calling, their bright song reverberating in the metal

chambers.

 

He and two of his officers hurriedly searched the navy

troop ship for protected tropical birds being smuggled

out of Indonesia¹s Papua province, formerly Irian

Jaya, by soldiers ending their tour of duty. They

confiscated seven black-capped lories, beautiful birds

of vivid red and green, but Howay is certain that

there were many more.

 

³It was very dark on the ship,¹¹ he recounted. ³I

heard a lot of voices of the birds, but I could not

see them. The time was very short, and the ship was

about to leave.¹¹

 

Illegally catching and selling protected wildlife are

big business in Papua, the untamed eastern province of

Indonesia that makes up half the island of New Guinea.

Many indigenous islanders take part, especially in

hunting and catching the birds. But the biggest

smugglers, according to police and environmentalists,

are members of Indonesia¹s powerful military.

 

 

Mustapa, a vendor at the public market in Hamadi,

displays his palm cockatoo Jacob. This species of

cocatoo is one of various protected species that are

easily purchased in the markets of Papua. ³They are

untouchable,¹¹ said Roy Rindorindo of the World Wide

Fund for Nature (WWF) in Jayapura, the provincial

capital. ³They have their own ships and airplanes.

They collect the birds, bring them back to Jakarta and

sell them.¹¹

 

Thousands of protected birds are caught or killed by

poachers and smuggled out of the province each year,

threatening the survival of the remote island¹s rarest

species, officials and environmentalists say.

 

B.G. Resubun, Howay¹s boss at Papua¹s Natural

Resources Conservation Department, said the widespread

involvement of soldiers and police in the wildlife

trade ­ something law enforcement officials

acknowledge adds to the difficulty of cracking down.

 

³We are very scared because these people intimidate

us,¹¹ Resubun said. ³I can¹t prove it, but people know

that high-level people have a hobby of collecting all

the endangered species.¹¹

 

Demand for birds is great in Indonesia. It has long

been a symbol of prestige to own one, especially a

lory or cockatoo which can sing or be trained to talk.

Pet birds are most popular on the main island of Java

which is less than one-third the size of Papua but has

a population of 121 million.

 

According to Javanese tradition, there are five things

a man must have to rise above the ordinary: a house, a

horse or car, the traditional dagger known as a kris,

a bird and, last of all, a wife.

 

Bakdi Soemanto, professor of cultural sciences at the

University of Gajah Mada in Jogjakarta, said some

Javanese believe that birds can bring enlightenment or

serve as a symbol of a person¹s character, much as a

birth sign would. Some birds, such as the lory, are

thought to ward off supernatural beings. But most of

all, people like to hear them sing. ³Javanese people

love birds,¹¹ Soemanto said. ³But the way they love

them is not by setting them free but by putting them

in a cage.¹¹

 

Resubun acknowledged that his agency is largely

ineffective in protecting wildlife. The Natural

Resources Conservation Department has 54 officers to

patrol more than half the province, he said. They

share one car and one boat.

 

The military, whose main role in Papua is to keep the

local population in check, has operated with impunity

here for decades. The brief search that Howay and his

men conducted on the troop ship in March is rarer than

the birds they are trying to protect. Soldiers have

been known to pull their weapons on the unarmed

forestry police when questioned about their

activities, officials say.

 

Despite widespread knowledge of military involvement

in the illegal export of wildlife from the province,

no soldier or officer has been arrested for capturing

or smuggling protected animals.

 

³That is our weakness,¹¹ Howay said. ³We can¹t press

charges against the military.¹¹

 

Papua Police Chief Made M. Pastika acknowledged that

the army plays a major part in smuggling wildlife from

the province. Police officers are involved too, he

said.

 

³Most of the illegal trafficking of the birds,

endangered species, is suspected (to be) done with the

backing of the authorities, like police and military

personnel,¹¹ he said. ³We are very concerned about

this.¹¹

 

One of the main army units allegedly involved in

smuggling wildlife is Kopassus, the elite force that

once received training from the United States

military. Washington DC, severed military ties with

Indonesia in 1999 after army-sponsored militias

destroyed much of East Timor, but some Bush

administration officials and Indonesian generals hope

to resume co-operation.

 

Major General Mahidin Simbolon, the Indonesian

military commander in Papua, said he has seen no

evidence that soldiers or officers are involved. He

has advised his troops not to engage in the illegal

wildlife trade, he said, and has authorised searches

of their belongings. Simbolon has also invited

representatives of the World Wide Fund for Nature to

speak to the troops about protected wildlife.

 

³There are indeed some accusations that the soldiers

take them out,¹¹ the general said. ³If that is true,

then we have to take care of it internally, and that

is what we are doing at the moment.¹¹

 

Hunters catch most birds by stringing nets between the

trees, but the birds of paradise are among the hardest

to nab. Usually, hunters simply shoot them and stuff

them for decoration. The males¹ spectacular mating

displays, occurring regularly in the mornings and

evenings, make them an easy target.

 

In January, one forest police officer, Elsama Anton

Wakum, 30, confiscated five stuffed birds of paradise

from a smuggler who allegedly was delivering them from

one police officer to another. Two nights later, Wakum

was struck in the head with a piece of wood. His body

was found by the road in the morning. The birds are

missing. Police are investigating the slaying.

 

Even when the conservation department manages to seize

live birds, they are not always better off. Releasing

a creature back into the wild requires a pile of

paperwork and signatures all the way up to the

provincial governor.

 

Instead of being set free, many of the confiscated

birds spend the rest of their lives at a house in the

town of Sentani, near the Jayapura airport. One aging

palm cockatoo is chained up in the yard. A large

hornbill has become a pet of the local children, who

delight in carrying it around. Sulfur-crested

cockatoos are kept in a room with windows too dirty to

see out. Three Victoria crowned pigeons inveterate

pacers­ are kept in a narrow wooden cage with barely

enough room to turn around.

 

Down the road, Dr John Manangsang has set up an

alternative bird sanctuary. It began when a soldier

brought him a bird of paradise he had shot in the

wing.

 

Manangsang, a general practitioner, healed the bird

and bought it. Word spread, and soon he had acquired

40 birds of paradise, sea eagles, hornbills and

cockatoos, many of them wounded or ailing. He built an

aviary for the birds of paradise and allowed the

public to come see them. He let his three crowned

pigeons wander freely in an outdoor enclosure.

 

Manangsang said he was trying to protect the birds and

keep them from being smuggled out of Papua, but the

conservation department prosecuted him for possessing

protected wildlife. The doctor lost in a lower court

but appealed to the Supreme Court and won. The

conservation department issued him a licence that

allows him to keep the birds. Now he dreams of

building a facility where he can breed his birds of

paradise and release their offspring into the wild.

 

³I want to educate people to love nature so that when

we release the birds,people will not kill them,¹¹ he

said. ­ LAT-WP

 

 

 

 

 

 

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