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Standing on a four-wheel drive vehicle, wearing a bucket hat and walking boots, overlooking the Central Kenya Wildlife Sanctuary, Trang Nguyen is different from most Vietnamese who like European charm and East Asian wonders. They like European charm and East Asian wonders. Memories of their vacation and photography.
But Trang is no ordinary traveler.
The 31-year-old founder and executive director of WildAct, a Vietnamese conservation NGO, travels the world as a wildlife conservation scientist.
In a fast-growing economy, most people focus on lucrative jobs in business and finance, and the government is skeptical of civil society, if not hostile, she stands out.
“When I told them what I wanted to do, my parents were not very supportive,” Trang told Al Jazeera, admitting that few Vietnamese would see her job as a dream job.
But she could hardly imagine what she was doing.
“I like to do research, so I [have] I spend most of my time in out-of-town, remote areas, and sometimes put myself at risk. No parent would want their children to go through that,” she said.
Trang Nguyen and anti-poaching rangers in Kruger National Park, South Africa [Courtesy of Trang Nguyen]Vietnam has become a A hot spot for the global illegal wildlife trade worth billions of dollars, Is not only a transit route, but also a major consumer market. According to the British Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), Vietnamese criminal groups have been recorded as poachers and smugglers in many source countries in Africa and Asia, from Malaysia to Mozambique.
EIA stated that in the 17 years to 2019, Vietnam was involved in more than 600 seizures related to illegal trade, involving the deaths of at least 228 tigers, 610 rhinos, 15,779 elephants and 65,510 pangolins-all The species are in critical condition. The organization’s data is based on publicly available seizure data.
In terms of consumption of tiger parts and products, Vietnam is second only to Chinese.
Many people believe that what they call “bone glue,” or cao in Vietnamese, comes from animals such as tigers and monkeys, and can help treat joint-related diseases. Rhino hornAt the same time, horns are a symbol of wealth, and some people believe that horns can cure cancer.
Trang herself, a colon cancer survivor, was shocked by the doctor’s comments that this belief is dangerous given the need for early treatment of many cancers.
She told WWF in an interview this year that this is a “strong message” and an effective way for her to respond to the continuing demand for rhino horn.
Hostility and denial
More and more worried Zoonoses after COVID-19It is widely regarded as jumping from animals to humans, helping to put the issue of wildlife trafficking back on the world policy agenda.
Vietnam issued a directive last year to stop the illegal import of wild animals, including parts and products. Although environmentalists said they support the directive, they also warned that a lot of work needs to be done, including the implementation of the directive.
Trang has been involved in environmental-related activities when she was a teenager. She obtained a PhD in biodiversity management in the UK two years ago. She said that it is not easy to engage in wildlife trafficking because it is both for the Vietnamese authorities and the general public. A sensitive topic. citizen.
In several public protection forums she participated in, Trang said that people are hostile and deny Vietnam’s status as a wildlife trafficking hotspot.
“I dare not say that I am an expert, but I have spent a lot of time researching this topic. It is undeniable that there is wildlife consumption in Vietnam,” she said. “There are Vietnamese overseas, especially in Africa, directly participating in the illegal, transboundary and transcontinental wildlife trade. This has had an impact on the Vietnamese nationals and the image of the country.”
In the early days of conservation work, a camera trap was set up in Kon Tum, Vietnam to look for clouded leopards [Courtesy of Trang Nguyen].She said this reputation also makes people skeptical about Trang’s intentions.
In Africa, she said she has also encountered hostility-some people think she must be against wildlife protection, because too many Asians are involved in high-profile wildlife trafficking cases on the African continent.
In Vietnam itself, protecting wildlife is also a challenge.Some critically endangered species, according to IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, Are Vietnamese pheasants and pond turtles. According to the World Wide Fund for Nature, Saola is an antelope-like animal that has also become the victim of a massive increase in hunting activities to supply the illegal wildlife trade.
According to the 2020 index of the international animal welfare charity World Animal Protection, Vietnam is one of the worst performing countries in Asia (including India and some Southeast Asian countries) in terms of animal protection policies and laws.
According to Trang, a “very destructive assumption” regarding the conservation department is that the authorities and environmental police have not taken any measures to curb the exploitation of wildlife. Trang said that based on her experience, she has encountered many rangers and police who are committed to eradicating the problem and willing to work with NGOs like her.
However, she said that compared with other countries, many Vietnamese law enforcement officers have limited experience in investigating and solving wildlife crimes due to lack of education and training. This is the top priority of corruption.
“Corruption plays an important role in this trade, just like in many other crimes, it is crucial to address this issue to combat the illegal wildlife trade,” she said, but did not give specific examples.
“They have a lot of experience in investigating other things, but [investigating] Wildlife crimes and wildlife-related matters have not happened in Vietnam until recently. This is something we must acknowledge and support them,” she said.
After TRang Nguyen gave a speech at WildHand, the Wildlife Conservation Club of Vietnam National Agricultural University in 2018 [WildHand/Courtesy of Trang Nguyen]WildAct has been carrying out training programs for local communities and forest rangers so that they can exchange knowledge, plan and implement conservation projects in several provinces in Vietnam, such as clearing animal traps and rescuing trapped animals.
Empower the community
The organization is working with Animal Doctor International, a veterinary clinic and animal welfare consultant with offices in Vietnam and Cambodia, to provide training for forest rangers and WildAct’s community protection team on how to deal with injured animals and when patrolling Members perform first aid. Trang said that although often overlooked, these are important skills to improve the survival rate of wild animals and the well-being of forest rangers and community members.
“The correct way is to empower as many people as possible,” she said.
Trang has always sought to empower women and make WildAct a bastion of gender equality.
According to former project manager Mark Spicer, who worked at WildAct for two years until the end of 2020, Zhuang’s advocacy was not verbal.
“This is a key part of the origin of WildAct. Trang is the founder and director. Her experience and the experience of protecting colleagues in Vietnam and abroad will only reinforce this,” said Spicer, who said he was the only male he left the organization Staff.
Spicer is from the UK and has a background in conservation and ecology. He said that his work at WildAct is “different from anything I have done.”
“That said, Vietnam has a lot of work to do in terms of protection, which is a challenge for everyone involved, but there are some great organizations and aggressive people trying to do this,” he said.
While she founded WildAct in 2015, Trang has also been busy with well-known environmental organizations during the first few years of NGO operations. In Cambodia, she worked as a technical consultant for the illegal wildlife trade of Fauna and Flora International in the UK, and as a liaison officer in Mozambique. For the Wildlife Conservation Association based in the United States. In 2018, she won the prestigious Natural Future Award for her work in combating the illegal wildlife trade.
Hong Hoang, founder and executive director of the Vietnamese NGO CHANGE, said that people like Trang are rare in Vietnam.
In 2012, Trang Nguyen took a group photo at a rhino conservation seminar held with the local community in Ol Pejeta Reserve, Kenya [Samuel Mbogo/Courtesy of Nguyen Trang]She met Trang for the first time because Trang was a teenager and he volunteered to participate in a project organized by Hong’s former employer, the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF). The two kept in touch, and occasionally met in the small world of Vietnamese environmental activists.
For CHANGE’s research, Hong also relied on conservationists’ expertise in animal research to help her identify the captured animals she encountered in social media or news articles.
Hong is a pioneer and outstanding voice of climate movement. He has more than two decades of experience. He said there has been a “snowball effect” and young people are becoming more and more interested in environmental issues.
The government is also paying more attention than ever to reduce the risk of people raising their concerns in a country that can hardly tolerate dissent.
“I have to admit that the government is increasingly concerned about environmental issues,” she said, adding that the international community and social media have exerted pressure and users have expressed their awareness of the impact of air pollution and other issues. Their health, work and economy.
Nevertheless, Hong believes that there is still a long way to go.
“I don’t think it’s level enough to build a strong movement among 98 million people,” she said. “I hope that Vietnam will have more people like Trang and provide more opportunities for young people in conservation and wildlife affairs.”
In August, police in the north-central province of Nghe’an rescued 17 adult tigers from a locked, dirty basement as part of an illegal breeding operation. A few days ago, in the same province, two men were arrested after finding seven live tiger cubs in their car.
Trang said that in the same week of the seizure, Kenyan scientists succeeded in creating embryos to rescue the functionally extinct northern white rhino.
“This is good news, but in a perfect world without poaching-this species does not need human help to’survive’,” she said.
“Similarly, these tigers should not be kept in cages, but the seizures give us hope because it shows that the successful cooperation between the authorities and NGOs has solved the problem.”
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