Wildlife trade, CITES and the protection of marine molluscs in Indonesia

ABSTRACT

Indonesia is a significant trader in marine molluscs and has a comprehensive legislative framework in place to protect and use molluscs sustainably. The recent inclusion of nautilus in Appendix II of CITES and the general lack of understanding of the level of protection and regulation Indonesia's marine molluscs receive necessitates a review of current laws and agreements. The most relevant are two legally binding international agreements, CITES and the CBD, and Law No 5, and Regulations 8 and 20, dealing with protection, preservation and exploration, respectively. Over the last 30 years, 12 species of mollusc have been legally protected in Indonesia and 7 are included in CITES Appendix II. Species that are not protected can be traded, provided quotas have been set for their commercial exploitation. Seizure data suggest that the illegal trade is considerable – on average almost 10,000 shells/year are confiscated. Seizures do not lead to prosecutions. It is recommended that (a) those involved in the trade of Indonesian marine molluscs need to familiarise themselves better with current legislation and regulation, (b) monitoring of domestic and international trade in marine molluscs needs to be better coordinated and intensified and (c) prosecutions for those trading illegally in marine molluscs need to increase.

KEYWORDS:

• Cassis cornuta
• conservation
• CBD
• CITES
• Ramsar Convention
• natural resource management
• Nautilus pompilius
• Tectus niloticus
• wildlife trade

Acknowledgements

I thank the Mohamed bin Zayed Species Conservation Fund and Cleveland Metroparks Zoo for funding this research through the Little Fireface Project. I thank Holly Booth, Kanitha Krishnasamy, Efin Muttaqin, Anna Nekaris, Chris Shepherd and several others who wished to remain anonymous for feedback on successful prosecutions, and two anonymous reviewers and the associate editor for constructive comments and suggestions for improvement.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

ORCID

Vincent Nijman http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5600-4276

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Little Fireface Project.