Removing the Risk of Wildlife Smuggling from Malaysia’s International Mail Service
Southeast Asia plays a key role in wild species trafficking, functioning as a source, transit point and consumer market for a variety of wild species, their parts, products and derivatives. Traffickers exploit the country's postal services, with seizures of illegal shipments involving domestic and international routes.
TRAFFIC's efforts centered on Malaysia, a significant wildlife trade hub in Southeast Asia, with a focus on post and courier services. The project aimed to disrupt a common smuggling pathway, preventing illegal wild species from being moved within Malaysia and across international borders. Strategies included strengthening postal and courier service providers' capacity, and improving cooperation among them, to better detect and intercept wild species contraband among the millions of packages they process daily.
A prime target for traffickers
Malaysia's central location in Southeast Asia, coupled with its extensive transportation infrastructure, makes it a prime target for traffickers. They use a variety of methods, including domestic international postal services, to move live wild species, their parts and products.
Identifying and intercepting illegal trade
Efforts to combat wild species trafficking through Malaysia's postal services include strengthening the capacity of the industry's employees to identify and intercept illegal wild species shipments. This involved training programmes to raise awareness of wildlife crime among postal and courier staff and engagements to foster collaboration among key stakeholders, including Pos Malaysia, other courier service providers and enforcement agencies to enhance detection and interdiction of wildlife contraband. Additionally, the project will address data recording and tracking deficiencies to better monitor trends and improve enforcement responses.
PROJECT IMPACT
10-FOLD INCREASE
in the number of detections of parcels containing wildlife (i.e. detecting wildlife trafficking incidences) from the time the project started in 2019 until July 2023.
empowering Malaysia’s largest postal sector
to embrace tackling wildlife crime as part of doing business, and institutionalising materials to inform and educate staff as part of their induction process
Materials for postal and courier organisations
These reference and identification guides, awareness raising materials, and introductory videos were prepared for postal staff in Malaysia, but can be used as guidance and inspiration for similar staff in other regions.
Awareness raising materials
Identification and best practice guides
