LU4 – Wildlife Management in Parks

Lecture 8
Law Enforcement and
Local Community

STH3324 Park and Wildlife Management Semester II 2020/2021

Role of Park Manager
• Is a gazetted officer to enforce the ordinances.

• Protect and conserve the protected areas.

Ø Prepare conservation plan.
Ø Prepare budget.

• Manage tourism.
Ø Ensure activities have no negative impact on the ecological integrity.
Ø Carrying capacity.
Ø Provide interpretation.
Ø Maintenance of facilities.

• Administrative work.
Ø Revenue collection.
Ø Staff movement.
Ø Meetings, delegation and division of tasks, etc.
Law Enforcement
• A necessary management tool in assuring the protection of
visitors, lands and facilities.
• Legal provisions
Ø What are the relevant laws available for enforcement.

Ø Who can enforce such laws?

— Only gazette officer (Section 3 WPO)

Ø Procedure in law enforcement?

— Power to Compound
— Law of arrest (Section 45 of WPO)
— Search and seizure (Section 48 of WPO)
— Law of evidence.
— Investigation Paper (IP)
— Investigation Officer (IO)
— Prosecution (Section 52 of WPO)
Law Enforcement (continue)

• Relationship between law enforcement and management

objectives
Ø Law enforcement is truly the management of people (i.e. enforcer is the
ultimate people manager).

Ø Enforcement is one of many possible strategies for the protection and

conservation of protected areas.

Ø A conservation strategy for certain species that require immediate

attention, i.e. threat must be eliminated or reduced.
Strict Enforcement
Advantages or Benefits
• Clear cut legislation and
responsibility/jurisdiction provided by the
law.
• Serve as preventive deterrent.
• Some species need immediate attention
(e.g. rhinoceros and gorilla in Africa)
• Some cases the effect and results are
immediate (e.g. illegal logging, etc)
• When professionally executed, social needs
and aspiration of people is not relevant. It
is of secondary important whereby
protecting the wildlife or habitat is priority.
Disadvantages
• Need a lot of manpower
• Some protected areas too large making
frequent patrolling impossible
• Costly (T&T claim, vehicle, equipment,
etc)
• Must be intensive and conducted on
regular basis. Any slack will have
negative effects.
• Higher degree of conflict with local
community.
• Sometimes not effective especially when
dealing with local communities.
• Lengthy process of prosecution.
• Some species move across borders that
requires biological/ecosystem approach
rather strict legal means. (E.g. turtle,
whales, etc)
Law enforcement
Depreciative behavior such as nuisance acts, improper waste
disposal to serious legal violations, is a serious problem in a
park. Crimes are more likely to occur;

• In a developed area.
• Near an urban atmosphere.
• At a well-attended facility.
• On weekends.
• Between 8pm to midnight.
• Peak season.
Law enforcement
• Law enforcement can be handled in four
ways;
• Recreation area employees carry out all law
enforcement duties. He must be gazetted to
carry out the agency’s legislative authority.
• A separate police force created by the
agency.
• Left to the traditional law enforcement
department i.e. Police Department.
• Park and Police share duties.
Enforcement psychology

• The public regards the park employee as persons in

authority.
• A ranger in uniform may be regarded as a positive
presence.
• An extremely visible law enforcement presence may better
deter crime while the officer is present.
• Public relations are a very important factor in a successful
enforcement program.
• The ranger must realize that people are not perfect and
will violate regulations. Every effort should be made to
remain objective and impartial in dealing with park
visitors.
Case study of successful/failure of enforcement
effort
Example 1 — Sales of wild meat in restaurant
• Intensive enforcement from the SWMP Implementation
Unit.
• Regular checks. There is no wild meat sold in council
markets.

Example 2 — edible bird’s nest management

• Total ban versus sustainable co-management.
• Large amount of money spent when Field Force was
deployed, yet not effective.
Involvement of Local Communities

• Over the past decades, conservationists accept the fact and

reality that in order for effective protection of
species/habitat and ensuring their survival, local
communities must be involved.

• Conservation efforts will fail if they don’t feel they owned,

or benefited from the species.
Ø Empowerment and sense of involvement is upmost important.

• Community-based conservation initiatives is the

mainstream.
Examples of Co-management Model
Sustainable Bird’s Nest Co-management at Niah National
Park
• Sound understanding of the science behind the ecology and breeding
biology.

• Sustainable harvesting plan prepared based on scientific data, and

consultation with stakeholders.

• Co-management versus strict enforcement.

Ø The story of total ban of harvesting from 1993 – 1996. Various challenges.
Ø After 1996, management were transferred to the Bird’s Nest
Entrepreneur Association. But this initiatives also fail.
Ø DANIDA/SWMPI project to spearhead the new sustainable harvesting
plan.

• Success
Ø Swiflet population increase. Nest production also inrease.
Examples of Co-management Model
Fishery Management at Logan Bunut & Maludam National
Park.
• The Berawan communities have depended on the fishery resources in
the past in LBNP.

• Invasion of exotic species LBNP

Ø Kissing Gourami (Helostoma themminckii).
Ø African catfish (Clarias gariepinus)
Ø Lampan Jawa (Barbodes gonionotus)

• Threats
Ø Over-fishing. Unsustainable fishing methods
Ø Easy access and increase in market demand.
Ø Polluted water (i.e. with high suspended solid from erosion up river)
draining into the loagan.
Ø Land development up-river is changing the storage capacity of the
catchment area — the loagan is drying up more often
Fishery Management at Logan Bunut National Park (continue)

• The fishery co-management was introduced under the initiative of the

UNDP/GEF-funded project.

• Measures taken:
Ø Only legitimate Berawan people from Rh. Kajan or Rh. Meran are
allowed to fish.

Ø A committee was established. Self-regulatory.

Ø Restriction on the fishing methods. Push-net is not allowed.

Ø They can only fish when the water in the lake is high. A “totam”
pole has been erected in the middle of the lake for this purpose.
 25 1800

Species
1600
Effort
20
1400

1200
Species richness

15

Tarp nights
1000

800
10
600

400
5

200

0 0
LHNP (Mohd LEWS (Mohd LBNP (Mohd. KNP (Mohd MNP (Mohd ACACIA
Azlan and Azlan, Azlan et al., Azlan et al., Azlan, 2004) (Belden et al.,
Lading 2006) Unpub.) 2004) 2007) 2007)
Sites

Species richness of terrestrial medium to large mammal in a secured non protected area
is relatively higher when compared to many totally protected areas in Sarawak.
The need for wildlife conservation in disturbed habitat should not
be ignored as there are potentially viable populations of some
mammal species.

STH3043 Park and Wildlife Management Semester II 2015/2016

Recommendations

• increased staffs and regular patrol within TPA should be given high
priority (Gumal, 2007).

• longer logging rotation cycles with fixed annual coupe

• preservation of forest remnants in plantations (Belden et al, 2007)

• New criteria for reserve selection based on basic principles of

systematic conservation planning are critically needed to maximize
conservation gains and priorities (Nicholson et al., 2006; Pressey,
2004; Pressey et al., 2007)
ex. to understand the minimum area of forest needed to protect
maximum number of species in Sarawak

• Pre-existing cropland and ecologically unproductive lands should be

considered for oil palm plantation where conversion of primary and
old secondary forest should be stopped (Koh and Wilcove, 2008).
Recommendations
• Geospatial and land tenure analysis on the land availability to
link Totally Protected Areas in Sarawak

This will lead to better understanding the viability corridors

between protected areas. Additionally park boundary extensions
should be encouraged as this could dampen some effects of
fragmentation

•Strategies for harmonising legislation between protected areas

and surrounding anthropogenic landscapes { Malaysia (Sarawak
and Sabah), Brunei, and Indonesia (Kalimantan)} are urgently
needed.

The three countries need to urgently pursue the establishment of

the recently committed Heart of Borneo Initiative (HoB), which
seeks to connect 22 parks and reserves into a continuous 24
million ha transboundary conservation area (WWF, 2005).
 Future research
• Based on current information reserve selection algorithms can be
used to determine whether the current reserves are appropriately
sited to conserve diversity.

• Using survivorship statistics (Kaplan-Meier) to species

accumulation trends from sites that are well collected to
determine if species saturation has been achieved and how many
more species are likely to be encountered if collecting continues
at current levels.

• Collate IUCN data for Sarawak and overlay this on present data
to determine congruence of international and national
perspectives on conservation and reserve selection priorities.

• Highlight the value of conserving secondary forest for conserving

biodiversity - i.e., say clearly what proportion of the total
biodiversity is conserved in secondary forests of different quality.
‘WE DO NOT INHERIT FOREST FROM OUR FOREFATHERS. WE BORROW IT
FROM FUTURE GENERATIONS’

TERIMA KASIH

STH3043 Park and Wildlife Management Semester II 2015/2016