Forensic Training in Kuala Lumpur
WCU (Wildlife Crime Unit) staff followed Forensic Training in Kuala Lumpur (Wildlife and National Park Department Office) at 1-6 August 2010. Director General of Wildlife and National Park, Malaysia opened training, accompanied by TRAFFIC South East Asia Director and ASEAN WEN Program Coordinator Unit. Aim of the meeting is increasing skill of forensic, especially implementation forensic on wildlife enforcement and identification of product/derivative from wildlife.
Participants are came from South East Asia country; Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Cambodia, Myanmar, Thailand, Lao, and Vietnam. Indonesia was represented by 4 delegations from PHKA, LIPI, Eijkman Institute, and WCS. WCS is single representative from NGO on that training. Participant background came from police, forest guard, and forestry staff. This training divided into lecture presentation and practical.
TRACE introduces forensic tool to help police to investigate and find strong evidence on wildlife crime. Lecture introduced sample kit contains evidence bag, sample tubs, swab tube, knife, and water tub as standard kit to collect DNA sample from the field. Lecture with participant simulated DNA sampling from blood in suspected car to proven that the blood come from illegal hunting of protected species. Another simulation, lecture tried to linked case from owner of bear bile derivative with zoo owner and manager. The message is how to catch pieces of evidence into whole crime. Each participant got 1 sample kit. This kit is easy to use, easy to replace, and very useful when we want to collect DNA sample in the field without bring big sample. It is good idea to share sample kit as standard kit for Indonesian investigator to collect DNA evidence in wildlife crime scene.
TRAFFIC, as usual, presented wildlife trade in South East Asia. Parrot trade, tortoise, freshwater turtle, ivory trade under ETIS monitor, and massive pangolin trade are key topics on TRAFFIC presentation. In practical room, Chris and colleague presented how to identify cat’s skull, how to identify fake ivory and tiger skin, deer antler, and various teethes. In this session, WCS added information of fake tiger skin and ivory identification.
Forensic forum has been established in the training to share information between country delegations related on wildlife crime. This forum will be used to learn how far forensic application will be implemented to help wildlife crime case in South East Asia. In Indonesia, LIPI and Eijkman lab are available for forensic test. Based on work experience with LIPI, internal competition, credible staff that work on lab, and high cost are big constrains to use LIPI forensic facility. Eijkman is good relatively, with professional expert and cheap for DNA test. (dna)[mappress]
