Farmed or Poached? The trade of live Indonesian Bird Species in the Philippines

A new TRAFFIC study recorded more than 800 Indonesian birds¹ for sale online in the Philippines between January 2018 and December 2019.

Since the survey, all 20 of the original groups have been deactivated by Facebook, but surveillance by the authors in January 2022 found 144 new active groups offering various Indonesian species for sale, which continues to date.

Almost 1,300 Indonesian birds of at least 28 species were also confiscated from illegal trade in the Philippines between 2010 and 2020, according to the report Farmed or Poached? The trade of live Indonesian Bird Species in the Philippines.

Scrutiny of international trade records uncovered discrepancies: a majority of the Indonesian bird species listed on CITES² exported from the Philippines had questionable or no records of legal import into the Philippines.

The records show that the Philippines had severely underreported their imports of Indonesian bird species compared to the numbers reported by exporters. In some cases, the export of Indonesian birds from the Philippines took place before the first reported legal importation.

Indonesia’s wild birds are already at risk from poaching and the international bird trade. This triple threat of easy availability online, smuggling and doubtful legal trade in the Philippines adds even more pressure."

Serene Chng, TRAFFIC programme officerChng said stronger enforcement in the Philippines and collaboration with Indonesian counterparts to investigate and disrupt cross-border wildlife crime networks could prevent this problem from escalating.

Indonesian parrots and cockatoos – especially species found only in the biodiversity hotspots of Wallacea³ and Papua – featured prominently in Philippine online trade, imports and exports, and seizures.

For instance, 21 of the 25 species seen in online trade were parrots and cockatoos. All are regulated by CITES, including five CITES Appendix I species. A listing in Appendix I means a species is prohibited from international commercial trade.

The report’s co-author Emerson Sy said that in addition to direct sale to buyers, wild-caught smuggled birds are known to be laundered into the legal trade streams, often through Philippine captive breeding facilities.

“This is why we have recommended authorities conduct regular, thorough physical checks and document audits of all registered keepers and breeders of Indonesian wildlife in the Philippines,’ Sy explained.

To stem the problem of illegal exports, the report’s authors have urged the Philippines to ensure that export permits are granted only for legally obtained CITES-listed specimens, and the CITES Secretariat is notified of all registered operations that breed and export CITES Appendix I species.

To combat smuggling, the authors recommend that enforcement efforts be focused on central Luzon, where sellers are concentrated, and southeastern Mindanao, where traffickers transit to transport smuggled Indonesian wildlife.

Sy added that establishing regional information-sharing systems such as the Trade in Wildlife Information eXchange (TWIX) will encourage closer communications and enable impactful cross-border law enforcement action. It could also facilitate the quick return of seized Indonesian bird species to their natural habitat.

As the online trade is a recurring issue, the study also calls for enhanced monitoring of illegal wildlife trade on Facebook, coupled with stern action against those who violate the platform’s policies, explicitly suspending or deactivating individual accounts, permanently shutting down groups involved in illegal wildlife trade, and holding administrators of such groups accountable.