Five years ago, a study in Hanoi by TRAFFIC, a joint program of the World Conservation Union and World Wildlife Fund for monitoring wildlife trade, showed that 66 percent of people who ate wild animals and wore jewelry made from their remains are State employees and business leaders.

Tran Duc Nham, a senior official from the Central Committee for Training and Propaganda, told Tuoi Tre Chu Nhat magazine that officials and business people are the ones who use wildlife products most.

As of June 2010, Vietnam took its first step to prevent this group from using wildlife products through a Central Committee for Training and Propaganda instruction that asked “Party cells at all levels to instruct the political system and the social community to perform sustainable consumption of wildlife products.” The program focuses on “high-ranking officials and business leaders.”

“It is quite late to launch this program because many species of wildlife have disappeared, but it is better late than never,” Nham observed.

The Central Committee for Training and Propaganda’s instruction included articles that “ban” officials, Communist Party member and state employees from eating and using products from wild animals.

Is it too late?

According to TRAFFIC, many species of wild animals are traded, slaughtered for meat or to make jewelry and souvenirs, or bred as ornamental animals in Vietnam, ranging from sea turtles to monkeys, snakes, iguanas, elephants, bears, tigers, etc.

Nearly 50 Hanoians who joined the TRAFFIC survey admitted they used products from wild animals like meat, bear gall, tiger bone glue, etc. because they are “good for health”. For officials and business people, using products from wild animals is considered as symbolic of their “position”.

According to TRAFFIC, wild animals are not for the poor because up to 57 percent of the people who used wildlife products had monthly incomes of up to 5 million dong (in 2005). Only four percent of people who earned less than 500,000 dong a month “enjoyed” wild animal products, mainly being invited to use them.

Besides TRAFFIC, many organizations have warned of the rapid reduction of wild animals in Vietnam and they know the subjects for their campaigns.

Since 2008, WWF has called for 160 restaurants in Hanoi, 150 in Nam Dinh and some on Cat Ba island (Hai Phong) to take part in its “Green Restaurant” campaign, under which these restaurants committed to not sell products from wild animals.

“We have only had access to restaurants that use various materials. It is very difficult to approach restaurants that only sell wild animals as ‘specialties’. This program is only a bridge spanning to the authorities,” noted a WWF staff member in charge of “Green Restaurant” campaign.

According to the Central Committee for Training and Propaganda’s instruction, Party members and officials must be pioneers in not illegally using or trading products from wild animals. They are allowed to “trade and consume wild animals and products from wild animals at the level of “not causing threats to the existence and development of wild animals in nature.”

However, Nham remarked that, due to the lack of sanctions against users, it is unable to “ban” party members, officials and business people from using wildlife products altogether.

The instruction doesn’t suggest any form of penalty, and Nham says this omission will make it difficult to alter behaviour.