WWF-Sarawak hopes to work with the judiciary to develop guidelines on sentencing for wildlife crimes.

Head of conservation Jason Hon said discussions with judges are in the exploratory phase and the signs are encouraging.

“We have spoken to the judges. We have met up with the previous chief judge of Sabah and Sarawak and he is very open to the idea,” Hon told reporters in Kuching today.

The WWF will use its experience in Sabah to develop guidelines for Sarawak.

The guidelines will help judges determine what constitutes serious wildlife crimes and how they harm the state’s natural resources and biodiversity.

Hon said the sentencing guideline is not something new because it is already applied and used in Sabah courts.

Similar guidelines are also used in the courts other countries, such as the United Kingdom.

Hon said it was time to update the state’s Wildlife Protection Ordinance, a 22-year-old piece of legislation.

Things have changed over time and technological advances have made the law obsolete and toothless in handling wildlife crimes committed with the use of the social media, he said.

“When it was crafted 20 years ago, nobody actually foresaw that social media would play a big role in the sale of wildlife.

“Facebook, Instagram, a lot of them are being used in the illegal wildlife trade.”

Hon also said the punishment of some crimes has to be reviewed as well, because current penalties are inadequate as a deterrent.

Today, the owner of a boat and one of his crewmen were each sentenced by a Bintulu Sessions Court to a year in prison and fined RM1.4 million for possession of 146 pangolins without a valid license.

The threatened pangolin, a prized mammal in Asia’s illegal wildlife trade, is a protected species on Sarawak’s Wildlife Protection Ordinance 1998. – January 15, 2020.