Blog

COVID-19: A catastrophe or opportunity for pangolin conservation?

By Charles Emogor

This blog was originally published on the PBS Nature website here.

Charles Emogor and his PhD study species, the Endangered white-bellied pangolin (Phataginus tricuspis). Photo credit: Charles Emogor.

Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, pangolins have been making headlines. These shy, quirky but cute mammals are one of the most heavily trafficked yet least understood animals in the world.

The sad plight that pangolins are facing and the love I’ve had for them since childhood are the main reasons I decided to study them for my PhD. During my first field trip (before the pandemic started), I was lucky enough to see my first live pangolin after almost two decades of dreaming of that moment!

With my fieldwork suspended for now, I’ve been reflecting on how this crisis could impact the future conservation of pangolins and other threatened wildlife.

I haven’t always studied pangolins. In my early conservation days, I was granted an internship by the Conservation Leadership Programme (CLP) to work with the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) in Nigeria on a project focused on saving the Critically Endangered Cross River gorilla.

This subspecies is so rare that in two years of fieldwork, I never saw a single gorilla – although I found a lot of nests and dung. Although my research has recently shifted from gorillas to pangolins, this hasn’t stopped me from keeping a close eye on how COVID-19 is affecting vulnerable African great apes.

When I found out about my CLP internship, I felt overjoyed. Since then, one of the few experiences equalling that feeling of excitement was seeing my first live pangolin. He was an extremely shy white-bellied pangolin (Phataginus tricuspis – EN) that I named Abacus.

As part of my PhD project, we have fitted Abacus and three other pangolins with VHF (Very High Frequency) transmitters so we can monitor them closely and gather data on their home range size and occupancy in Nigeria’s Cross River National Park. Just as we begin this vital fact-finding mission, we couldn’t have been happier to hear that CLP has granted us a $15,000 Team Award to help us implement the project!

Abacus: a male white-bellied pangolin (Phataginus tricuspis), weighing approximately 1.95 kg, tagged with VHF transmitters as part of Charles Emogor’s PhD research.

When I first heard the news that pangolins could be linked to the coronavirus outbreak, I initially panicked and felt overwhelmed. I thought about the fate of Abacus and the other tagged pangolins—would they be killed in retaliation by hostile humans or those people with a misplaced urge to curb the spread of the disease?

Then I started to notice a paucity of evidence indicating that pangolins are responsible for the outbreak. Nonetheless, there is evidence suggesting that they are natural carriers of coronaviruses, which are similar to SARS-CoV-2 (the coronavirus causing COVID-19, first identified in a so-called ‘wet’ market in Wuhan, China).

Research also suggests that pangolins might have acted as an intermediary in the spread of the virus. Unfortunately, we might never get a clearer picture of the situation as the markets at the epicentre of the outbreak were shut down by the Chinese government for health reasons.

Whether or not scientists manage to identify the origin and dynamics of COVID-19, we can build on the abundance of available evidence showing that wildlife markets are continually posing danger to human health and well-being. This alone should be a compelling enough reason for us to act now to prevent future outbreaks.

Indeed, many conservationists and organisations have already started calling for a ban on the trade of wildlife for consumption. Although banning the commercial wildlife trade might prove critical in curbing future zoonotic pandemics, it is essential that any ban consider cultural and socioeconomic implications related to the traditions and food security needs of local people.

With projected challenges in enforcing ban regulations, the consumption and trade of wildlife is a globally widespread and complex issue, which almost certainly requires a careful response at the national level at a minimum and more complex global policy protocols to the extent possible.

A meeting with a group of local hunters in one of the communities surrounding the Cross River National Park in Nigeria. Photo credit: Charles Emogor.

Lately, I have become more optimistic that the crisis might be beneficial to pangolin conservation. I’m hoping that more funding will become available for pangolin conservation and research, which will throw more light on the dynamics of their illegal trade and ultimately curb the decline of pangolins.

Furthermore, there is the possibility that the demand for pangolin meat will decrease – as already observed in Gabon – and lead to less killing by local hunters. Nevertheless, we should continue to push for a complete ban on the hunting and trade of pangolins and the active enforcement of bans already in place in numerous countries, including Nigeria.

In the meantime, there have been encouraging examples of authorities taking action against pangolin trafficking. The Chinese government, for example, has recently removed pangolin scales from the list of approved ingredients for traditional medicines, after the protected status of pangolins was raised to the highest level in China.

From wanton trafficking to being the suspected cause of thousands of deaths worldwide, pangolins have always found themselves in situations they did not bargain for. But while we watch the current plot twist play out, we can take solace in knowing that this crisis has resulted in increased awareness about the conservation status of pangolins and has already started prompting actions at national levels.

I am indeed privileged to be contributing towards saving these vulnerable animals from extinction. As I count my blessings from my internship days, I am grateful to those individuals and institutions that have played critical roles along my journey up to this point.

About the author

Charles Emogor is a first-year PhD student at the University of Cambridge, supervised by Professor Andrew Balmford in the Department of Zoology. His research focuses on understanding the ecology of the white-bellied pangolin and carrying out conservation education and outreach among local communities in the Cross River National Park, Nigeria. Charles attained a BSc in Forestry and Wildlife Management from the Cross River University of Technology, Nigeria, and an MSc in Biodiversity, Conservation and Management at the University of Oxford. He also holds a post-graduate diploma in Endangered Species Management from the University of Kent and is interested in tropical ecology and conservation.

Empowering women in conservation

By Trang Nguyen, founder and Executive Director of WildAct

As a woman working in wildlife conservation in Vietnam, it may (or may not) be surprising to hear that I have experienced gender inequality in the workplace. I had brushed it aside in the past as there was always “something more important to do.” Until last year, when another woman working in conservation told me something so shocking that I decided to take action through WildAct, an NGO I founded in 2015.

WildAct has started a new programme this year called Empowering Women in Conservation. As I describe below, the programme aims to protect female conservationists in Vietnam from Sexual and Gender-Based Violence (SGBV), which can be defined as any act that is perpetrated against a person’s will based on gender norms and unequal power relationships. 

Trang Nguyen, founder and Executive Director of WildAct, in Cambodia during her CLP internship in 2014. Photo credit: Trang Nguyen.

 

First, let me describe my journey up to this point. Growing up in Vietnam, I witnessed the terrible harm done to animals for the illegal wildlife trade and I swore I would do everything I could to protect them. One of my earliest steps towards this goal was my CLP internship with FFI’s Cambodia Programme: Marine, Flagship Species and the University Capacity Building Project in 2014.

During my internship, I became passionate about changing people’s attitudes and behaviours towards wildlife, so I founded WildAct, an NGO based in Hanoi, Vietnam.

One of WildAct’s first major activities was to deliver two short-courses, Combating the Illegal Wildlife Trade and Captive Animal Welfare, in collaboration with the University of Vinh. These courses are offered to Vietnamese Masters students and early-career conservationists, as well as to graduates in other fields who are thinking about pursuing a career in wildlife conservation.

The six-week courses involve two weeks of lectures, as well as a four-week placement at an NGO or a research institute focusing on a conservation issue in Vietnam. Many of our trainees have secured full-time jobs within Vietnam’s conservation sector.

Although the success of our trainees was fantastic news for conservation, it was later distressing to learn that some of them have been suffering from different degrees of Sexual and Gender-Based Violence (SGBV) in the workplace—mostly while doing fieldwork, but even in the office. As soon as I heard about this, I decided that WildAct must do something to help.

Gender-based violence in conservation

It all started when one of our graduates told me she had experienced sexual harassment while working in the field for the first time. She mentioned it to her colleagues, but they shrugged it off as normal behaviour that was to be expected. Finding no support from her peers, she was considering quitting her dream career in conservation just as it was starting.

To hear this was really concerning. Was WildAct encouraging young women to work in a sector where they would be unsafe? I felt we had to support them and provide a safer and better working environment. So, this year, we kick-started the new Empowering Women in Conservation programme to support female conservationists and benefit both Vietnamese and foreign colleagues.

However, this is a very new topic in Vietnam. As yet, no organisation has performed any research into the working environment for female conservationists in our country. Added to this, all of us at WildAct are biologists with no experience in dealing with gender-related issues in the workplace.

After a few months of writing to different organisations and bodies both within and outside Vietnam, including several embassies, we finally had a breakthrough. We were introduced to CARE Vietnam, whose aims include ending SGBV against women in ethnic minority groups and those who work in agriculture.

A female volunteer for WildAct holding the organisation’s badge. Photo credit: Trang Nguyen.

 

Supporting female conservationists in Vietnam

In collaboration with CARE, and supported by the Alongside Wildlife Foundation and the J. van Walraven Fund, our new Empowering Women in Conservation programme includes the following activities:

  • Conducting surveys with both males and females working in the field in Vietnam to understand more about the situations and contexts in which SGBV occurs.
  • Designing a series of workshops for both men and women working in conservation to raise awareness about SGBV, and provide advice on preventive measures and how to support colleagues who are experiencing SGBV.
  • Inviting NGOs and government bodies to review their own policies regarding sexual harassment in the workplace. This means defining the term and the type of behaviour involved, as well as defining ‘workplace’ in a way that includes fieldwork.
  • Collaborating with other NGOs and government bodies to produce guidelines focused on SGBV prevention that considers the complex social and cultural context in Vietnam, while ensuring these policies are not ignored.

We also aim to create a Women in Wildlife Conservation Network in Vietnam, where women can share experiences and give each other support and advice. Along with this, we will establish a telephone hotline that women can use to report SGBV and receive help from professionals.

Building a better future for women in conservation

I used to believe that the long-term protection of threatened species was almost entirely dependent on increasing conservation capacity. Now I realize that this is only laying the foundations, and that a myriad of other factors make up the bricks and mortar. Without adequately protecting the conservationists we train, all of the work by WildAct and that of other capacity-building initiatives will be in vain. We hope our actions to support women in Vietnam will encourage more NGOs in other countries to do the same, so we can continue to empower the conservation leaders that will ultimately help save our planet’s precious wildlife.

About the author

Trang is a truly inspiring early-career conservation leader in Vietnam. In addition to being a member of the CLP Alumni Network, Trang has an MPhil in Conservation Leadership & Management and a PhD in Biodiversity Management. She is the founder and Executive Director of WildAct and was recently listed in the Forbes Asia 30Under30 – Social Entrepreneurs 2020.