Colleagues from the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI), led by our collaborator, Dr R Taufiq Purna Nugraha, are working to characertise and value the harm caused by illegal wildlife trade cases. Building the WILDS framework, they are now populating this with data related to specific illegal wildlife trade cases in Indonesia. This includes, for example, calculating the costs of rehabilitating orang-utan rescued from trade, documenting the costs of DNA tests required when investigating IWT cases, as well as characterising the non-financial social costs associated with harm to endangered species.
LIPI reports directly to the President of the Republic of Indonesia, and is responsibel for organizing research and development, providing guidance and services in science and technology, and advising the government on national science and technology policy. LIPI scientists regularly serve as experts to the government on illegal wildlife trade cases. Drawing the our work, they will now be able to better present to the government the financial and non-financial impacts of the IWT.
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