By Karen Fredericks
SYDNEY — An attempt by the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) to prevent distribution of a book on wildlife smuggling has been defeated. The book details involvement of NPWS officers in the illegal international trade in Australian animals.
The author of Smuggled: The underground trade in Australia's Wildlife, reptile expert Raymond Hoser, told Â鶹´«Ã½ Weekly that the NSW minister for the environment, Chris Hartcher, was approached by officers from within his department, by civil libertarians, by the Australian Society of Authors and by federal politicians following a report on the so-called "banning" of the book by the NPWS on the NSW edition of the ABC's 7.30 Report on June 21. On June 22 Hartcher directed the NPWS to cease its activities against the book and to withdraw threats of legal action.
In Smuggled Hoser has assembled evidence of a vast international trade in rare and endangered Australian wildlife, worth tens of millions, and perhaps hundreds of millions, of dollars each year, including detailed evidence of the involvement of state wildlife authorities, Australian customs officials and commercial airlines.
He points out that the 20 "small-time" smugglers who are arrested for wildlife smuggling in Australia each year, often for offences involving two or three animals, are only a fraction of the problem. To see the real scale, he says, one need only look at the huge numbers of Australian species constantly offered for sale in wildlife dealers' catalogues in the US, Japan and Europe.
With Australian birds and reptiles in these catalogues listed at prices in the thousands, and sometimes tens of thousands, of dollars, it becomes clear that there are some very organised forces behind the trade who are not being apprehended by the authorities.
Until 1984 Hoser kept reptiles in NSW for research
purposes and for a snake venom business. He says that his premises were raided on several occasions by people he believes were wildlife traffickers, including NPWS and other government officers, and his animals stolen. Some later appeared for sale in the US. This type of occurrence, he says, is not uncommon, because it is easier to steal from breeders and keepers than it is to trap animals in the wild. For this reason, many NSW enthusiasts do not register their animals with the authorities.
Hoser believes the form of the, now lifted, "ban" on his book is unique in Australian publishing history. "But then", he adds, "the methods of the NPWS are often unique".
On May 27 the NPWS faxed and phoned all major book stores across Australia, advising them to remove the book from their shelves because the service considered it defamatory and was beginning legal action.
Â鶹´«Ã½ has been provided with a copy of a fax dated May 28 addressed to Angus and Robertson Bookworld stores from the chain's general manager, repeating the NPWS claim that the book is "defamatory" and directing that all stock of the book "must be withdrawn from sale immediately". Hoser says that this is typical of the response from major booksellers, including Dymocks and Collins, despite the fact that a government department has no standing to sue for defamation under NSW law.
Hoser says three lawyers checked the manuscript for material which could give rise to defamation suits by individuals, and all such material was removed before publication. "All the material in the book can be substantiated from a number of sources and most of the allegations in the book have been aired previously", he says.
Following withdrawal of the threat of legal action by the NPWS, booksellers have reinstated their orders for the book. The initial print run of 3000 copies has already sold out.
Hoser has attempted to have the NPWS corruption alleged in Smuggled investigated at both state
and federal levels. A federal parliamentary inquiry has been announced but, contrary to statements by NSW environment minister Hartcher in the Sydney Morning Herald on June 23, claiming that the federal parliament had found "no evidence to support [Hoser's] claims", this inquiry has not yet begun.
In reply to a request for investigation by the NSW Independent Commission of Inquiry into Corruption (ICAC), Hoser received a letter, dated June 6, advising him that its operation review committee had decided not to investigate the matter. Hartcher has said he would be "surprised" if any of the parks service officers were involved in the alleged smuggling, but has asked, again, that the ICAC investigate the claims.