In Indonesia, lizard-hunting feeds families – and China’s traditional medicine industry (2024)

CIREBON, West Java: Armed with headlamps, pails and thin wooden sticks, Mr Dody Hermawan and his colleagues embark on a mission most nights around the villages of West and Central Java.

As they move from house to house, they are typically met by residents glad to be rid of a source of annoyance.

Mr Dody, 42, and his colleagues are house lizard hunters.

Using sticks about two metres long with glue applied at the tip, they nimbly stab the reptiles, then gently remove them from the stick and place them in the buckets.

On a good night, each hunter could catch about 400 lizards in eight hours – double the usual amount – especially if it has just rained and there are more insects for the lizards to feast on.

“It all started when my older brother gave me the task of finding house lizards because he sold them,” said Mr Dody, who started the job about 12 years ago.

“Initially, nobody wanted to go lizard hunting as people did not believe it could make money.”

Mr Dody proved that it could. He caught about 100 lizards per night in his first few days and sold them for IDR150,000 (US$9) to his brother, who then sold them to a businessman exporting them to China for traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) purposes.

The amount was quite significant at the time, as the cost of living in his village of Kertasura, in West Java’s Cirebon regency, was low compared to cities like Jakarta or Bandung.

As more people noticed him going about his work and saw that lizards were in demand, “slowly they started to join”, said Mr Dody.

Now, dozens among the 9,000 people in his village help hunt and process the lizards for export.

HARVEST QUOTAS SET

Also known as the common or Asian house gecko (Hemidactylus frenatus), or rumah cicak Asia in Bahasa Indonesia, the lizards are believed to still be abundant, according to a herpetologist and hunters CNA interviewed.

The house lizard is not the only gecko species used for traditional medicine, and the Indonesian government has set quotas for various species.

This year, the catch quota for Asian house geckos is about 2.5 million. The catch quota for the flat-tailed house gecko (Hemidactylus platyurus) is also about 2.5 million, while that for the four-clawed gecko (Gehyra mutilata) is about 2 million.

They can be caught as pets or for consumption, said Dr Satyawan Pudyatmoko, director general of natural resources and ecosystem conservation at the Ministry of Environment and Forestry.

The three species are allowed to be hunted in the provinces of West Java, Central Java, East Java and Yogyakarta as they have been deemed potential regions of export, said Dr Satyawan.

He said there are more than five export permit holders who work with small enterprises and hunters in villages.

“The people in villages help with catching, collecting, sorting (the lizards) according to the size, drying and, finally, packing,” said Dr Satyawan.

“These activities can be a main or additional source of income.”

The environment ministry did not provide information on export quotas and actual export volumes.

In the past, actual exports have been found to exceed quotas for certain species such as the Tokay gecko.

From 2013 to 2019, over 79.5 million Tokay geckos were exported by Indonesia based on the Ministry of Trade’s data, vastly exceeding harvest quotas at the time,according to a report last year by Indonesia’s National Research and Innovation Agency and the Ministry of Environment and Forestry.

In addition, only about 1.7 million legal export permits were reported by the environment ministry from 2013 to 2019.

The disparity was because exporters were not required to obtain a permit from the environment ministry at the time. In 2019, the Tokay gecko was added to Appendix II of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora for controls to be placed on its trade.

China is a major importer of Tokay geckos, which are thought to be effective in suppressing asthma, relieving coughing and treating diabetes and other ailments.

OVERHUNTING UNLIKELY, BUT WILDLIFE GROUPS SAY MORE DATA NEEDED

Professor Mirza Kusrini, a herpetologist or expert on reptiles and amphibians from Bogor’s Institute of Agriculture, believes house lizards remain abundant.

The creatures, native to a large part of Asia from south India to Indonesia, have thrived in urban areas and feed on insects and spiders.

They start reproducing from the age of about six months to a year, and live for about five years. Females lay two eggs per clutch.

Professor Mirza believes house lizards are unlikely to be overhunted because the animals’ physical size has not changed. When a particular animal is overhunted, the remaining population is smaller as fewer mature members are left, she explained.

Hunters are also catching the lizards manually instead of using industrial methods, she noted.

Wildlife advocacy groups, however, caution that more information is needed.

House lizards are not currently protected by law and international trade of the animals may not be regulated, said Ms Kanitha Krishnasamy, Southeast Asia director of wildlife trade monitoring network TRAFFIC.

“But a surge in large-scale collection of any wild species could be a potential cause for conservation concern,” she said.

“Certainly more needs to be done to understand the volumes being harvested and traded, why they are sought after, and how this affects wild populations and the ecosystem.”

Mr Wahyudin Iwang, executive director of environmental group Walhi’s West Java chapter, said lizard hunting and trade would “negatively impact the ecosystem and habitat”.

"FREEDOM" AND INCOME FROM LIZARDS

In villages like Kertasura, the lizards have provided a source of income and given rise to small enterprises.

The hunters in Cirebon head out in convoys most evenings to various regencies in West Java and even Central Java.

The convoys consist of up to 16 people – when CNA visited last month, a group of eight went to Pemalang in Central Java to hunt.

It takes a few weeks of continuous practice to become skilled in finding the lizards and stabbing them before they can scurry away, according to Mr Dody.

To keep operations simple and efficient, the hunters would usually not remain in the same village for consecutive nights.

It is also harder to catch lizards when the weather is drier, he said. During such periods, some hunters may turn to catching snakes or doing other odd jobs.

Lizard catching has also become more competitive, said another hunter Mr Rosulun.

Hunters get about IDR42,000 per kilogramme of lizards they catch and Mr Rosulun said he now earns about IDR150,000 a night, less than a few years ago when he could net about IDR200,000.

If the 52-year-old works 20 days a month, he is still able to earn about IDR3 million, slightly above the minimum wage of IDR2.5 million in Cirebon.

Mr Rosulun and Mr Dody sell their catch to the latter’s niece Ita Purwita, 27, who employs fellow villagers to clean, dry and pack the lizards.

Most of the cleaners and packers Ms Ita employs have primary or secondary school education.

One of them, Ms Murwanti, 51, enjoys the work and is not squeamish about it.

“I really like the job because there’s freedom. There’s a TV here, wifi. We can also turn on the music. What’s there to complain about?” said Ms Murwanti, who has worked with Ms Ita for about four years and earns up to IDR100,000 a day.

Another villager, 48-year-old Mdm Khasanah, has cleaned lizards for about 10 years and previously worked for Ms Ita’s mother, who ran a reptile business that included processing snakes.

“Those who work in the snake business are mostly men because snakes can bite,” said Mdm Khasanah who, like Ms Murwanti, goes by one name.

“But house lizards don’t. We only need to clean, dry and put them in the oven. Easy.”

Ms Ita used to have a business selling noni fruit, but availability of the fruit was more dependent on the weather. So, she sought her parents’ permission to take over their business.

“Even though the income (from lizards) also fluctuates, the commodity never runs out,” she said.

While it can be challenging to find lizards of good quality with their tail and all body parts intact, which affects the price buyers pay, she is able to make about IDR5 million a month.

Ms Ita sells the dried lizards to her uncle Mr Asep Saifudin – Mr Dody’s brother – who then exports them.

His brother earns significantly more as an exporter but Mr Dody says he prefers to focus on hunting lizards as he does not have a knack for business.

“After all, I am the lizard hunter pioneer here. That’s not too bad,” he said.