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Journalism of Courage
Buyer Beware, says a new post on the US Fish and Wildlife Service website, warning Americans travelling to China for the Olympics about buying wildlife products banned both in China and the United States.
Shop smart and check trade restrictions before buying, for many American citizens returning home have brought in banned ivory and jewellery, says the statement. While this may not mean much to the average person, it proves a point, one which has been consistently chasing Indian forests: the fact that wildlife crime and poaching is big, organised and international, most of it culminating in Asia, notably China; and it can be tackled best only by a multi-disciplinary agency. Though even countries like China have restrictions on many products, this hasn8217;t stopped the illegitimate market from charting new waters and deftly skirting transit at airports.
It8217;s the newness of the trade that is part of the problem: the Yarsa Gumba is not protected under the Wildlife Protection Act, simply because it hasn8217;t been threatened before. This is a challenge that can be comprehended only on an international level, and here in India, it is the Wildlife Crime Control Bureau, formed last year, which is planning to take up the issue.
Bureau officials 8212; who work with customs, the CBI and the IB 8212; are working on advocating that the caterpillar be protected. TRAFFIC India, an international wildlife trade monitoring network, estimates that as much as 500 kilograms of the insect, at Rs 90,000 per kg, is leaving India through Dharchula in Pithoragarh district towards Nepal and then to China each year, mostly through illegal channels. This is a staggering number of caterpillars for a relatively new trade: around 3,500-3,800 caterpillars make one kilogram, all part of a fragile ecosystem found only in select reaches of the Garhwal-Kumaon Himalayas and Arunachal Pradesh. It also means that the unregulated, surreptitious trade some regulated trade occurs in Uttarakhand is making money, which will most probably be re-invested in more illegal trade.
But what is illegal trade? The reason the WCCB is good for the country is the fact that it is their mandate to scrutinise high-incentive crime networks and bring them under one umbrella. The bureau is now working with specialised police branches like the Special Operations Squad for quick, effective enforcement. A seizure made by the bureau, under a joint operation with the Uttarakhand Special Task Force on July 28, revealed a fact that was suspected for a long time: that high demand and high-value products go hand in hand. The seizure of one leopard skin in Vikasnagar in Uttarakhand was accompanied by a seizure of around 300 grams of heroin.
Clearly, the dealer was well-networked and adept at not only wildlife crime but drug-running as well, both of which make backdoor entries and exits through international trade routes.
And the international nature of the threat continues. Nepal8217;s Shukla Phanta Reserve has lost most of its tigers due to poaching, recent estimates have revealed. The next target, feel Indian conservationists, will be Indian parks like Dudhwa, along the Indo-Nepal border, an area which has local police deployments but no army patrolling. In order to strengthen cross-border co-operation and vigilance, the Wildlife Institute of India held an enforcement workshop for Nepalese officers in May this year. Again, the perceived threat from cross-border poachers, or demand that works along well-established routes, is very real, threatening, and has to be tackled on a multi-nodal level.
Working on these levels, perhaps enough pressure can now be created for implementing sections under the WPA which say that property built on money reaped through poaching will be taken away.
Meanwhile, the fate of a dead, mummified caterpillar hangs in the balance.
neha.sinhaexpressindia.com
