Wildlife and Nature Conservation - Centre for Ecological Sciences

9.4 Controlling Poaching, Illegal Extraction and Trade in Wild Floraand FaunaIt is abundantly clear that poaching and trade seriously affects a wide range of wildspecies. Measures for field control of poaching vary in quality in protected areas, but arepractically non-existent in reserved forests and other categories of forests. Nevertheless,non-PA forest areas are vital for species and habitat conservation as well, for the PAnetwork is only representative of the total forests of the country. Even in case of PAs it isobserved that foresters at the level of Range Officers and below are not adequatelytrained and equipped in their duties. In particular, they lack knowledge of the provisionsand practice of Wild Life (Protection) Act and that of the CrPC and IPC, which are just asimportant to bring an offender to book. The contribution of technical non-governmentalagencies in training must be looked into and used wherever appropriate.The control of poaching and trade can only be achieved by intelligence gathering. Thisaspect of crime control is often not given the importance it deserves and is a sub-set oftraditional anti-poaching operations such as camps, patrols, watchtowers, etc. However,rupee for rupee, building and maintaining information sources (even when there is nopoaching problem) is critical to controlling crime. The base principle in crime combatingshould be that there is always a threat of poaching even if it has not manifested itself.This will be the best pre-emptive step to take.A distinction not often understood is between anti-poaching and anti-smuggling. Themafia-type gangs operating from cities are the driving force behind poaching. Asubstantial part of species in trade is meant to be smuggled outside India. Wildlife crimeis no different from many other kinds of crime such as narcotics, gunrunning, traffickingin humans, etc., and controlling this requires the same skills, aptitude and equipment asthat of any other crime. Though empowered under the WPA, agencies of the governmentsuch as the CBI do not take wildlife crime as seriously as it should be taken. Greatermotivation, training and empowerment should be provided to non-wildlife enforcementagencies to act in this field. This is particularly true of Customs Department as they aremandated to curb illegal movement of goods internationally. As India has considerablyrelaxed the import export rules regarding traditional contrabands such as electronicgoods, it may well be a good time for them to emphasize on wildlife crime. The WorldCustoms Union has recently placed greater emphasis on environmental crime, includingthose on derivatives of wild species. As a signatory to CITES, India is committed toenforce regulations arising out of it and it is in her interest to do so. . It would also bepertinent to point out that the Committee on Prevention of Illegal Trade in Wildlife andWildlife Products or the Subramaniam Committee in its report of 1994 had recommendeda number of measures for the control of poaching and trade. Partial implementation of therecommendations made in the report had taken place but the creation of a specializedwildlife crime unit and that to provide legal training and support to wildlife lawenforcement agencies are still languishing.9.5 Rationalization of PA Boundaries, Relocation of Settlements andUpgradation and Finalization of the PA NetworkA large number of people reside within Indian PAs. This acute problem with all theramifications of man-animal and people-park conflicts on the one hand, and the denial of124