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Crouching poachers, training cops

Our Bureau

NEW DELHI, April 9

THE Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) has set the National Police Academy in Hyderabad on the trail of tiger poachers, known to be more secretive than those in the narcotics trade.

The arm of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) has put into place a training module at the Academy aimed at strengthening the country's wildlife crime enforcement and intelligence even as trading in endangered species and tiger parts continues unabated.

Delhi, in fact, is reeling under a diplomatic faux pas, with Maneka Gandhi, Minister for Social Justice and Empowerment, demanding that the American ambassador's wife, Jacqueline Lundquist, who was in possession of a Shahtoosh shawl -- made from the enda ngered chiru or the Tibetan antelope -- identify the trader. It takes the slaughter of five Tibetan antelopes for a shawl that costs anything between Rs 50,000 and Rs 3 lakh.

Though the wildlife crime enforcement training is being set up by CITES Tiger Enforcement Task Force, it would impact trading in other endangered species as well, said John Sellar, the Task Force co-ordinator.

The aspects that need to be looked into for effective wildlife crime enforcement are the anti-poaching systems, judiciary and prosecution processes, inter-agency, cross-border and international co-operation and a competent liaison with Interpol and the W orld Customs Organisation.

A 1999 report confirms that the Indian tiger population -- which is anything between 5,000 and 7,000 -- is being heavily poached by organised wildlife crime networks. However, the situation is not new as alarm bells have been ringing for several years. I n fact, the situation does not seem to have improved since 1996 when the EIA (Environmental Investigation Agency) put out a report, The Political Wilderness -- India's Tiger Crisis, in which it revealed the large and clandestine sale of tiger parts and o ther endangered species in Kolkata.

The EIA found that the main routes out of India for wildlife trade are through the States of Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Nagaland and Manipur. Other routes are through Arunachal Pradesh, Sikkim and the neighbouring co untries of Nepal, Burma and Bhutan, leading to China.

The report linked trading in tiger parts to the Shahtoosh trade in the country, with investigation revealing that tiger parts were transported over the mountains by Tibetan nomads who are often paid with Shahtoosh and Pashmina. This way, a trader investi ng in tiger parts can increase his profits dealing in the wool and by selling goods manufactured from it. According to the EIA, the profit margins can increase by 600 per cent when exchanging tiger bone for Shahtoosh.