PANKAJ SARMA
Guwahati, June 5: The Wildlife Crime Control Bureau has convened a meeting here tomorrow to coordinate enforcement efforts of various government agencies to curb smuggling in wildlife.
The meeting, which will be held at Assam State Zoo, will be attended by senior forest officials of Assam, Manipur, Nagaland, Meghalaya and Arunachal Pradesh, along with top officers of various security forces and enforcement agencies, including the Indo-Tibetan Border Police, BSF, Sashastra Seema Bal, Assam Rifles, customs department and directorate of revenue intelligence, among others.
Officials of railways and postal department were also invited to the meeting, as smugglers often use trains and speed-post parcels to smuggle wildlife items.
Additional director of the Wildlife Crime Control Bureau, Rina Mitra, the bureau’s regional deputy director (eastern region), Chaturbhuja Behera, and its wildlife inspector, Abhijit Roy Chowdhury, will be present at the meeting.
The bureau is a statutory body constituted by the Centre in 2007 to protect the country’s wildlife.
“The meeting was convened to sensitise the personnel of various agencies on different issues related to wildlife smuggling such as the routes used by the smugglers, to share data on professional poachers and their modus operandi and measures that can be taken up to prevent organised poaching and smuggling of animal parts,” Behera said.
It would also focus on strengthening and ensuring proper implementation of laws at international exit points.
Behera said animal parts like tiger bones, ivory, pangolin scales, rhino horns, deer antlers, lizards, snakes and forest produces such as red sander wood were being smuggled to places like China, Myanmar and other Southeast Asian nations through the Northeast, which was a cause for serious concern.
He said since it was the secondary and not the primary duty of the security forces to control wildlife crimes, they would also try to create awareness among the latter about the nuances of wildlife crime investigations and also about helping state governments in ensuring success in related prosecutions.
“We will try to set up a mechanism to control wildlife crime and bust international wildlife smuggling rackets based in places like Dimapur, Imphal, Moreh and Pallel, among others, in the Northeast and neighbouring countries like Myanmar and China,” Behera said.
Source:http://www.telegraphindia.com/1110606/jsp/northeast/story_14075393.jsp
1 comment:
Good to see that this is finally happening. Northeast India has some of the best and biggest forests left in India, but poaching is rampant there, and cross-border smuggling is commonplace. Namdapha has most likely lost its tigers, and gaur and sambar are scarce outside protected areas. As in South-East Asia, where the situation is similar, Chinese traders are now focusing on what is left, primarily leopards and clouded leopards, snow leopards, pangolins, otters and bears, as well as tigers and rhinos wherever they persist. It is very disturbing that the borders are so permeable in the Northeast, especially toward Tibet.
Post a Comment