In 2019, the illegal wildlife trade reached staggering levels. Pangolin scales and ivory were being trafficked in massive quantities from Africa to Asia, exposing a network of crime syndicates operating at an industrial scale. The sheer volume of these shipments marked a disturbing milestone, one that revealed the global reach …
Punjab will soon stop doling out free power to the agriculture sector and introduce a tariff mechanism to eliminate subsidies which will to wipe off the Rs 3,000 crore deficit the state has incurred. The Indian Council of Agricultural Research has launched two five-year projects to enhance the productivity of …
members of the Lisu tribe of Myanmar have started poaching tigers in Arunachal Pradesh's Namdapha National Park, say reports in local newspapers. Tiger parts have a huge market in China as well as in other far-eastern countries. It is estimated that one tiger skin can fetch around us $20,000. The …
to stop the illegal trade of animals from the Amazon, Brazil has launched a training course for police officers to detect forged export permits. Every year, about 12 million animals, worth us $1.5 billion in the international market, are smuggled out of Brazil, says Denner Giovanini, head of the National …
Led by the Worldwide Fund for Nature ( wwf ), conservationists have warned that if the growing trade in shahtoosh wool does not stop, the Tibetan antelope, known as chiru , will become extinct. There is a ban on the nefarious trade since 1979 under the Convention on International Trade …
as part of Wildlife Week, Peter Jackson, chairperson of the Cat Specialist Group of the The World Conservation Union (iucn) expressed anguish that in spite of efforts by wildlife officials and conservationists, intense poaching of wild cats continue unabated. It is believed that only 100 species survive in Iran and …
The World Wide Fund for Nature ( wwf ) launched a year-long campaign to put an end to the rampant ivory trade in Thailand. Citing a recent report, wwf -Thailand said ivory trade has contributed to a rapid decline in the elephant population in Thailand and in neighbouring Myanmar and …
according to a report by Traffic, the wildlife trade monitoring programme of the World Wide Fund for Nature, the population of the endangered musk deer has gone down by 50 per cent in the past 10 years. The demand for musk as an ingredient in medicines and perfumes is the …
a crucial breakthrough was made by the forest department in Dehra Dun when they arrested poachers involved in illegal trade in endangered species using fake animal products to mislead enforcement agencies and cover up the clandestine sale of genuine animal products like tiger and leopard skins and rare rhino horns. …
a special cell of the Delhi police and the wildlife wing of the Delhi forest department seized 96 shatoosh shawls from a shop in Delhi's Chandni Chowk market. The shawls, worth nearly Rs 1 crore, were seized from M/S Shyam & Company. The owner of the shop, Naresh Narula, was …
The Delhi High Court has quashed the petition of an ivory trader. The judgement could have far-reaching implications as over 200 applications for ownership certificates for ivory items worth over Rs 120 crore are pending with the ministry of environment and forests. The court held that the chief wildlife warden, …
Chilka lake in Orissa has become a poacher's delight. The railway station in the sleepy town of Bhusandpur, the gateway to the lake, has become a thriving market for birds caught in and around the lake. Rafi, one of the traders who has been in business for several years, says, …
three jackals' heads were seized at the Anna International Airport in Chennai by the police. They were about to be smuggled to Malaysia in a small bag, the top of which was covered with ornamental beads. The heads were handed over to the wildlife officials. According to the police, the …
A lot of trees are planted on paper and forests are created on government files. Between 1980-81 and 1988-89, the government claimed that some 24 billion trees had been planted under afforestation programmes on private and public lands at an expense of over Rs 3,000 crore. In other words, taking …
The sandalwood policy of the Tamil Nadu and Karnataka governments have created just the right environment for corruption to thrive. It involves major kickbacks for all those involved, it leads to scarcity of the raw material and promotes black market trade. The powerful and the corrupt corner the bulk of …
State regulations are extremely important to protect various elements of the ecosphere like air and water against pollution, and from over exploitation. But corruption, lack of public awareness of the importance of natural resources for daily survival, and policies that exclude the participation of the people can render the laws …
Why did the chicken cross the road? Simple. It wanted to bypass the forest official. Otherwise charcoal would never reach the town and poor would starve for the lack of a livelihood. In the early 1980s, St Xavier's Behavioural Science Centre, an Ahmedabad-based NGO, encouraged poor farmers living in the …
Corruption can steer even Supreme Court orders astray. In an effort to curb pollution in Delhi, the Supreme Court ordered all government vehicles to start using compressed natural gas (CNG) on an experimental basis. But the order was met with strong resistance, not from powerful bureaucrats but from the drivers …
Small may be beautiful, but not in terms of the bounty. The larger the project, the bigger the "10 per cent" cut allegedly paid as a bribe to politicians and bureaucrats by the contractors. To secure a deal, a contractor pays the signing authority a certain cut from the money …
