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 …
A taste for exotic dishes has nearly wiped out some of the rare species such as soft-nosed turtles, snakes and rare scaley anteaters known as pangolins. The government is implementing strict measures to protect these species. Recently, officials from a municipal agency protecting animal resources seized rare animals, meant to …
launching a major offensive against illegal trade of wildlife products, traffic -India, a division of the World Wide Fund for Nature-India, recently started a campaign called
DOCS the use of ivory tusks of the prehistoric mammoth, whose fossils were excavated some 10 years ago, defy the Wild Life Protection Act, 1972? This is the question facing the Delhi High Court which reserved its judgement on the curious case in a hearing on January 2& The case …
Notorious poacher and animal skin smuggler Sansar Chandiumped bail for the umpteenth time in a bloody career spanning 2 decades. He was arrested redhanded for the first time on July 17 this year in Delhi lugging forbidden tiger skins. The astoundingly low bail amount of Rs 5,000 left wildlife lovers …
YOU might as well declare it open season for the anachronistic remnants of royal gamehunters and lowly poachers. Conventional laws against the illegal trade in wildlife are so porous that they left officials from the Convention of International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) grousing about their Indian counterparts. A frantic …
Two months ago, customs and wildlife authorities had announced one of the largest hauls of poached tiger bones -- 162 kg -- in India when they arrested Pema Thinley in Delhi. Recent information leaked from the Union home ministry suggests that Thinley may have been an agent for the national …
CONSERVATION authorities from 126 nations are sorting out differences over which endangered flora and fauna need protection, and the modus operandi at the ninth meeting of the Convention of International Trade in Endangered Species (cites), in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The conference, attended by officials, representatives of conservation organisations and traders, …
THE seizure of thousands of butterflies and moths from 2 German nationals at the Delhi airport on August 15 has prompted the Union ministry of environment and forests (MEF) to frame an order under the Export Trade Control Rules to ban the export of all genetic material. Says R M …
A report on the illegal wildlife trade in the country by a special committee formed by the MEF has galvanised the ministry into considering several new options to control poaching. The high-powered committee, chaired by S Subramanian, founder of the National Security Guards, submitted its report to the MEF in …
WHEN undercover agents from the Indian branch of Trade Record Analysis of Flora and Fauna in Commerce (TRAFFIC) captured 475 kg of tiger bone and 13 pelts in 1993, they exposed more than an international poaching operation. There, for the entire world to see, lay the shattered truth about Project …
A MAJOR bird-smuggling racket was literally uncovered on the tarmac of New Delhi's Indira Gandhi International Airport. Just before four "abnormal" packages wrapped in gunny were loaded on to a Pakistan International Airlines flight for Dubai, curious customs officials pounced on them and found that they were packed with more …
THE TRADE sanctions imposed by the United States on Taiwan for the latter's alleged reluctance in cracking down on trafficking in tigers and rhinoceroses is bound to further fuel the debate over use of the levers of trade as a means of enforcing environmental discipline. Predictably, the US move has …
THE British chapter of Friends of the Earth began with a blaze of publicity: opposing the fur trade and getting pictures on the front pages of newspapers by returning thousands of "non-returnable" bottles. From these beginnings, FoE grew steadily, recruiting student radicals and campaigning on everything from dirty rivers to …
IN A CLASSIC tussle between conservation and tourist revenue, anthropologist Richard Leakey was compelled to resign as chairperson of the Kenyan Wildlife Service, following a campaign unleashed against him by William Ole Ntimama, the powerful Kenyan minister of local government. Ntimama said the local population in or near Kenya's national …
A BHUTANESE princess, Deiky Wang-chuck, was arrested in Taiwan for trying to smuggle 22 Asian rhinoceros horns into the country, in the largest ever seizure of such horns (New Scientist, October 16, 1993). Taiwanese authorities say Wang-chuck admitted she expected to sell the horn -- weighing 14 kgs -- for …
ZIMBABWE has been dehorning rhinos for almost a year in a desperate attempt to save them from poachers. The country's rhinoceros population has declined from 2,000 a year ago to less than 500 today. The animal is sought for its horn, which is coveted as an aphrodisiac in the Far …
THE VICUNA, South America's graceful camelid coveted for its soft, silky hair, is falling prey to well-organised gangs of international rustlers "working for brokers within Latin America who then ship the fibre in bales to Europe and Asia", according to an expert with Conacs, Peru's quasi-government agency for camelids, which …
Wildlife officials recently disclosed they had confiscated a 100 kg consignment of the wool of the endangered Tibetan antelope in June. The contraband, which was seized in New Delhi, had been smuggled in from Nepal. Authorities estimate 2,000 kg of the wool was smuggled into Leh and Srinagar last year, …
TWO HOARDS of banned animal skins and bones, worth about Rs 3.5 crore in the international market, were seized in Delhi on August 30 and September 1. The seizures exemplify the intelligence-gathering skills acquired by the Indian arm of the Trade Record Analysis of Flora and Fauna in Commerce (TRAFFIC), …
