Suresh Pachauri, minister of state for Personnel and Parliamentary Affairs, in his concluding remarks at the one-day conference on Wildlife and Crime Prevention organised by the Central Bureau of Investigation, admitted that the inability to take effective steps against poachers has adversely affected wildlife in India, which has led to the disappearance of rare species of animals.
"(Our) inability to effectively tackle wildlife crimes has led to the rapid depletion of our wildlife species such as tigers, leopards and the Tibetan antelope Chiru," Pachauri said.
The minister said that India has become one of the major source of illegal wildlife products.
Pachauri suggested that this grave situation needs to be addressed immediately and steps need to be taken to protect the precious wildlife of the country.
Stating that the Wildlife (Protection) Amendment Act 2006 has been enacted to help combat wildlife crime more effectively and boost conservation of tigers and other animals, Pachauri said that law enforcement agencies of the country should work together in close coordination to break the nexus between illegal wildlife trade, narcotics and the gun-running mafia.
Pachauri said that the Wildlife Crime Control Bureau will soon be set up to tackle the growing wildlife crimes in the country. He said the bureau would be a multi-disciplinary organisation with forest, police and other officials to handle various aspects of the crime.
Vijay Shankar, director, Central Bureau of Investigation, said that despite several initiatives for conservation of bio-diversity in the country, wildlife commercial trade continues in a covert and illegal manner leading to near extinction of some precious forms of fauna. He said that recent investigations by the CBI indicated that wildlife criminals are highly organised with a streamlined network of poachers and middlemen having international connections.
Emphasising that wildlife crimes often have inter-state and transnational ramifications, Shankar said the CBI's investigative efforts have been calibrated to tackle these challenges. He said the CBI is fostering international cooperation for combating wildlife crime and has forged an alliance with its counterparts in Nepal and China, which are important transit and destination points for smuggled wildlife products from India.
Delegates felt that the time has come to apply Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act provisions in wildlife cases so that stringent punishment could be given to the accused persons.
