Sunil Gupta
Blog

AD Nauseam: Part - X

Serious stuff this month, laddies.

Despite all the laudable attempts by various companies (notably Aircel) to save our benighted wildlife, precious little is and has been done by our authorities whose only preoccupations are how many red beacons they can have atop their cars and how many 'angvastrams' they can wear at the same time.

But this is a very serious problem. This is the text of a letter I wrote to the Hon Shashi Tharoor, MP, to elicit his help in getting this matter before Parliament:

"It is common knowledge that Indian wildlife, especially the Big Cats and the Rhinoceros, are close to becoming extinct, largely due to the depredations of poachers and traffickers in wildlife parts and skins, who operate with impunity due to the weak laws as well as the ineffective manner in which they are implemented.

What is not common knowledge is that a general offence under the Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972, attracts a maximum sentence of ONLY three years imprisonment or a fine which may extend to ONLY Rs. 25,000 or both.

An offence involving a species listed in Schedule I or Part II of Schedule II, or an offence committed within a sanctuary or natural park, attracts a mandatory prison term of three years, which may extend to seven years. There is also a mandatory fine of at least Rs. 10,000 ONLY. For a subsequent offence, the prison term remains the same, while the mandatory fine is at least Rs.25,000 ONLY.

An offence committed inside the core area of a Tiger Reserve, attracts a mandatory prison term of three years, extendable to seven years and a fine of ONLY Rs. 50,000 extendable to Rs. ONLY 2 lakhs. In case of a subsequent conviction of this nature, there is an imprisonment term of at least seven years and a fine of ONLY Rs. 5 lakhs which may extend to Rs. 50 lakhs.

Despite these penalties, the laws are difficult to enforce. WPSI's wildlife crime database has records of over 900 tiger-related court cases, but only a few of these have resulted in convictions and most are still pending in the courts. To date, WPSI has records of only 61 people that have been convicted for killing a tiger or trading in tiger parts. The case of Sansar Chand, a known trafficker, is a case in point, where only after a public uproar was he caught and is facing charges, but has got bail for only Rs 25000.

So what we are effectively indicating through the punishments listed above is that the crime of killing a tiger (and remember, there are less than 1400 left in India) deserves only a rap on the knuckles and that a dead tiger is valued by the State at only US$ 200-1000 in most cases. This is laughable. And sad.

However, though it is the poachers that attract most of the attention and opprobrium, the onus of the crimes must lie more with those guilty of trading and trafficking in wildlife. Poachers will only poach if there is a market, and those who comprise the market, therefore, i.e. end-buyers and the traffickers who provide the goods (or should we say 'bads'?!) should carry most of the blame for this sorry state of affairs.

Investigations carried out a few years ago, during which a total of 36 tiger skins and 667 kilos (1470 pounds) of tiger bones were seized in northern India, brought to light the severity of the problem. The illegal trade is now widespread and in the hands of ruthless, sophisticated operators, some of whom have top level patronage. There is also evidence that profits from the wildlife trade are increasingly being used to fund armed insurgency in north-east and north-west India. A tiger can be killed for as little as just over a dollar for the cost of poison, or $9 for a steel trap. Much of the tiger poaching is done by tribals who know their forests well. They are usually paid a meager amount (in a case near Kanha Tiger Reserve, in May 1994, a trader paid four poachers $15 each for killing a tiger), their hunting talents and knowledge exploited by these greedy traders. It is these traders and the middlemen who make substantial profits from the illegal trade in tiger parts.

So my Petition to the Ministers concerned is that if an offence like drug-trafficking carries the death penalty (and in many ways the scenarios are similar, in that the actual producers/poachers make very little while the traders and dealers make all the money), then why not those who traffic in wildlife? After all, the human race is in no danger of extinction (despite its best efforts!), while wildlife is in the gravest danger, ironically from the species which is supposed to be the most evolved. Or is it that we, evolved humans, look to only our safety and welfare to the exclusion of all other living things?

Our wildlife (and that of the planet's) is our heritage and that of our descendants, as much as the Taj Mahal or the Pyramids are. What punishment would we give those who might ravage them?

Humans can get together and protest; we have a voice. Our wildlife has none, unless we stand up together and fight for their right to live. If drug-trafficking carries the death penalty for possible damage to a few of 7 billion humans, then it must only follow that the same penalty must apply to definite damage (perhaps beyond repair) to the remaining few thousand Big Cats and Rhinoceri. Why I say definite damage is because trading in parts and skins means the dastardly deed has already been done.

And it can be nobody's case to oppose exemplary capital punishment unless they are in some way benefiting from this trade. So if someone raises their voice against exemplary capital punishment for traffickers, they will be ones to start with. And it is not difficult to identify traffickers: unlike drugs, animal parts and skins are not easy to conceal and the guilty cannot take recourse to feigning ignorance about having the contraband on them."

And then I thought: Could the vaunted social networks do something for this cause? So I created a online petition on www.change.org and have been able to get over 250 signatures from all over the world. I put the appeal on FB and Twitter…with limited success.

But the wonderful thing is that Shashi Tharoor (bless him) came up trumps and has forwarded my Petition to the relevant Ministers of the Environment and Law & Justice, and we hope to raise the matter in Parliament in August.

So social networks do work…but direct contact works even better, as you can see. Something our advertising pundits could do more of, what?

Lend your support too by clicking on this link:

To read more about what I'm trying to do and to sign my petition, click here: http://www.change.org/petitions/government-of-india-ministry-of-environment-ministry-of-law-justice-strongest-possible-laws-against-wildlife-traffickers-traders-and-poachers?share_id=DrXavdkxYa

It'll just take a minute!

Just found out that a Petition on change.org to save seahorses gathered over 75000 signatures.

Much as I love seahorses, and laud this Petition, I do feel just a teeny bid sad that with over a billion Indians, and with tigers in the wild native only to India, we have got no more than 250.

Says something about us as Indians, doesn't it?

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