Good News for Animals in Nepal: A Full Year Without Poaching
A few years ago during my travel to Thailand, Nepal and Bhutan, I visited the Chitwan National Park in Southern Nepal. I was fortunate to have 2 encounters with wild rhinos, and learned about the country's efforts to halt poaching in the National Parks and remaining wild lands. I am very happy to read the below report published by Focusing on Wildlife and National Geographic. It is a huge achievement that no rhinos, tigers or elephants were killed during the last year. Moreover, in the 2011 census, the country reported a ~20% increase in the rhino population from 425 in 2008 to 534 animals, and an increase of tigers from 121 to 198 (2009 to 2013). But danger still lurks in this small mountain country between China in the north and India in the south since border control is difficult and organized crime focusing on wildlife trade could hone in on the increased numbers of rhinos and tigers.
However, for a small mountain country like Nepal the zero poaching is a huge achievement and needs to be celebrated!
Please read the full story below:
On World
Wildlife Day, March 3, Nepal
celebrated 365 days with zero poaching. No rhinos, tigers, or elephants were
killed. It’s the second year of such success in Nepal . In 2011 the country also had
none, and in 2012 it lost just one rhino to poaching.
This achievement is particularly
notable in the face of increased poaching elsewhere. Since February 28,
according to press reports, Kenya
lost three rhinos to poachers in the span of one week in heavily guarded Lake Nakuru
National Park , and one
more in Maasai Mara Game Reserve.
On February 28 in South Africa , the epicenter of the rhino
poaching crisis, tourists in Kruger National Park found a blinded and mutilated rhino
wandering alive. That horror prompted a social media storm and generated
intense interest from the Belgian ambassador to South Africa and senior members of
the European Parliament. (The personal secretary and aide to Belgium ’s
deputy prime minister was one of the tourists.) In South Africa last year, 1004 rhinos
were poached; so far this year, 146 have been poached.
Against
this backdrop, Nepal ’s
record stands out.
According to John Scanlon,
secretary-general of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES),
Nepal’s success is the result of “strong and committed leadership, excellent
national collaboration among enforcement entities and with parks agencies, very
effective engagement with local communities, and targeted intelligence-led
enforcement actions leading to arrests of key players at the top of the
criminal chain.”
More than
700 criminals were arrested for wildlife-related crimes this past year,
including many “kingpins.”
“Efforts
on the ground have been intensified, with rangers and the Nepal [ese] army
patrolling protected areas with support from community-based antipoaching units
outside the parks,” notes Shubash Lohani, deputy director of the Eastern
Himalaya Ecoregion Program at the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).
“In addition, active enforcement by
the crime investigation bureau of Nepal ’s police has been crucial to
breaking down the presence of illegal wildlife trafficking networks.”
A joint
operation in October 2013 by the Nepalese army and the special police led to
the dismantling of a rhino poaching network and the arrest of Kathmandu-based
kingpin Buddhi Bahadur Praja. Praja allegedly ran a cross-border smuggling
enterprise from Nepal to Tibet and
killed 12 rhinos over six years.
Also in
December 2013, at Nepal ’s
request INTERPOL issued a Red Notice for another notorious rhino poacher,
Rajkumar Praja, a 30-year-old Nepali wanted for killing 15 rhinos in Chitwan National Park . Praja was sentenced in
absentia to 15 years in prison.
Zero Tolerance for Wildlife Crime
“There is
very much a zero-tolerance attitude to wildlife crime, whereby justice is often
swift and harsh,” notes John Sellar, an anti-smuggling, fraud, and organized
crime consultant and former CITES enforcement chief.
“Nepal’s
forest law empowers district forest officers and chief wildlife wardens to deal
with offenders and impose prison sentences of up to 14 or 15 years,” according
to Sellar.
“Whilst
this scenario might seem at odds with other judicial systems,” Sellar says,
“probably its greatest advantage is that it means that any poacher who is
caught can expect to be dealt with much quicker than in other countries
suffering high levels of poaching, where court systems regularly have lengthy
backlogs and where, currently, insufficient deterrence is present.”
Thanks to
Nepal ’s
efforts, its current estimated population of tigers in national parks increased
from 121 in 2009 to 198 in 2013, a promising uptick for a species that’s in
desperate trouble globally.
A 2011
census of Nepal ’s greater
one-horned rhinos showed an estimated population of 534, up 20 percent from 425
in 2008, with more than 500 of them in Chitwan National Park .
The
Nepalese army patrols the national parks to ensure their protection. But
poaching increased during the Maoist insurgency from 1996 to 2006, when
soldiers were redeployed and the number of army monitoring posts in and around
the park fell from 30 to 7.
As a
result, Chitwan’s rhino population reportedly fell from 612 rhinos in 2000 to
some 380 in 2006, when a peace accord was signed.
Today,
according to BBC reports, at least a thousand Nepalese soldiers patrol Chitwan
from more than 40 posts.
Cooperative Approach
At the
national level, Nepal ’s
Department of Forests, the country’s Department of National Parks and Wildlife
Conservation (DNPWC) anti poaching staff, and the Nepalese army all share
information and work together to fight wildlife poaching and trafficking. At
the local level, communities provide the DNPWC with information, which allows
officials to target poachers and dealers.
“There has been collaboration
across the board in Nepal to stop poaching by putting more rangers on the
ground in a cohesive, sophisticated way, actively enforcing anti-trafficking
laws to break down illegal wildlife trade networks, educating local communities,
and building a shared ethic of conservation across Nepali society,” says WWF’s
Lohani.
For years
Nepal
has ensured local communities benefit financially from the parks and
ecotourism. Those benefits come not only from employment, but also from sharing
revenue, such as entrance fees and license fees for tour and lodge companies,
with local people.
“The
government actually gives 50 cents of every tourist dollar to local
communities, which makes them hold more value for rhinos alive than dead,”
Lohani notes.
Further,
Nepalese nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), such as the National Trust for
Nature Conservation, and international NGOs, such as WWF, have a long history
of fruitful interaction with local communities. The result is citizens with a
strong sense of ownership and commitment to wildlife protection.
Dedicated
leadership at high levels has also been important. Nepal ’s prime minister chairs the
national wildlife crime control bureau. The country hosts the South Asia
Wildlife Enforcement Network (SAWEN) secretariat, and the director-general of
DNPWC serves as SAWEN’s chief enforcement coordinator.
In
addition, Nepal
was a major force in the early days of the Global Tiger Initiative, which
assists the 13 tiger range states in carrying out their conservation strategies
through planning, coordination, and communication.
Danger Lurks
“Unfortunately,
the harsh reality is that Nepal ’s
growing tiger and rhino populations will inevitably continue to be targets,”
Sellar warns. “Personally, my concern would be that we see the South Africa scenario replicated—i.e., heavily
armed and determined foreign gangs entering Nepal ’s national parks in search of
horns, skins, and ivory.”
But Nepal is aware
of the dangers. Already, it has sought to employ the Wildlife and Forest Crime
Analytic Toolkit and collaborate with the International Consortium on Combating
Wildlife Crime (ICCWC) to strengthen its approach to wildlife crime.
As
Klairoong Poonpon, former chair of INTERPOL’s Wildlife Crime Working Group and
senior technical officer of Thailand ’s
Department of National Parks, summarizes, “Nepal ’s remarkable achievement at
zero poaching for a second year gives lessons for other countries and hope for
the future of our wildlife.”
This article was written by Laurel
Neme for National Geographic.
[Ref: http://focusingonwildlife.com]
Til next time,
Meggi
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