Produced by Dusty Foot Productions and developed by the Counter Wildlife Trafficking team of the Wildlife Conservation Society-India, ‘Surviving the Odds – Combatting India’s Illegal Wildlife Trade’ is a short documentary film created as a ready-to-use explainer about India's Illegal Wildlife Trade (IWT) and lists measures to tackle this issue. While the Counter Wildlife Trafficking team developed the documentary as a resource for enforcement agencies across India, it is an eye-opener for the larger audience highlighting the dire consequences of illegal trade in India and the alarming rate at which the country is losing its biodiversity. The film is available for viewing on WCS-India’s YouTube channel and the website.
Wildlife in India is protected under the
Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972, and the Convention on International Trade in
Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). Despite this level of
protection, seizure reports and data over the last two years suggest an average
of twelve wildlife seizures per week through open access sources alone.
“Wildlife crime cases are getting more attention over the recent years.
However, there are many challenges ahead; we need to shift the focus to
prevention and find solutions beyond just law enforcement”, says Uttara
Mendiratta, Programme Head of the Counter Wildlife Trafficking team, WCS-India.
Several community-level interactions are being undertaken to address the issue
of hunting and poaching on the ground. Serlibon Timungpi, a Community Worker
from west Karbi Anglong in Assam, believes, “Creating awareness within local
communities will build an understanding of the importance of wild species and
help garner support towards conservation.”
The nature of IWT is complex as the consumers, markets, drivers
and modus operandi vary significantly for different species. We are aware of
the international pressure on tiger populations due to the demand for their
body parts and use in traditional Asian medicines. Imran Siddiqui, Programme
Head - Eastern Ghats Team, WCS-India, adds, “Within India too, there is a
demand for tiger nails as many Indians still believe it to be a symbol of power
and status”. Certain species, such as the pangolin, suffer immensely due to the
difficulty in monitoring their populations, making it impossible to study the
impact of IWT. Vikram Aditya, a wildlife researcher at ATREE who studies the
pangolin, states, “Our study shows that pangolin numbers have declined rapidly
across the Eastern Ghats, similar to the trend in pangolin population across
the world”.
The large-scale illegal wildlife trade is finding new avenues to
expand its reach. The black-market trade in wildlife is fast evolving on the
internet, creating new routes that support and fuel the illegal wildlife trade.
In addition, IWT can potentially create gateways for zoonotic disease
transmission to humans, as witnessed during the Covid-19 pandemic.
While talking about the film, Imrana Khan, the Executive
Producer-Direction, Dusty Foot Productions, says, “Surviving the Odds –
Combating Illegal Wildlife Trade’ is a self-explanatory documentary aiming to
inculcate knowledge amongst multiple stakeholders, including enforcement
agencies, about the illegal wildlife trade. Covid-19 has reinforced the fact
that the way ahead is to keep our natural systems intact, and that includes
wildlife species remaining in the wild”.
WCS-India’s Counter Wildlife Trafficking programme plays the
role of a facilitator enabling government officials to gain access to
information, skill, technologies and expert support required to tackle
wildlife-related crime in India. It supports mandated agencies to effectively
prevent, detect, identify, investigate, arrest, prosecute and convict criminal
organisations that perpetrate wildlife trafficking.
A
key takeaway from this documentary is the discussion on measures to reduce the
illegal wildlife trade in India. It ends with hope for the future, with
awareness and community engagement being the key factors in curbing this
trade.However, when it comes to Goa, there is no study conducted yet. Noted
herpetologist, Nirmal Kulkarni, has been a senior consultant for Counter
Wildlife Trafficking team of Wildlife Conservation Society-India, since 2020,
and helped in conceptualising the documentary. “There is no current Goa connect
that we know of as there is no study yet. As a senior consultant, I helped in
conceptualising and putting the script together. For the documentary, the team
travelled to various areas to collect information. Also, online trade is
monitored by our analysts. It is explained in the documentary,” says Nirmal.
The documentary is funded by a grant from the Bureau of the Narcotics and Law
Enforcement Affairs, United States Department of State. The research was
conducted by Shyama Kuriakose, Anirban Chaudhuri, Artisto Mendis, Ramya Roopa
Sengottuwel, Anushri Karve, Kritika Balaji, Nazneen Aultan and Shivira Shukla.