Poaching, How to fight it

The Kathmandu Post
Kathmandu, Thursday March 06, 2003 Falgun 22, 2059.

Wildlife poaching has appeared as a serious problem in biodiversity conservation, next to the habitat destruction, in Nepal. Despite putting various efforts in place, the wildlife poaching has increased in frequency over recent years. Exploring the mechanism for indigenous community and backward society based biodiversity conservation followed by effective law enforcement would be the next viable option for downsizing the frequencies of poaching in Nepal.

Various efforts from the government have been made to address the issues of biodiversity conservation, particularly to address the ever escalating incidence of wildlife poaching in Nepal. The Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation (DNPWC) has been established with the primary objective of protecting valuable and endangered wildlife species in Nepal. One of the major activities of the DNPWC is to conserve endangered wildlife species through establishing protected area network. Nepal has expressed its firm commitment for limiting trade of endangered and rare wildlife species and their products by being signatories to the various conventions including Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species on wild flora and fauna (CITES), Convention on Biodiversity Conservation and Ramsar Convention.

As per the international commitment, a CITES unit has been established in the DNPWC to discourage poaching of endangered wildlife species and illegal trade of wildlife species. Similarly Nepal Biodiversity Strategy and Wetland Policy has been formulated as per the commitment of Biodiversity and Ramsar Conventions. Besides this, Nepal has promulgated National Parks and Wildlife Conservation Act (NPWCA) for the effective conservation of biodiversity, including endangered wildlife species. According to the Act, offender dealing in poaching and illegal trade of endangered wild animals and their body parts can get a firm penalty of 5-15 years imprisonment and Rs 50, 000 to 100,000 in fine or both.

Royal Nepalese Army has been deployed in some protected areas with the responsibility of protecting wildlife species and forest products. In addition, Anti Poaching Operation has been implemented to combat poaching in some Terai Parks and Reserves for few years.

In order to solicit people’s participation to address the problem of wildlife poaching, among others the government has made some policy reforms. By making fourth amendment to the NPWCA, 1973, the government introduced the idea of buffer zone establishment around the protected areas. The policy reform was mainly to address the issues of traditional user right and up-lifting socioeconomic condition of protected area impacted community. The government has made the provision of sharing of up-to 50 per cent of the total protected area revenue with the park buffer zone communities. According to this provision, annually a huge amount of money has been ploughed back for community development activities in the buffer zone. In order to mobilise community effectively and generate guardianship of local communities over biodiversity resources, various NGOs and INGOs are being activated. Over 80 per cent people in the buffer zone are being organised into UGs, UCs, and Buffer Zone Development Council.

Despite adopting a two pronged strategy, the wildlife poaching has not yielded encouraging results. According to the DNPWC annual report, 2002, a total of 6 rhinos were poached in the RCNP in 1998. After that year, the frequency of poaching increased significantly in the RCNP. According to the government officials 31 rhinos have died in less than a year in 2002. The figure indicates the higher gravity of the poaching incidence in Nepal. The higher frequency of rhino poaching attributes to the astonishingly high price of rhino horns and body parts in the international market.

According to the same report, over 80 per cent poachers arrested in the RCNP in 2002, were residents of the buffer zone. Similarly, of the 80 per cent poachers in the buffer zone, over 50 per cent were from indigenous and backward ethnic communities like Tharu, Kumal, Darai and Lama. The main reason for such a discouraging scenario would be the inadequate representation of indigenous and backward communities in the decision-making process and weakness in the law enforcement.

In order to reduce the frequency of the poaching incidence, it is imperative to empower local communities, particularly indigenous and backward society. The scheme would be materialised only when the basic needs of these indigenous and backward communities are met. The basic needs include food, education, health and sanitation. Once these basic needs are met, these people might be responsive to biodiversity conservation. Thus, it is recommended to empower these communities through implementing indigenous and backward focused programs in the buffer zones so that the poaching incidence could be reduced. A provision of their representation in the buffer zone user committee and buffer zone management committee would be more fruitful.

Similarly, in order to make law enforcement effective, as the country is already heading towards the peace process, it is suggested to redeploy the Army in all the previously designated posts in the protected areas. It is to be remembered here that, government was forced to cut down the number of security posts by several folds to tackle the problem of insurgency in Nepal. Similarly, a sustainable financing mechanism has to be established to run Anti-poaching Operational Programme smoothly in various protected areas.

The sustainable funding mechanism can be possible by establishing a biodiversity trust fund at local and central levels. One of the sources of the funding would be a voluntary support from the private sector. The other sources include taxing additional levy to the tourism entrepreneurs, seeking support from voluntarily established private sector fund, like International Trust for Nature Conservation, industries and a part of the protected area revenue allocated for the buffer zone development. In addition, the Global Environment Fund (GEF) fund can be approached for the Trust Fund.

Despite mobilising various stakeholders and resources, the efforts to control wildlife species poaching has not been encouraging. Thus, strengthening the law enforcement mechanism, and empowering local communities, particularly indigenous and backward society would bring a positive result in decreasing the poaching of wildlife species in the days to come.