Problems with wildlife Laws in

India

(By-KUMARIL Barman)

• India due to its wide variety and

geographical area has an enormous
amount of wildlife resources and species.
However, as good as it sounds, such
diversity also requires an enormous
amount of effort in the part of the State to
main maintain and preserve all the
species.

• The very first step takes was that of

introducing the Wildlife Protection Act in
1972 to look after all the wildlife
sanctuary problems and issues. Even
 though it did cover some problems, the
implementation of the law left a lot to be
desired.

• India shares its border with as many as 7

countries and in such a scenario
execution of the act becomes the most
important task. This is where seems to be
struggling. Corruption is one issue which
India has been facing since
Independence and this becomes even a
bigger problem when you share your
borders with countries such as China
where animal trafficking is huge.

• It is believed India has about 60-70 % of

world’s biodiversity and hence is a
hunting ground for many. India has about
 2.9% of IUCN designated threatened
species but there is absence of any
special provision in the Wildlife Act. The
Act here is completely unsuccessful in
understanding the gravity of the problem
and coming with a dynamic provision to
protect these species.

• Pet and Tigers are demanded and

trafficked the most from India. Due to an
immense amount of corruption, they
mostly get trafficked via to China for their
Consumers.

• Another problem which arise to due the

inadequacy of the law is the
consumption of wildlife for food. An
example of that being Tigers, their bones
are often mislabelled and sold under
other labels to evade the law. The main
reason why it happens is that these
endangered and indigenous species
can be passed off as Foreign Species as
there is no specific regulation to restrict
that from happening. Even though India
is party to IUCN and CITES convention,
there is no compulsory obligation on the
part of the Country which again leads
unfulfilled results. On its part, the Ministry
of Environment and Forest Govt. of India
has Constituted a special CITES Cell to
strengthen the enforcement of the
CITES(Convention on International Trade
in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna
 and Flora) but the actually result of it has
to be seen.

• One more problem that is a major is that

of migratory species as many species
who migrate to the State are not taken
into Consideration in Law due to lack of
Scientific evidence which causes this
problem. One of the examples of that is
Himalayan Black bear. The conservation
of fishes can also be added to this list as
there is no provision made for them too
again the reasoning being lack of
scientific evidence.

• These are just some of the surface

Problem that India faces with its wildlife
Law and even though the Government
has been persistently coming up with
different ways to deal with it, the crucial
task is proper implementation as its very
difficult to executive what is written on
the law due to the high rate of Corruption
existing in India. Moving forward, India
has a tough task when it comes
preserving all the species and limit all the
trafficking. Passing a Law is a part of it but
the road has much more steeper
challenges.

▪ Reference- THE LACAUNE IN

WILDLIFE PROTECTION LAWS IN
INDIA BY AKASH.S KARMAKAR