GREEN CRIMES

With the porous international borders and a large appetite for poaching and overharvesting domestically for commercial purposes, India becomes one of the high-profile routes of illegal trafficking of live wildlife and its derivatives

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For half a century, it has been institutionalised that controlled commerce in wildlife and their derivatives meets both people’s needs and the survival of the wildlife. Despite 48,000 species, out of 172,600 assessed globally, are still critically endangered, near threatened, and vulnerable in the wild, the 20thConference of the Parties (COP20) of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), global body to regulate wildlife trade, met from November 24December 5, has brought regulation of 51 species under its ambit at the historical city of Samarkand, Uzbekistan. Is CITES contributing to and supporting the conservation and management of wildlife?

Largely, when the climate COPs attract all the limelight, despite the urgency in protecting wildlife and their natural habitats against the anthropogenic onslaught, the wildlife COPs generate limited enthusiasm in the public domain, at least in India so far. From the Saiga Antelope in Kazakhstan to the whale shark in the Indian Ocean, the world’s wildlife trade regulatory body has brought more species under its purview. However, among others, the listing of Guggul (Commiphora wightii), an endangered shrub found in India, Pakistan and Oman and the withdrawal of scrutiny of Vantara, the largest private wildlife rescue and care centre in Jamnagar, are worth mentioning.