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Skin
and Bones
Nearly
20 years ago suspicion arose that tigers were being
poached in India for bones for use in Chinese medicine.
In the early
1990s
that was confirmed by seizures in the world-famous Ranthambhore
Tiger Reserve, when many of its well-known tigers
disappeared.
The skin trade, which was at its height in the 1960s,
before India’s tigers were protected, appeared to have
died
down
(but not ended) as a result of the launch of Project
Tiger, and the impact of the Convention on International
Trade in
Endangered
Species (CITES), which cut demand in the western world
for skins for carpets and wall hangings, as well as
for
coats.
For illegal traders it was more difficult to indulge
in clandestine trade in skins rather than in bones,
particularly because
tiger
bones can be concealed in the legal trade in animal
bones for fertiliser and other uses. The new emphasis
on bones was
shown
when tiger remains found in forests often included skins,
while bones had been taken.
Seizures
in recent years, however, have increasingly included
skins of tigers and leopards. In fact, skins of leopards,
of which
there
is a thriving population in India, far outnumbered those
of tigers. For some time it was a mystery where they
were going.
But
in recent years truckloads of professionally-treated
skins have been found en route for Nepal, from which
illegal trade to
Tibet
flourishes.
The
report from the London-based Environment Intelligence
Agency (EIA), which is briefly summarised in this issue
of Cat
News
(p. 21), provides a vivid picture of the end-use of
the skins in Tibet and China. It also shows how much
of the illegal trade
goes
on, from tanning factories, sometimes almost under the
eyes of the police, and by transport to the primary
routes on which
they
are taken into Tibet.
The
Wildlife Protection Society of India and the Wildlife
Trust of India have done excellent work in assisting
the authorities
to
track down poachers and traders, and to bring them before
the courts. But the courts tend not to take the offences
very
seriously;
according to the EIA 748 cases involving skins resulted
in only 14 convictions. The accused easily get bail
– and are
sometimes
found continuing their illegal activities while temporarily
free – and sentences are inadequate. One notorious trader,
Sansar
Chand, who has had over a dozen charges filed against
him since 1972, has been freed on bail after being sentenced
to
five
years’ imprisonment earlier this year. A member of a
tribe which has traditionally specialised in wildlife
trade, Sansar
Chand
has prospered. A few years ago he arrived, smartly dressed,
in a five-star Delhi hotel to be interviewed by an American
TV
network. He has been able to engage some of India’s
leading lawyers to fight the cases against him.
Despite
pressure from the CITES Secretariat on India, Nepal
and China to strengthen control on poaching and illegal
trade,
progress
has been limited. There is little cooperation and inadequate
exchange of information between India, Nepal and China
that
would enable them to be more effective.
Tibetans
are an important factor in the trade. Thousands took
refuge in Nepal, and also in India, to escape Chinese
domination.
Many
still have links across the frontier, and they turn
up among the arrested. After Tibetans were found involved
in the
first
large seizure of tiger bones (400 kg in Delhi in 1993),
the Dalai Lama issued a statement drawing attention
to Buddhist
reverence
for life, and calling on his community to refrain from
the illegal wildlife trade. His call does not seem to
have had
much
effect.
The
EIA recommends that India, Nepal and China should establish,
and fully support, effective multi-agency enforcement
units
to fight the illegal trade, and cooperate to track down
trade networks and prosecute the bosses; that China
should sweep
markets
and confiscate all tiger, leopard and otter skins and
garments made from them; and that the international
community
should
provide technical and financial assistance to the three
countries.
It
is clear that China, with its economic advance and growing
wealth, is becoming more and more of a drain on its
Asian
neighbours’
wildlife, using it for gourmet foods and luxury goods.
India’s wildlife is being drained. Seizures of skins
in China
in
the past 18 months have shown that the authorities are
taking some action, but unless the Chinese government
stamps more
severely
on the trade it will be difficult for India to halt
the drain. Nepal, sandwiched between the two great countries,
poor, and
the
main channel for illegal trade, is, unfortunately, weakened
by the Maoist insurgency, and may have difficulty in
providing
the
necessary support to combat the trade.
Peter
Jackson
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