TRAFFICKING OF SMALLER SPECIES
The global focus on the smuggling of rhino horns and tiger parts from
India to China has led to a drop in smuggling, but that has been replaced by a
surge in the trafficking of smaller species like pangolins and geckos.
Pangolins caught dead or alive here and in other parts of
India are being trafficked to China’s Yunnan province via Burma, which shares a
porous 1,600km border with northeast Indian states like Arunachal Pradesh,
Nagaland, Manipur and Mizoram.
The Wildlife Crime Control Bureau (WCCB) in Assam has seized
10 live pangolins in the last three years from northeast Indian states. In the
last seizure in June, undercover agents fixed a deal with smugglers to buy a
live pangolin for six crore.
The Centre for
Wildlife Rehabilitation Conservation (CWRC) near Kaziranga National Park in
Assam has also seen a sharp rise in rescues of smuggled pangolins, proving the
existence of a trafficking network using the India-Burma-China route. Indian pangolins are also smuggled to China
via Nepal.
Traffickers buy pangolins scales from farmers for up to Rs
70,000 and take them to Manipur state, from where they are smuggled across the
border to Burma and on to China.
Pangolin scales are
used in Chinese traditional medicines, much like rhino horns and tiger
parts. Enhanced security and an international spotlight on the trafficking of
rhinos and tigers have forced smugglers to shift to small mammals like
pangolins.
Besides pangolins, the Tockay
gecko is also being smuggled into China, following the same route used by
traffickers of rhino horns – through Manipur and Burma to Yunnan province of
China. Fluid extracted from the geckos is used in traditional Chinese medicine
to treat cancer.
The demand for rhino horns rose after rumours spread during
the last decade that a Vietnamese minister was cured of cancer after taking
traditional medicine that included rhino horn powder. Rhinos in Kaziranga park
came under pressure after that.
The state government then set up a special investigation
team (SIT) to stop rhino poaching, conducting special operations between
2008-2014, leading to the arrest and killing of several poachers and seizures
of rhino horns. Captured poachers told investigators the smuggling hub was
based in Churachandpur district of
India’s Manipur state.
Sometimes drugs are also traded with animal parts. Drugs are
pushed in through these routes to the Indian side with the help of militant
outfits that frequent these routes. Animal parts such as rhino horns, geckos
and live pangolins are smuggled out.
There are similar punishments for poaching rhinos or
pangolins, but our law enforcement agencies were not much concerned about the
killing of pangolins till recently. “Wildlife trafficking should be seen as a
national security threat and not merely of smuggling animals.”
