GUWAHATI, July 10 – With poachers operating with increasing dexterity and sophistication, the absence of trained manpower has emerged as a debilitating constraint for the Forest Department to tackle wildlife crime. As many as three rhinos fell to poachers’ bullets in Orang National Park in quick succession, exposing the protected area’s (PA’s) inadequate security mechanism. “While manpower shortage is a common ill plaguing most of the PAs of the State, the problem is compounded by the absence of well-trained personnel to outwit the poachers,” a Forest official said, requesting anonymity.
“The job of taking on poachers armed with sophisticated weapons inside deep forests entails skills required for jungle warfare but the level of training and preparedness of our wildlife staff is abysmal. We have personnel serving inside forests who do not even know how to handle a rifle,” the official said.
Last year a poacher was arrested from Orang National Park with an AK-47 rifle. This shows how the wildlife criminals are resorting to the best available weaponry but the forest personnel continue with the age-old firearms.
Motivation remains another problem area, with a sizeable section of those serving in forests being aged and lacking dynamism. A prolonged life of drudgery stemming from decades of service with little incentives in hostile terrain often makes the forest personnel a depressed lot. “It is a fact that few of those serving in the Forest Department’s territorial, social forestry, etc., divisions are inclined to join the wildlife division. It is generally taken as a punishment posting,” he said.
With Kaziranga attracting maximum attention for conservation following the spurt in rhino poaching in the past couple of years, it is highly probable that poachers could shift their focus to areas like Orang having insufficient protection measures. The 78.82-sq km park, besides facing a shortage of manpower and equipment, borders dense human settlements on its western, northern and eastern boundaries.
The trans-border implications of the thriving racket of the illegal trade also get invariably exposed every time a poacher is nabbed. “In the last instance we nabbed two members of the gang involved in the killing of the rhino from a Dimapur-bound bus, and their interrogation revealed Nagaland to be a major transit point of the clandestine wildlife trade,” Sukumar Momin, DFO, Mangaldoi Wildlife Division, who is in charge of Orang National Park, said.
Another disturbing aspect of wildlife crime is that while poaching of big animals like rhino, elephant and tiger hogs media limelight, killing of lesser animals virtually go on unreported. “Wildlife crime is now the world’s second largest illegal trade after narcotics but associating it with mega species alone would be a folly that would harm long-term conservation prospects. Poaching of any wildlife needs to be addressed as a priority,” a Forest official said.
