GUWAHATI: Wildlife crime experts have called for better cooperation between the India's forest department and other countries to curb the rise in poaching of the one-horned rhino and illegal trade of its horn.
This comes in the wake of rising incidents of poaching in Assam, which is posing a threat to its rhino population. The state, in fact, boasts two-thirds of the world's total one-horned rhino population.
With the recent arrest of Ratiram Sharma, one of the kingpins of rhino horn trade in eastern India, bringing to the fore the thriving illegal trade of rhino horn and organs of wild animals across the northeast and in West Bengal, experts have stressed on better coordination between the forest department and law enforcement agencies in various states of the country where the one-horned rhino is found to tackle this serious crime.
Though Sharma was recently arrested in Nagaland's commercial hub of Dimapur, sources said he was arrested twice earlier, once in Assam and on another occasion in West Bengal, in connection with illegal trade in body parts of wild animals. Dimapur is also known to be a major centre for illegal rhino horn trade in the northeast.
"Along with international cooperation, there is also a need to control the crime through effective cooperation between the forest department and law enforcement agencies in the Indian states where rhinos are found. Once we are able to check the crime in the Indian states, I believe we can considerably curb the rising demand for rhino horn in the international grey market," a wildlife crime expert said.
At the recently concluded meeting of five Asian Rhino range countries at Bandar Lampung in Indonesia, experts had also asserted the importance of stepping up capacity-building for anti-poaching measures. The five rhino range countries are India, Nepal, Bhutan, Indonesia and Malaysia.
India, Nepal and Bhutan are home to the greater one-horned rhinos. While Indonesia is home to Sumatran and Javan rhinos, Malaysia has only the Sumatran rhino species.
The meeting, facilitated by the International Union for Conservation of Nature's Species Survival Commission (SSC) and hosted by the Indonesian government, came out with the Bandar Lampung Declaration which stressed on the need to ensure "increased cooperation" for management of trans-boundary greater one-horned rhino populations in the Terai Arc (India and Nepal) and Manas (India and Bhutan).
