Tiger Bone & Rhino
Horn: The Destruction of Wildlife for Traditional Chinese Medicine
Richard Ellis
Richard
Ellis focuses his book on reasons behind why tigers are now an endangered
species. He accredits this threat of extinction not only due to habitat loss,
but also due to Asian medicinal trade. Although it is important to note
that other states such as Russia also have poaching that is related to Chinese
medicine, Ellis emphases India’s role in it.
The assertion that is made that majority of poachers are tribal people
who make very little off the tiger parts was surprising. Ellis states that
there are instances were poachers make only fifteen dollars for a killed tiger,
while the traders are the ones that make majority of the profit. After
discussing the methods and reasoning behind tiger poaching, Ellis continues
with what the Indian government is doing to prevent the extinction of these
animals. There are NGOs such as the Wildlife Protection society of India that
work with various governmental agencies to stop tiger poachers and traders. These
agencies work to examine and research unnatural tiger deaths and how tiger
killings are being carried out. Although there are organizations in place to
research and help put an end to tiger poaching, there is little done for
convicting caught poachers and traders. According to the magazine India Today, besides the operations of various task forces the law
within India has become lenient against conviction and punishments for poaching.
The article that Ellis mentions states that according to records, only 14 out
of 1,400 cases of accused poachers were condemned.
I was also most surprised to find that traders receive a higher profit than the hunters. One would assume hunting is much more skilled and more difficult task. If you can link the traders' profit margin compared to that of a hunter's to your overall thesis it might be interesting to add. Also, why might this be so? Who are they trading to? Are tigers an export good?
ReplyDeleteAnother thing to look for is are there difficulties in catching traders and if so what obstacles exist?
I was really disappointed to read that India is very lenient against convicting poachers. I think one of the most effective ways to curb/eliminate poaching would be to ensure that anyone who gets caught receives an actual punishment. Do you think there is a way to get countries that are not currently convicting most caught poachers and traders to take the issue more seriously and enforce the laws?
ReplyDeleteI'm also very shocked that India is lenient on such matters, especially when worshipping animals is a prominent part of the Indian culture and the tiger happens to be India's national animal. However I also like you mentioned would like to see what else these countries can and are doing to protect endangered tigers, since the policies in place don't have much of an influence currently.
ReplyDeleteI actually looked further into this, and found a number of reasons for why India seems to be lenient on convicting poachers. One main reason is that it is extremely hard to convince the courts in India. According to the article Environment-India: Proectuting Poachers Impossible-Wardens “’But, it is another challenge to convince the courts that the recorded statements by the arrested poachers during investigations are also evidence,’ Someashekhar explained. ‘Section 30 of the Indian Evidence Act provides for confessions to be read out against co-accused in a joint trial; to interpret this in wildlife cases calls for proving the connivance of a gang of poachers who are caught and interrogated for the same offense with the material evidence.” I was also interested to find that Russia also has trouble prosecuting poachers.
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