Govt brings Bill to amend wildlife law

CITES is a multilateral treaty to protect endangered species. One of its main aims is to regulate the international trade of animals and plants so that it does not threaten their survival.

“This has been a long-standing demand from CITES for the past 25 years. India has been blacklisted by CITES once before, and if a second blacklisting were to happen — then India will no longer be able to trade in important plant specimens. This would affect the livelihood of a large section of Indian society that relies heavily on this trade,” said a Ministry official.

The amendments propose to streamline wildlife management and monitoring by setting up Standing Committees of State Boards of Wildlife. These committees will function like the National Board for Wildlife which is responsible for monitoring protected areas in the country and awarding or denying permission to projects in light of its threat to wildlife.

Officials say that in most states, State Wildlife Boards fall under the responsibility of Chief Ministers, and are therefore neglected due to the paucity of time. Once this is approved, the state Standing Committees will be able to take decisions on wildlife management and permissions granted for projects, without having to refer most projects to the NBWL.

The Ministry has also rationalised Schedules for Wildlife under the Act, bringing it down from 6 to 4 major schedules. A schedule is a categorisation of wildlife depending on how critically endangered they are. A schedule I category of wildlife (such as Tigers) are the highest protected under the Act.

“We have kept the integrity of the original schedules and have not diluted them at all. But the rationalisation needed to be done because there were many discrepancies in the schedules and they were also ambiguous. Some species were listed under English names, others under scientific names, some under families while others under orders. Such a categorisation was very confusing for wildlife and forest officials on the ground to implement,’’ said the official quoted above.

The Ministry has also mandated that Wildlife Management Plans which are developed for sanctuaries and national parks across the country, will now become a part of the Wildlife Act and will have to be approved by the Chief Wildlife Warden of the state. “This will ensure far stricter protection to these protected areas. Earlier they would be protected through executive orders which did not have as much teeth. Once these plans become a part of law, they will have to be implemented and obeyed,” said the official.