IUCN / SSC Cat Specialist Group - Digital Cat Library |
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| Kumar, P. | |
| Monitoring wildlife seizure data on the Nepal-Tibet Border | |
| 2016 Conference Proceeding | |
Illegal wildlife trade is a growing challenge to biodiversity conserve. In South Asia, Nepal acts as both a source-country and as a transitional hub for wildlife parts. Well-established channels through Nepal to Tibet deliver wildlife parts to China, the Middle East and South East Asian markets. However, there has been relatively little effort to systematically study patterns or trends in wildlife trade through Nepal. This talk explores the shifting patterns of the illegal wildlife trade based on six years (2009-2014) of wildlife seizure data compiled from national newspapers, Nepal's Police, District Forest Office, Department of National Park and Wildlife Conservation, and from records of conservation organizations. These suggest a possible shift in trade from species widely-recognized as threatened by trade (e.g., Tiger, Asian Elephant, and One Horned Rhinoceros) to other species, with dramatic increases in seizures of Pangolin, Red panda, Common Leopard, Musk deer, Python and Eurasian Eagle owl. This trend, however, could also represent changing enforcement strategies, and greater awareness of trade in other species. Highly armed national parks and wildlife reserves are being successful to control the poaching inside the protected areas and Nepal is celebrating a "zero poaching" year for Tiger Elephant and Rhino inside its protected areas. However, poaching and trade of other species from outside of protected areas, and the transnational trade of taxa from other countries remains a problem. Seizure records have limitations for researchers, but given the severe lack of information on illegal trade and challenges of collecting primary data, they are also a valuable, under-utilized dataset. There is a clear benefit to improving the collection of seizure records, including by expanding them so baseline data is collected when seizures are made, such as on suspected origin and destination of wildlife and on the participants involved in trade. Controlling the illegal wildlife harvest and trade, particularly outside the protected areas, is a mounting challenging. |
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