Title: An Assessment of existing enforcement mechanism in SECURE Himalaya landscape of Sikkim
KeyWords: existing enforcement mechanism, audit, status of interstate, intrastate and transboundary cooperation
Year of Publication: 2020
ISSN No: NA
Author Name: TRAFFIC the Wildlife trade Monitoring Network
Details:
Introduction
An estimated one million plant and animal species are threatened with extinction, many within decades, where human activities have been attributed driving this extinction (IPBES 2019). While, there are existing instruments of trade regulation both at the international level such as CITES and at the national level such as Export Import (EXIM) Policy to reduce illegal trans-boundary trade of wildlife products and the Wildlife Protection Act-1972, their true potential can be realised only when they are implemented together. Having policies along with commensurate penalties alone may not be enough for reducing wildlife crime and illegal wildlife trade unless there is effective implementation mechanism to protect and safeguard these natural resources along with an effective demand reduction campaign targeting business, markets and consumer mind set (Holden et al., 2018)
Forest areas juxtaposed along with Protected Areas (PA) are being realised as the way forward. These landscapes will be essential cornerstone component of species conservation strategies, but the true realisation of the species conservation is the integration and implementation of the PA strategy into the wider landscape, and into the concerns of the local society (Ervin et al., 2010). This will facilitate species, where they can travel and migrate across the habitats. However, it will depend on how and by whom management decisions are being made and implemented. Also, attention to transparent and accountable decision-making may promote more effective conservation measures, adaptive management, and timely and adequate responses to changing conditions while incorporating the aspirations and concern of the local society (Appleton 2016).
Given the growing pressures of illegal hunting, increased investments in people’s development and additional conservation efforts such as improving anti-poaching strategies and conservation resources in terms of improving funding and personnel directed at this problem are a growing priority.
In India, the Forest Department has a well-defined organizational structure where in each state it has its setup which extends to the grass-root level. There are field level officers and senior officers at the state headquarters. The highest ranking officers in the field are the Divisional Forest Officer (DFO), who is assisted by Assistant Conservator of Forest (ACF), who is further assisted by Range Forest Officer (RFO) who manages the territorial unit known as a ‘Range’. Under the RFO comes Block Officers (BOs) who are then assisted by Head Forest Guards (HFG) and Forest Guards (FG). The Forest Guard has his jurisdiction extending over the smallest unit of forest administration called a ‘beat’.