ABSTRACT
Asia is known for its wildlife and wild animals roaming the forest. Today, animals are hunted and poached for personal gain to the extent that wild species are extinct. People all over the world are interested in buying animal body parts because they believe that dead animals give them a position in society and that it shows their power, but they Do not care about the extinction of animals, and the demand for their natural habitat drives them crazy. Now is the time to fight illegal pet trade by raising awareness of endangered species and informing people of the current situation. Educate friends and family about conservation law. Take action by saying no to products that use animal body parts such as ivory, fur and seashells. Report wildlife crimes to wildlife agencies. All these efforts by civilians help governments and nonprofits control this, protect wildlife and maintain natural balance
KEYWORDS
Wildlife, Poaching, Endangered, Nature, Demand, Laws
INTRODUCTION
On this planet everyone has the right to grow without having danger to their life, neither the humans nor the animals or any species as all the species are essential for natural system on which we depend upon. Nature provides us with everything air, food, water, medicines, material etc. but knowing all these facts we have put our wildlife in crisis, human activities have threaten the wildlife by making destruction to the places where animals live and by killing or hunting them down making loss of natural habitat. Illegal hunting, poaching or importing their body parts. All this affects the environment and the natural state of ecosystem as these things plays important role in making our health and diversity of our environment.
The Asian countries are the places where the target f illegal trade is carried because here people are willing to pay money for the animal’s body part; “The Golden Triangle” is a location in South East Asia which involves country like Thailand, Myanmar, PDR and China to do illegal trade of animals. To stop all these trade governments’ needs to take steps to bring back wildlife, there is a need of plans and policies, strict laws to avoid the wildlife extinction.
OBJECTIVE
The objective of this research is to is to put stop to illegal trade of wildlife because it has a major impact on flora and fauna of the world, people who are involved in this trade they do not care about the animal species which are going to extinct from the nature they more care about economic benefit and create a habitat for animals.
REVIEW OF LITREATURE
There can be depletion of prey base and habitat for big cats, leopards and tigers if the poaching of small animals remains unchecked and will result in destruction to environment, all this will lead to human- wildlife conflicts and have negative impact to the wildlife conservation achieved by India during the years.[1]
If the sale of ivory is partially legalized in China and Japan then there will be less people who will purchase it illegally but this assumption was not correct as partial legalization ivory would result in increasing of supply in black market by attracting new customers.[2]
BLACK MARKETING OF ANIMAL BODY PARTS
Transferring animals from zoos to national parks with certain set of rules decided by government is a legal practice there is nothing wrong, on the other hand when animals are injured, hunted or killed to be sold for personal benefit without government’s intervene then it is illegal and comes under black marketing.
Before getting to know the cause of black marketing, it’s important to understand that why animals are hunted or traded. Hunting is a sport where animal is pursued and killed but in present it is no more hunting of wild animals but overhunting of animals making the species extinct and harm to wildlife, it can be easily termed as overexploitation of natural resource. Overhunting is not only exploitation of nature and ecosystem but also threatening the survival of other species. All these trading and hunting is done to fulfill the demand of overpopulation with the moving world there has been significant increase in the numbers of individual living, the high demand of food and raw material leading to extensive poaching and hunting of animals. The major contribution for black marketing of animal body parts are done for Cosmetic products made out of animal body. As world is developing humans needs are also increasing earlier human just use to focus on necessity now human is focusing on luxury which shows their power, status to the society and this status can be shown by putting gold ornaments made out of animals body or using their skin, offering exotic meat and extravagant for eating meals.
BLACK MARKET THREAT TO ECOSYSTEM
Ecosystem is not only threatened by deforestation, pollution or harvesting, but from the illegal trade of wildlife. According to US Fish & Wildlife the trade of animals in black market is considered to be multibillion dollar business. Surveys by WWF and TRAFFIC shows the list of animals which are going to extinct in some years:
ELEPHANT- according to survey, it is found that every part of the body of elephant is put on sale which includes teeth, hair, bones, tails, ivory, the skin of elephant is used in restaurants as a cure to the illness related to stomach most of the ivory is smuggled from Africa while in Myanmar elephants are poached and killed to meet the demands.
PANGOLINS- the most popular mammal’s trade in black market for their healing benefits of their scales and for the recognized as delicacy of the meat and it is considered that pangolins scale can be used for kidney ailments.
RHINOS- rhinos are hunted down because of their horns, which are used as ornaments, horns are used by traditional Chinese medicine for curing food poisoning, snakebites, and hallucination.
The demand for animals body parts is increasing day by day and the practice of hunting, killing and poaching is regularly carried on to supply these species in the market this not only resulting in extinction in animals but also a huge loss to biodiversity, it threatens the ecosystem, endangering species because of population losses, overhunting, over exploitation the species, population decline. Subsequently renaissance of Rhinos is low as earlier the different species of rhinos mostly three horns rhino has been targeted so there is extremely low rate of reproduction, declining in population is a threat to other species which are not yet targeted. The illegal trade is a risk to depletion of natural resources, which results in economic losses to the countries which gain revenue from wildlife, forests, fisheries and ecotourism.
CAUSES
Lack of legal guidelines to prohibit black marketing – loss of legal guidelines to get unlawful exchange, guidelines Illegal investors get away their crimes as there aren’t sufficient strict legal guidelines to prevent them. The results of such crimes aren’t more than the bad crimes committed, as they’ve now no longer been diagnosed as a main trouble till recently. In India, fines for unlawful buying and selling is from INR 10 thousand rupees to twenty-five thousand , and seven to ten years of imprisonment. However, due to inadequate persecution, maximum poachers are released. The three-12 months poacher`s sentencing has been visible as a unprecedented punishment in India, which indicates how unfastened the regulation is.
Harvesting exacerbates the hassle — A new purpose to kill an animal after which use it for industrial functions is “I did now no longer kill the rhino, I harvested it.” Harvesting is the exercise of removing a species that has end up popular, restoring herbal stability. Informal harvesting practices ought to permit natural world included round the arena to be illegally imported into industrial streams, in line with a document of unlawful natural world exchange. Killing a kind to preserve herbal stability is like ingesting a big quantity of sugar to elevate blood sugar ranges in spite of having diabetes. There isn’t anyt any medical foundation for the argument that searching is performed to shield the environment. In addition, maximum of those animals come to be withinside the marketplace. Deer harvesting has end up a main hassle withinside the United States, with a developing range of humans taking part in deer searching.
Transfer of Illegal Trade withinside the Legal Markets – These objects come to be withinside the criminal marketplace in spite of their unlawful startups. Although it become usually concept that illegally traded natural world become offered solely and solely in black markets, diverse research have determined that almost all of unlawful natural world traffickers are offered in valid markets. As a result, call for is at the rise, main to an growth in unlawful killings. Illegal natural world exchange takes location worldwide, now no longer simply in natural world habitats. According to natural world exchange data, the UK is a delivery vacation spot and a key vacation spot country. UK Border Force seized greater than 257 objects among 2009 and 2014. About 3,000 unlawful objects had been seized, which include rhino horns, leopard products, and ivory.
Giving a big quantity of money – It isn’t anyt any mystery that those illicit items are priced excessive in European markets, encouraging poachers to maintain searching out greater money. This vicious cycle of greed has fuelled the poaching industry, and it’s far one of the main reasons of poaching. In 2014, marketplace costs for the whole black rhino horn had been expected at $ 60,000 in line with kilogram, with a few rumoured costs attaining up to $ 100,000 in line with kilogram.
Paperless sorts for sale – Thousands of paperless sorts stay for
Various human activities have posed significant hazards to endangered animals throughout the world. However, there has recently been a global awakening in the fight against the illegal wildlife trade. Why the illegal trade is still thriving because it provides finances for organizations that are related to black marketing and also criminal activity related to black market, criminal organizations do not fear any law or of being caught imprisoned because they do not receive any severe punishment for being a part of illegal trade. There is no fear of being imprisoned to criminals because of corruption, not having adequate rules and laws, and not having severe punishments
ONLINE SELLING
Products like animals, animal body parts, plants, plants product were traded illegally to advertise the animals for private and commercial sales from shops, stores and physical markets to selling these products on the street to make customer buy the customer belonging from luxurious restaurants to buy endangered species for their menus. For not getting detected by the authorities their use to be middlemen who helps the buyers to get the animal product they want from the seller. But this middleman concept is no more visible anymore because of the use of internet with moving world, now you want anything you can buy online same with this case now people have started buying animal products illegal products online, it is the suitable medium for the traffickers to advertise their product online, this increases the profit of companies. Social media has became a source for illegal trade, it was revealed in 2019 September, that Thailand have saled more over 1500 animals across the various Asian countries through the help of Face book among these sold animals there were several endangered species also. Online turtle sale in China, CITES[3] listed turtles were sold, the study showed how turtles were sold online illegally and how the pure species were highly priced. Hybrid turtles being attractive to hobbyists because of high variability and were priced more than the parent species.[4]
BIGGEST THREAT TO TIGERS: POACHING
Poaching is defined as illegal hunting or capturing of wild animals, killing them. It usually occurs when an animal is possesses of something valuable such as skin, bones etc. tigers are the symbol of power in Asian and literature and in some places of Asia tigers are known as king lookalike, being world’s most iconic species which use to roam across the forests without any fear are now on the verge of being decimated, poaching has reduced them, as over the century ago wild tigers were more than 100000 living in Asia but the report of UN World Wildlife says there are less than 3900 remaining.
India sharing its border with many Asian countries which is not fully secured to stop the illegal crossing or illegal trade, these reasons stimulates the increasing of poaching India and because of these things it is hard to determine the domestic poaching and outside poaching. Uttarakhand was mentioned as most unsafe state for leopards and tigers, as state witnessed the 60 illegal killings of tigers and 230 recognized killing of leopards throughout the India during 2014 to 2018. This incident was able to give the big picture of illegal killing within India, the WPSI[5], government and non- government organizations came together to investigate and protect the tigers within the Indian state.
The WPSI represented the statistics of tigers poached within India,
Question arises why wild tigers have extinct, being the most iconic and powerful species in the world the answer is simple to fulfill the ill desire for tiger products, southeast Asia is the main threat comes for tigers parts for using in traditional medicines many cultures use tiger parts for medicinal qualities including bones, blood and sexual organs.
Tiger skins are turned into rugs or stuffed and used as home décor to show luxury, this symbolizes the power and wealth for some people.
Tiger claws and canines used as ornaments or as trophies across the globe
Over 1000 years ago in Traditional Chinese medicine Tigers bones are used as bone strengthening wines and often given as prestigious gifts.
Ensuring the long term survival of the tiger can be done by creating awareness of the danger species it can help indirectly in saving tigers, organizing programs, workshops to spread the knowledge about the danger faced by tigers, the more people know the more easy it will be to protect the tigers. Creating habitat for the tigers will result in their long term survival; since everything is connected to nature the raise in population can be ensured. Creating safe place for tigers in forests, sanctuaries where they cannot be harm by humans or vice-versa.
WAYS TO PROTECT ANIMALS
Governments agreeing on make national laws over the prohibition of illegal trade and killing of animals can result in reducing the demand of animal products for instance in 1993, China banned the use of tiger bones and rhinos horns under traditional Chinese medicines, the practitioners of TCM refused to use tiger parts for making ailments to different diseases. This can help in expansion of the population.
Making strict standard on domestic trade can help in recovering of the endangered animal species, according to EPA 1986[6] any person who violates the regulation made for environmental protection will be sentenced to jail for 5 years or imposed with a fine of INR 1 Lakhs or both. If the accused did not comply with fine he shall be imposed to fine of INR 5 Thousand daily or if the offender does appear within one year he shall be imprisoned for 7 years. To fight against the illegal poaching there should be technical and financial support for wildlife crimes this can be done by including non-profit organizations which focuses on wildlife conservation and installing them as forest rangers to prevent poaching and illegal hunting in the forest.
Protecting animals through the laws made by the country, in India, under the Constitution of India under Art 48A[7] states that state shall work for the improvement of environment and for the forests as well as for the wildlife. The states are instructed to make such rules and regulations which help in protecting the animals. All Indian citizens have the fundamental duty to protect and safeguard the environment and have sympathy towards all living species.[8] For preventing illegal trade, poaching of animals there has been an establishment of Wildlife Crime Control Bureau, which will ensure the effectiveness of the laws. The Indian government has a are network which connects from all the habitats created under the provision of wildlife act 1972 which are national parks, sanctuaries, conservation reserves, and communities reserves all these step to provide protection to wildlife.
In 2002, NBD Act[9] was established to ensure the protection of the endangered species and the habitats, if the species are on the verge to became extinct in the near future then they are notifies under the section 38 of NBD Act. Indian government also took some important steps by starting various projects on Elephant, Tigers, Rhinos, and Crocodile.
CONCLUSION
The black market of wildlife is huge and boundless this market includes many countries, trading animals for some personal and economic gain results in destruction in nature, biodiversity, on wildlife population. It is very important to curb poaching, poaching is the main reason of black marketing of animals, educating people to not believe myths and belief, in Vietnam people hunt Rhinos because their horns can cure cancer. The black market trade concerns human health animals carry infectious diseases can put human lives in danger the COVID-19 pandemic is the live example we faced. there should be strict rules to poachers for committing any offence, the punishment should be severe so that they prevent themselves from committing again. Corruption should be discouraged so that people fear in commiting any offence.
Name- Yashika Patel
College- Banasthali Vidyapith
[1] Ravi Singh, Chief Executive officer of WWF, India
https://www.aa.com.tr/en/asia-pacific/tiger-poaching-multiples-in-india-during-lockdown/1924833
[2] research conducted at Princeton University,
https://www.aa.com.tr/en/asia-pacific/tiger-poaching-multiples-in-india-during-lockdown/1924833
[3] Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna
[4] in 2018,Hong Kong pubished the paper
[5] Wildlife Protection Security of India
[6] Environmental Protection Act
[7] Protection and improvement of environment and safeguarding of forests
[8] Article 51A(g)
[9] National Biological Diversity Act