Myopia in fighting poaching

That poaching is rampant in India is hardly news and it would be an understatement to say that the menace is on the rise. But a recent news about a one-horned rhinoceros being killed at the Rajiv Gandhi Orang Wildlife Sanctuary, on the northern banks of the Brahmaputra, 140 km from Guwahati, gives pause for thought. Two poachers were killed in a shootout with forest guards on October 19. One of them, Harmuj Ali, had been released from jail just 10 days earlier. He was nabbed last June after killing a 25-year-old female rhino in the same park. The number of rhinos killed so far this year in the park has risen to six, with two dying of ‘natural causes’, against the seven in 2008. For all the awareness camps conducted and hi-tech training provided to the guards, such incidents rob the sheen of the India Rhino Vision-2020 programme, a project aimed at the long-term conservation of rhinos in Assam.It would be a tall order to expect the government to curb the demand for rhino horn, ivory, tiger skin and rare reptiles in the international market, but it could certainly increase the quantum and severity of punishment for poaching. This should be backed by expediting the legal course. Punishment must be quick. Going by the Harmuj Ali experience, four months is small change for the lakhs of rupees a rhino horn fetches in the international market.The case of Harmuj Ali also throws light on the fact that our jails do little to reform a criminal, which is the purpose of these institutions. They serve more as a place for criminals to cool their heels for a while. After they are released they go on the hunt again.Though the government has grander plans for conservation and has tied up with the WWF and International Union for Conservation of Nature, it has failed to address the concerns of the forest guards. Reports say that many of the guards have been working as temporary staff more than two decades. Irregular salaries and non-regularisation of jobs certainly weigh down on the morale of the guards who have threatened suicide if the government fails to recognise their demands.Wildlife protection is a demanding task and the government seems to have realised the importance of it, but it cannot save the remaining endangered animals unless it wins the trust of all parties involved, because the enemy is focused. Greed is, after all, a great motivator.