News Excerpt:
Recently, the central government has excluded some species from the process of issuing licences for their wildlife trade in the revised rules that have come after four decades.
Wild Life (Protection) Licensing (Additional Matters for Consideration) Rules, 2024:
- According to new rules, the government offered fresh guidelines for granting licences to stakeholders involved in snake venom, captive animals, trophy animals and stuffed animals.
- With new guidelines in effect, the government has stated that, “No such licences shall be granted if it relates to any wild animals specified in the Schedule I to the Act, except with previous consultation of the central government.”
- “The authorised officials granting the license”, have to note the source and manner in which the supplies would be obtained by the business involved, including the number of licences already issued in the concerned area.
- The notification does not clarify why the restrictions on Schedule II species have been lifted.
- On earlier occasion in 2022, the central government in amendment of the Wildlife Protection Act merged several schedules of wild animals, reducing the six schedules to four.
- The previous rules from 1983 prohibited issuing licences to trade in a wild animal categorised under Schedule I or Part II of Schedule II under the Wildlife Protection Act 1972.
- The licences were granted in exceptional cases with previous approval of the central government.
Present status:
- As per the revised amendments Schedule I includes animals requiring utmost protection while Schedule II has species needing comparatively lower protection.
- Plant species have been listed under Schedule II while Schedule IV is dedicated to species to be protected under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).
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CITES (The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora)
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- Under the Wildlife Protection Act 1972, some of the animals listed under Schedule II include birds such as sparrows, eagles, falcons, prinias, reptiles such as snakes, turtles, mammals such as deer, langur, and amphibians like geckos and frogs are listed.
- According to the World Wildlife Crime Report 2020 about 6,000 species of flora and fauna were seized globally from 1999-2018.
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World Wildlife Crime Reports
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