|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Unprecedented Sanctions
Against India
The CITES Secretariat made an unprecedented move against India in its recommendation that all Parties, non-Parties, international organizations and non-government organizations not send additional financial support for tiger conservation in India until India demonstrated that funds are used efficiently and for the purpose of tiger conservation and that the government’s own funds are being fully and efficiently utilized. In addition, the CITES Secretariat recommended that until India establishes specialized wildlife crime units and increases enforcement and financial control measures, the Standing Committee is urged to recommend to the Parties a trade embargo against India for all CITES-listed specimens. The finding that led to Mission’s recommendations was that up to 30 percent of some park budgets remained unspent. In addition, the very basic requirements for field staff of salary, personal radio equipment, modern weaponry and patrol vehicles were still not present in many areas. Vehicles presented by foreign NGOs to Project Tiger for poaching patrols had been diverted to other uses. The recommendations follow on the heels of the CITES Tiger High-Level Political Mission’s findings. In Doc. 11.30, the Political Mission’s disappointment with India’s failure to make an effort to redress some of the problems found by the CITES Tiger Missions Technical Team is palpable. Throughout the report, its authors refer to their findings in highly critical tones stressing that “… the mission found the responsible officials to be, in the main, evasive when questioned about what work was actually taking place at field level.” Worse, the mission report states that “State administrators appear to deliberately conceal the loss of tigers to poachers” and called the Indian response to mission inquires a “culture of cover-up….” The Mission’s harsh criticism was not confined to the Indian government. “The mission was also disappointed that TRAFFIC India does not appear to have played as large a role in calling attention to the clear shortcomings in tiger conservation as might have been reasonably expected” and “The mission was concerned that WWF India… has been so absorbed in recent years with its internal problems that it has failed to motivate stronger action from public authorities in India….” The mission, however, was notably impressed with dedication and determination of some officials, primarily the head of the CITES Management Authority and the Director of Project Tiger, whose term with the project will end in approximately a year. However, “varying levels of apathy, complacency and bureaucracy seem to stifle or frustrate good work and intentions.” According to the Mission’s own figures, since launching of Project Tiger, in 1973, between US$8 to 10 million has been channeled into India by overseas Governmental and NGO bodies for tiger conservation. Approximately US$130-150 million has been spent by Union and State governments on tiger preservation. These totals, however, do not distinguish between funds going to NGOs in India for tiger conservation and funds going to the government of India for that purpose. In the Technical Mission Report, the team found that the government of India was increasingly relying upon NGOs in India to undertake and carryout duties that normally come under the jurisdiction of state agencies. This was a dynamic found to be very worrisome to the technical team for a variety of reasons. However, the Technical Team noted that if the NGOs did not perform the tasks, they probably would not be done. A key point raised by the Technical Mission, one vital to the success of virtually any conservation project is India’s “failure to engage local people in the fight against tiger poaching” and participate in conservation efforts in general. Observers see this flaw in India’s approach to as undermining the success of its tiger program as well as other wildlife conservation programs in that country. Without knowing precisely the distribution of funds, there is no way to ascertain the impact of a funding ban. The worse-case scenario would see NGOs performing these essential tasks losing their funding with the duties they normally perform dropped. Clearly this would not benefit the target population – TIGERS – and no one believes funding will be cut-off for a prolonged period. This raises the specter of third party oversight and loss by India over its control of its tiger conservation programs. Third party oversight is a key component to the NGO agenda. India is vulnerable to such a scenario. If, as some observers believe, this opportunity is seized by an NGO, the NGO will reap tremendous financial and public relations benefits (by collecting a percentage of donated fees for administrative purposes and through soliciting donations on its own as the overseers of “save the tiger” programs). India will lose sovereignty over management of its resources. |
