A History of Conservation: 50 Years of the Wildlife Protection Act 1972

The Passion for Collection

To understand the drive behind the trade of wild animals and their products and to comprehend its impact on wild animals as well as humans in a better way, we need to travel slightly back in the past because this is not a recent human endeavour. The demand for food and medicine coupled with the intrinsic human desire to own anything that is considered beautiful and exclusive has driven this trade ever since humans started bartering their surpluses. Further, the discovery of intercontinental trade routes and the development of long-distance transport facilities led to the rapid expansion of this erstwhile local-level trade into a highly profitable international business endeavour.

The major surge in this trade as a truly global phenomenon came during the Victorian era when, following the acceptance (and popularity) of Darwin’s theory of evolution, collecting samples of wild fauna and flora became a widely practised hobby, finding justification even in Biblical texts. In Genesis, the Victorians happily read that God formed every living thing on Earth and then commanded Adam to name them. It was hence postulated that ‘humanity has a duty to inventory’, which resulted in a spree of activities related to collecting and naming the various creations of God, not just from one’s surroundings but also from faraway places. It became an approved endeavour even in cultures where outdoor sports had been frowned upon till that time. While this undoubtedly led to rapid advancement in the science of taxonomy, it also had some not-so-desired consequences for wildlife. For a few individuals, this benign hobby transformed into an addiction as they started employing every possible trick, legal or illegal, to acquire, smuggle or steal unique wildlife samples to ‘enrich’ and ‘diversify’ their personal collections that they could proudly display to demonstrate their wealth, passion or interests.

This addiction, often exhibited under the guise of scientific studies ranged from certain individual venturing out to collect specimen to more elaborate and systematic exercises carried out at the intercontinental level. The famous (or infamous) Smithsonian– Roosevelt African Expedition of 1909–1910 is often cited as an example of one such effort to collect samples of wildlife for purportedly scientific purposes. A well-organized, large-scale operation was undertaken to collect species of different continent and which resulted in more than 11,000 faunal specimens being collected. To date, this expedition cited as an upsetting example of excessive killing and waving off of local laws on the part of the elite, while others view it as the most elaborate exercise to collect samples for scientific study.

India, at that time was ruled by the mighty British Empire, and couldn’t afford to remain untouched by this growing European fad. Our country, with its vast expanse of rich tropical forests, full of unique and often endemic biological diversity, offered an exciting treasure for enthusiastic collectors from the West. While this passion, led by colonial officers, did enrich the systematic taxonomy of wild flora and fauna of the subcontinent, it simultaneously made destructive activities like recreational hunting an accepted signature sport of the elite. As the fashion for shikar grew in the region, the wildlife of the subcontinent withered. This continued even after the imperial powers had left the shores of the country, and the new breed of nouveau elite rose up the societal ladder.

Stopping the Slide

By the late 1960s, however, it was clear that driven by hunting and international trade, several wild animals in India were facing an existential threat. The last surviving Asiatic cheetah, once a widely prevalent big cat in the country, had already been shot to local extinction by the early 1950s. Apparently, the cheetah was not alone to be subjected to such threats. Under the then prevailing scenario, several other species appeared to be heading the same way. Though the skin of the tiger was the ultimate trophy sought by the visiting tourist-hunters, several other wild animals, such as snakes, monitor lizards, crocodiles, etc., were also hunted in large numbers for their skin and other products.

While the products made of shahtoosh and ivory constituted premium-quality export items of that era, the bulk of export from the country was of birds, trapped for their feathers or sold in cages; of monkeys and langurs, demanded for animal trials; and of frogs, fancied for the flesh of their legs.

As an outcome of this unchecked onslaught against wildlife species, the wild population several species crashed. While tigers reached a precariously low number, other species, such as the crocodiles were almost on the verge of extinction. To the conservationists and the policymakers, it was becoming abundantly clear that if India wished to protect her precious wildlife, then something had to be done, and that too quite urgently. The decision was, however, not an easy one to make. Revenues generated from the export of these wildlife products were an important source of foreign exchange for the newly independent country still trying to find a foothold in the international market. This trade also ensured livelihood for thousands of artisans, bird and animal trappers, taxidermists, and exporters. However, considering the vastly deleterious impact such trade had on its wild heritage, India decided to put a near-total stop to the unregulated exploitation of its wildlife. The fact that hunting and the practice of making money by killing innocent animals wasn’t part of the cultural ethos of a largely non-violent nation also helped the country to bring about these changes rather smoothly. In 1968, the export of furs of wild animals from the country was officially banned, and during the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) triennial meeting held in New Delhi in 1969, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi made the intent of the country clear when she said, ‘We need more foreign exchange but not at the cost of the life and liberty of some of the most beautiful species in our country.’1 The complete ban on tiger- hunting, the enactment of the Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972, and the launch of Project Tiger followed in quick succession.

The WLPA and Teething Troubles

Soon after the IUCN meeting and the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment held in Stockholm in 1972, the push to legislate a comprehensive national law for the protection of wildlife reached its peak. As forests and wildlife at that time fell under the State List of Schedule VII of the Indian constitution, the central government’s powers to legislate on these subjects were restricted. To overcome this obstacle, a relatively less-used provision of the Constitution, viz., Article 252 that empowered Parliament to legislate on a State List subject if two or more states of the Union passed a resolution to this effect in their respective state assemblies, was used to enact the WLPA as a central Act. The Act was passed by Parliament during its Winter Session in 1972 and became the prime legal instrument to protect the country’s wild flora and fauna. In its present form, this ‘special’ Act covers almost everything from the procedure to declare a protected area (PA) to provisions for combating the trafficking of fauna and flora, enlisted in its various schedules. Ever since its enactment, it has been the bedrock of wildlife management and protection in the country.

During its enactment in 1972 and soon thereafter, it did attract criticisms from certain expected quarters. For example, provision to put a complete ban on hunting of wildlife, which included the practice of traditional hunting by some indigenous communities, was fiercely debated. However, the strongest pushback against the Act came from the affluent and economically strong lobby of traders of wildlife products and from the supremely resourceful hunting companies.

Under such pressures, initially, it took a while for the WLPA to be fully implemented, especially in the state of Jammu and Kashmir, where it was opposed strongly by the artisans and traders of wild furs. In areas like Andaman and Nicobar Islands, reasonable relief was granted to accommodate the traditional rights of indigenous groups. However, driven by the strong political will and the ingrained cultural ethos of the country towards conservation, the Act became operational without any major dilution in its original provisions. In the years that followed, the unsustainable and unregulated commercial exploitation of wildlife in the country gradually came to a near complete halt, attesting to the value of a timely and well-conceived piece of legislation.

But no legislation can deal with a dynamic issue for perpetuity. Though the Act, as amended from time to time, dealt with the issue of wildlife crime and had a structure to tackle it, the tiger debacle at Sariska and Panna forced the country to revisit the issue once again and ensure a more robust mechanism to stop the crime against wildlife. As a result, a dedicated multi-agency enforcement body, coordinated under a single command was established via an amendment to the WLPA in 2006. Operating under the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC), the Wildlife Crime Control Bureau (WCCB) is staffed with officers from forest, police and customs department, all working under a single command. This agency has also been given the role to manage quotas and permits for legal international trade of wild animals through a mechanism established under CITES and to strengthen wildlife crime investigation and detection capabilities in the country.

Excerpted from the essay “Commerce Most Foul: Illegal Trade in Wildlife” by Saket Badola, from Wildlife India@50: Saving the Wild, Securing the Future, edited by Manoj Kumar Misra, published by Rupa Publications (2022, Rs 995).