With wildlife traffickers switching from physical market to virtual ones as India’s internet user population reaches 500 million, enforcement agencies are joining hands, among others, with internet firms to help crack down on wildlife cybercrime based on ‘click, pay and ship’ policy.
Everything from turtles and tortoises to Red Sand Boa, monitor lizard, Red Sanders, body parts of elephants, tigers, leopards etc. are being traded on various websites and mobile applications, Tilotama Varma, Addional Director, Wildlife Crime Control Bureau (WCCB) under the Union Environment Ministry rings the alarm bell.
She added, therefore, it becomes imperative to involve internet companies and find solutions with them to curb online illegal wildlife trade.
In this connection, a meeting was held recently here at the Ministry with companies providing online platform like Google India, Quickr, Flipkart, IndiaMART besides representatives from business chambers such as FICCI and CII, Central Zoo Authority, National Tiger Conservation Authority, Global Tiger Forum, International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW), IUCN and Wildlife Trust of India among others.
The meeting organised by TRAFFIC and WCCB, in collaboration with the US Embassy here and WWF-India enabled creation of a common platform for wildlife law enforcement agencies, internet-based companies, policy makers and market leaders to highlight and discuss problems and solutions for curbing online wildlife crime.
Stressing on intensifying global efforts to end wildlife trafficking, Isabella Detwiler, acting Minister counselor for economic, environment, science and technology affairs, US Embassy, New Delhi added: “The web is the biggest marketplace for the illegal trade of wildlife. Wildlife is being trafficked from the comfort of people’s homes.”
Dr Saket Badola, head of TRAFFIC’s India said illegal wildlife trade is a significant threat to wildlife conservation today and in recent years has increasingly moved into cyberspace. With India’s internet user population reaching nearly 500 million, cybercrime has become a mounting concern. Large numbers of wildlife species and their parts and derivatives have been found on sale online, among them skins and body parts of tiger, leopard and snow leopard; elephant ivory; rhino horn; pangolin scales; marine species; birds, reptiles. Their timely detection and subsequent enforcement action are fast becoming conservation priorities, he added.
Ravi Singh, CEO of WWF India emphasised on exploring “the possibilities of data mining, big data analysis and artificial intelligence” while MS Negi, Addl Director General (Wildlife) called the meeting need of the hour to solve the crisis.
According to IFAW’s ‘research into wildlife crime’ last year, “the vast quantity of live animals and their body parts available for sale online and the threat this poses to the future survival of many species.” The IFAW, in just six weeks in four countries had, identified advertisements for 11,772 endangered and threatened specimens worth more than £3m.
To tackle wildlife crime, the Global Coalition to End Wildlife Trafficking Online, convened by WWF, TRAFFIC and IFAW was launched last year, bringing together e-commerce, technology and social media companies from across the world to reduce wildlife trafficking online. The Coalition aims to collectively reduce wildlife trafficking online by 80 per cent by 2020.