This site has moved

Hello all, this site has been moved to the wonderful new EIA-wide blog at http://eiainvestigator.wordpress.com/ . Please check it out! It is great.

Murder, tax evasion and environmental destruction – mining in India

On 20 July, a young Right to Information campaigner named Amit Jethwa was gunned down opposite the High Court in Gujarat, shortly after leaving his office. The killing appears to have been in retaliation for a public interest litigation he has launched, seeking to close down illegal mining operations around the Gir National Park – home of the world’s last remaining Asiatic lions.

Sadly, this is not the first time this sort of thing has happened. There can be a lot of money in mining, and it is often controlled by powerful vested interests, as EIA found out in its investigations in Rajasthan in 2003. In the case Amit Jethwa the Times of India reports that suspicion has fallen on a local politician.

This is just the most tragic of a slew of recent stories that serve to highlight the problems of illegal and unsustainable mining in India.

Elsewhere, and unrelated to the case in Gujarat, the battle still rages over a bid by Vedanta – a UK based company – to extract aluminium ore from the Niyamgiri mountain in Orissa, home to Dongaria Kondh tribal peoples and a host of endangered wildlife. Despite being roundly condemned as unethical and environmentally destructive, the company has persisted. This week, campaigners will take to the streets outside their AGM in London – some dressed as Navi from the film ‘Avatar’ – to highlight the plight of the people of Niyamgiri.

Finally, just yesterday there was a story about the Vice President of Sterlite Industries India Ltd, who was arrested in connection to a £100 million (750 crore) tax avoidance scam. To put that into perspective, that is about 75% of all the tax the company pays per year. And who owns 59% of Sterlite? Why Vedanta Resources of course. I wonder if it will come up at the AGM?

Indonesia to invest new money in tigers?

Okay, so next week will see the third of this year’s major tiger summits, this time in Bali (second if you don’t count CITES). The idea is that these will be building up to the Year of the Tiger summit in St. Petersburg in September…

So what is on the table? Well it is still hard to tell, but according to the Jakarta Post, the Indonesian government is proposing $175 million to double Sumatran tiger numbers. If they are willing to put this on the table it is significant… even if spread over five or ten years it is not peanuts – especially given that all the money invested by NGOs on tigers only comes to about $70 million over the last ten years…. and spread over 13 countries….

Will update when I know what is happening…. but in the meantime this figure of $175 million is encouraging. If it is real.

Interview with Rajesh Gopal

Hey folks, sorry it has been so long, I promise that I’ll updat this site more regularly in the coming weeks. In the meantime, here is a great interview with Dr. Rajesh Gopal, the Head of India’s National Tigier Conservation Authority…

I think one of the most intersting bits is when he talks about industrial development….

‘There is constant pressure to open up tiger habitat to mining, highways.
To my mind, heavy infrastructural and development projects in tiger habitat is the most serious threat. Tiger areas are rich in minerals — coal, uranium, bauxite — so there is demand for mining in buffers and corridors. The Tadoba landscape is totally tattered because of coal mining — and still there are some 40 more power and coal projects proposed. NH-7 threatens to cut the connectivity of Pench tiger reserve with Kanha, and. In Nagarjuna-Srisailam (Andhra Pradesh), there is pressure for quarrying and mining for uranium. It’s endless… We can’t give these areas. This is not an office for clearance — our mandate is to conserve. We have mapped crucial tiger habitats and their connectivity in the 17 tiger states — these are no-go areas and are already very fragile. We cannot afford to stress these habitats further by mines, roads or any such damaging development activities, if we want a future for the tiger. There cannot be any clearances in these areas’…

http://indianaturally.blogspot.com/2010/06/interview-with-dr-rajesh-gopal.html

South-Asia wildlife enforcement network set-up

According to recent reports in the Indian press, an agreement has finally been reached to set up the South Asia Wildlife Enforcement Network (SAWEN), in Kathmandu, Nepal.

Broadly based on a similar outfit in South-East Asia, the idea of SAWEN is to provide an additional mechanism for cooperation between the countries of South Asia in combating wildlife crime. The organisation will also provide a focal point for international cooperation in the region and possibly training for law enforcement officers in wildlife crime.   

The World Bank is reportedly providing $250,000 in seed money to get things rolling, and even the Indian government, which has been a bit ambivalent about it seems to giving the project the nod.

So will SAWEN be a good thing? Well, it could be. If it helps international cooperation then great, but given that the existing methods of communication (Interpol for example) are so underused, we shouldn’t hold our breath. Training is good too, but is hardly revolutionary, so if they do that it will need to be professional, focused and implemented. Perhaps one of the main things which SAWEN can do is provide a higher public profile for wildlife crime in the region, as this is an area of crime which badly needs the attention.

Countries taking part in SAWEN will be drawn from the regional body SAARC, which includes: India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Afghanistan and the Maldives.

A bit of good news…

A little good news here on the YOTT blog. One of the two female tigers relocated to Panna National Park in India just over a year ago has been spotted, and she now has three cubs. This is an exciting prospect for a park which just a few years ago was declared a tiger free zone after a spate of poaching wiped the animals out. A reintroduction programme was established to bring back the tigers, and this now seems to be enjoying its first results. It also bears out what many conservationists have said for a long time – tigers breed like rabbits if you can only protect them and their environment.

Rhino poaching on the rise

Okay so its not really tigers, but it is a related issue….

Rhino in Southern Africa are under increasing pressure from illegal killing, with at least 445 poached in South Africa and Zimbabwe from 2006–2009. Although their overall numbers are still increasing, they remain critically low and many populations are isolated and vulnerable.

There is also disturbing evidence of the involvement of organised criminal networks, with new silent methods of killing using sedatives and chemicals on the rise.

The issue was raised by Kenya at the recent meeting of CITES, with an agreement reached on better international cooperation to tackle the groups behind the trade.

Rhino poaching is one of the purest forms of wildlife crime. The animals are few in number, do not eat people or livestock, have a minimal role in human-animal conflict and are not eaten for food. They are killed by organised networks and wealthy hunters… purely for the profit which can be made by selling their horns….

More dead tigers seized, this time in Nepal

According to WCN (an NGO in Nepal which investigates wildlife trade), another tiger skin has recently been seized in Kathmandu… This is the second incident in a few months in the city, which in December saw a skin and bones sezied.

Kathmandu is a major trafficking hub for illegal wildlife, both from India and Nepal, which is then sent over the Himalayas into China.

Click this link to see more news on this.

CITES round-up for tigers

Well well well. CITES CoP-15 is over. There have been a lot of tweets, facebook updates and newspaper articles about this, but as the dust settles, what has really happened?

Well for Asian big cats it is a bit of a mixed bag. On the upside there were some positive developments on enforcement. First, Parties agreed to set up a working group to develop an illegal wildlife trade database. EIA will be a part of this. This database should help with intelligence exchange and tracking performance on implementation of CITES. Other measures included a renewed emphasis on intelligence sharing between tiger range states, and calls for them to work more closely with the proposed International Consortium to Combat Wildlife Crime – ICCWC. This group is made up of Interpol, UN Office on Drugs and Crime, World Bank, CITES and the World Customs Organisation and aims to get wildlife crime treated as seriously as other forms of serious organised crime.

On the tiger farming front, things were a little more difficult. China put its foot down on the European Union’s attempts to strengthen previous resolutions on tigers and big cats. They managed present the EU’s initiative as outside interference (unfairly, since the EU was directed to do this by the Standing Committee). This, combined with a measure of bullying, ensured that the other range states were too weak to support the European Union.

In the end, a compromise was trashed out which managed to maintain most of the important bits of the EU’s proposal. Crucially, the decision on tiger farms, which says that tiger should not be bred for trade in their parts has survived – albeit in a weaker form and only definitely for the next three years. In any case, the message to countries was clear. This is China’s issue – back off.

So what now? Well the Year of the Tiger goes on, the efforts to investigate and expose the illegal wildlife trade go on, and so the campaign goes on. CITES is simply one tool. We will continue to work for better enforcement on environmental crime, and to expose the criminals who are wiping out endangered species. We will continue to do what we can to protect the forest which tigers and humanity depend on. Finally we will try and make sure that the next time CITES, or something similar comes around, that countries are willing to stand up and call for meaningful action.

Bad day for wildlife

Today was a bad day at CITES. You’ll forgive me if I keep this fairly brief but if I go on too long I might say something we regret.

But briefly, the resolution to protect tigers and re-affirm opposition to tiger farming is in deep trouble. China is firmly opposed, and most of the range states have gone along with them. It seems China is just too strong to stand up to now. Tigers will be debated over the weekend (fri-sat here) by UK and China. Maybe they will get a compromise.  Interestingly, although China rejected ‘external forces’ being involved in conservation, they still requested financial assistance!

Tuna ban has been heavily defeated. EU, Monaco, US, Kenya and their friends all supported. Pretty much everyone else opposed. Big defeat. This is triumph for petty politics and short term interests. While it is true that the EU has badly mismanaged its tuna stocks in recent decades, the fact now is that this fish needs protection.

Ivory still looking shaky. Some sort of compromise will be thrashed out. Shark protection is also in trouble. Polar bear up-listing was defeated by Canada, who argued that inuit hunters must be allowed to export polar bear hides and trophies…

Basically the whole feel of CITES is very pro-trade, anti-conservation at the moment. The pendulum has swung. The other thing to note, for all those who think that it is only the developed world is unsustainable – the developing countries are just as bad!