KAZIRANGA, June 3 - With an aim to sensitise the law enforcing agents with regard to crime and illegal trade of wildlife body parts, a �General Interaction on Wildlife, Forest and Environmental Law� was held today at the Forest Convention Centre here by Aaranyak, an environmental NGO in association with Golaghat Police and Kaziranga National Park authority.
�The basic objective of this interactive programme is to sensitise the law enforcing agents, especially police, with regard to legal issues pertaining to illegal wildlife trade, especially rhino horn,� said Dr Bibhav Kumar Talukdar, secretary general of Aaranyak, who also spoke about the global and local perspective of wildlife conservation, including the condition of rhinos in South Africa.
Rahul Dutta, a Wildlife Trade Monitoring consultant stressed on the need for changing the mindset among a section of people in some areas where the killing of wild animals is still not considered a serious crime. He said that people having more bank balance often try to acquire wild animal body parts, including that of rhino, tiger and elephants, either for their personal use or as souvenir. Senior advocate Gautam Uzir spoke about the legal aspects while dealing with wildlife crime and illegal trade.
The police officials stressed on the need to increase manpower at various police stations in order to effectively deal with wildlife crime.
