BY Vinita Sahay
Ever wonder what is valuable so valuable about a beetle or a butterfly that certain individuals would endanger themselves and the entire plantet?
Two Russians, two Japanese, and three Nepalese nationals had been arrested on July 028 while trying to smuggle 271 pairs of indigenous stag beetles, and nearly 20 kgs of butterflies, moths and beetles to Japan.
The stag beetles, called ”Chimte kira,” are found in the foothills of the Himalayas. Collected by locals during the rainy season from June to September, they can sell for anything between US$ 20 and US$ 100 per pair.
The buyers are mainly Japanese, or their agents, for its ornamental value.
Collecting wild insects, including beetles, without permits carries a fine of $120, or two years imprisonment, or both in Nepal.
Meanwhile in India, a Russian conservation organization, with the help of the Internet, alerted wildlife protection organizations in New Delhi, alleging that the two Russians arrested in Sikkim were notorious criminals involved ”for decades” in the international trade in endangered species
Further down nearer the sea, the whale shark is being methodically exterminated. Though fully aware, the government of India to date would not take any action on the grounds that they could not enforce any regulations. Nevertheless the good news is that finally even India has declared the whale shark a protected species. We need this fish. It is the biggest fish in existence, growing to lengths of 18 meters. All parts of the fish (the meat, fins, liver, cartilage, skin, and viscera) are used commercially, and the main processing centre is Veraval, in Gujarat. It is the liver that is the most important item in the commercial trade.
There is the question of the livelihood of the fishermen. They will now become the protectors. First, they can be encouraged to turn into vigilante groups and take up whale shark watching. Secondly, the habitat of the fish off the Gujarat coast can be turned into a marine sanctuary, and if “dive tourism” is simultaneously developed, it can provide an alternative livelihood to the fishermen, just as Australia has done.
What a change of heart this would be and hope for our Earth will be reborn.
But the devastation does not stop. Look around and you will see systematic destruction is moving ahead at a frenetic pace in every nook and corner. The Sundarbans is in trouble. Nagarjunasagar is being emptied of tigers. Corbett is losing its elephants. More than 3,000 whale sharks are being slaughtered each year in the Gulf of Kutchh (which is rolling in oil), dams are being built in the Melghat Tiger Reserve, logging continues apace in the Andamans, where a damn dam is being built to encourage industrial-scale tourism. The Goa government is planning to denotify its newly appointed sanctuaries. A dam is being built in Dandeli. Kudremukh iron ore mining is continuing. Mass turtle deaths at the hands of trawlers is now so commonplace that even wildlifers are getting used to the idea. And don’t even start to think about the havoc being unleashed by power, mining and industrial projects in the tiger habitats of Madhya Pradesh.
The big and immediate question is, shall we just sit tight or do something about it? Or shall we comfortably sit it out while the planet is denuded into another Mars?