Date: 15/12/2022

Relevance: GS-3: Conservation, Environmental Pollution, and Degradation, Environmental Impact Assessment.

Key Phrases: Wild Life (Protection) Amendment Bill, 2021, Protected Areas, regulated hunting, Wildlife Protection Act (WPA), 1972, Criminal Justice and Police Accountability Project, deterrent effect.

Why in News?

• The expeditious passage of the Wild Life (Protection) Amendment Bill, 2021 in the Rajya Sabha this winter session — this followed its passing in the Lok Sabha during the monsoon session — needs attention.

What is Wild Life (Protection) Amendment Bill, 2021?

• The Bill amends the Wild Life (Protection) Act, of 1972. The Wildlife Protection Act (WPA), 1972 has safeguarded numerous species of wild animals and plants by prohibiting all forms of hunting and, more importantly, creating inviolate areas where wildlife conservation may be carried out.
• CITES:
  • The Bill seeks to increase the species protected under the law, and implement the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).
• Rationalising schedules:
  • Currently, the Act has six schedules for specially protected plants (one), specially protected animals (four), and vermin species (one). The Bill reduces the total number of schedules to four.
• Invasive alien species:
  • The Bill also empowers the Central government to regulate and stop the import, trade, or possession of invasive plant or animal alien species.
• Conservation reserves:
  • The Bill empowers the central government to also notify a conservation reserve apart from the states.
• Penalties:
  • The Bill also enhances the penalties prescribed for violation of provisions of the Act.
    • For 'General violations', the maximum fine is increased from 25,000 to 1 lakh.
    • In the case of Specially protected animals, the minimum fine of Rs. 10,000 has been enhanced to Rs. 25,000.

Criminal laws and wildlife conservation:

• The need for criminal laws to assist wildlife conservation has remained unchallenged since its conception.
• From regulated hunting to complete prohibition and the creation of ‘Protected Areas (PA)’ where conservation can be undertaken without the interference of local forest-dwelling communities, State and Forest Department control over forests and the casteist underpinnings of conservation would not have been possible without criminal law.
• In this context, pitting wildlife species against communities as human-animal conflict has eluded the true cost of criminalization under the WPA.
• Penalties:
  • The recent move to increase penalties by four times for general violations (from ₹25,000 to ₹1,00,000) and from ₹10,000 to ₹25,000 for animals receiving the most protection should raise questions about the nature of policing that the WPA engenders.
  • While the aspects of protecting species from the wildlife trade, in line with international standards, have received thoughtful scrutiny by civil society, Members of Parliament and the Parliamentary Standing Committee, the impact of the criminal legal framework adopted by the WPA is less known.

Study based in Madhya Pradesh:

• A study by the Criminal Justice and Police Accountability Project (the CPA Project examined arrest records, first information reports (FIRs), and offense records of the police and Forest Department in Madhya Pradesh) found that persons from oppressed caste communities such as Scheduled Tribes and other forest-dwelling communities form the majority of accused persons in wildlife-related crimes.
• Threat of criminalization to force cooperation:
  • The Forest Department was found to use the threat of criminalization to force cooperation, apart from devising a system of using community members as informants and drawing on their loyalty by employing them on a daily wage basis.
• Less serious offenses:
  • Cases that were filed under the WPA did not pertain solely to the comparatively serious offense of hunting; collecting wood, honey, and even mushrooms formed the bulk of prosecution in PAs. Over 95% of the cases filed by the Forest Department are still pending.
• Forest rights vs WPA:
  • Forest rights, individual and collective, as part of the Forest Rights Act (FRA) were put in place to correct the injustice meted out by forest governance laws in recognizing forest-dependent livelihoods.
  • The natural overlap of recognizing forest rights in intended-as-inviolate PAs was quickly resolved by making the FRA subservient to the WPA, thereby impeding its implementation.
• Criminalisation of fishing:
  • Fishing, which forms an important part of subsistence for tribal communities, has come to be regularly criminalized as part of the WPA.
  • In cases recorded by the Forest Department, the very fact that these occurred in PAs led to the offense becoming punishable by three to seven years.
    • In a case from 2016 documented by the CPA Project, five men were apprehended by a range officer and beat guards as they sat across a fire with fish they had caught from the river nearby.
    • The catch weighed less than 500 grams, yet the accused were charged with causing damage to a wildlife habitat under a host of WPA provisions. The case continues to remain pending in trial court.

Conclusion:

• Criminal cases filed by the department are rarely compounded since they are meant to create a ‘deterrent effect’ by instilling fear in communities.
• Fear is a crucial way in which the department mediates governance in protected areas, and its officials are rarely checked for their power.
• Unchecked discretionary policing allowed by the WPA and other forest legislations has stunted the emancipatory potential of the FRA.
• Any further amendments must take stock of wrongful cases (as in the case of fishing) and the resultant criminalization of the rights and lives of forest-dwelling communities.

Source: The Hindu

Mains Question:

Q. What are the concerns being raised over the proposed amendments under the Wild Life (Protection) Amendment Bill, 2021? Discuss.