BHUBANESWAR: The widespread use of internet and digital platforms over the years has opened up a large unregulated online market for illegal sale of wildlife items, throwing up fresh challenges for those guarding the forests and wildlife across the country. The online menace has emerged as a major threat for wildlife conservation, underlining the need for advanced training for both forest and police officials and the right use of the legal framework to bust such crimes.
Online wildlife crimes through digital platforms, including social network and messaging applications, dark web, virtual market places and email services, have become an easy way for traffickers to find potential buyers across the globe. Sources said over 60 cases of illegal online wildlife trade, mostly related to the trafficking of ivory, pangolin scales and exotic pets, had been detected in the country last year, while the Wildlife Crime Control Bureau (WCC B), the statutory body to deal with the illegal trade of endangered species, had also detected over 300 instances of the sale of sea cucumbers on online portals.
Prof T Sita Kumari and researcher G Lakshmi Priya at a Tirupati-based university, in their research paper “A Study on Identifying the Aspects of Wildlife Cybercrime and Exploring Ways to Curb It” published in Quest Journals last year, pointed out that wildlife cybercrime had increased in India during Covid-19 pandemic, with 522 such cases being registered in 2020.
The paper said states like Karnataka, Odisha and Tamil Nadu had the highest incidents of wildlife cyber crimes. Sources said tracking the origin of a few comments on a YouTube channel in 2021 helped the WCC B and the Wildlife Trade Monitoring Network India in detecting a long trail of wildlife traffickers and the successful seizure of wildlife items, including pangolin scales on multiple occasions.
Officials investigating the pangolin smuggling racket in Athagarh forest division of Odisha during 2020 and 2021 also found use of social messaging platforms by the culprits for buying and selling of the wildlife items. However, a substantial number of such crimes still go undetected, primarily due to traffickers maintaining anonymity and the lack of accessibility to the database systems that could help the investigating officials follow the trail and bust the network of wildlife poachers, smugglers and potential buyers. As per the Wildlife Trust of India (WTI), the illegal sale of endangered plants and animals is continuing unabated on social media websites that are home to private groups.
Wildlife traffickers in these groups have unparalleled access to the global market while staying anonymous. Former Odisha DGP B K Sharma, who was a persistent investigator of wildlife crimes during his stint as a CBI officer, said that lack of adequate professional knowledge and training in issues relating to law and investigation procedure of online wildlife crime is one of the biggest challenges.
While privacy, end-to-end encryption in applications, email and dark web, etc., are attracting wildlife traffickers to shift to online operations, the difficulty in getting information from telecom and cyber operators, including social media companies, as well as the lack of international cooperation in matters relating to sharing evidence and arrest of offenders are big hurdles in preventing such crimes, Sharma said.
He emphasised that regular training of officials investigating online wildlife crimes and allowing them access to the database of wildlife crimes at both the national and international levels, will help significantly in dealing with this online menace. Access to Cyber HAWK, a mobile application app developed by WTI to report online and offline wildlife crime, should be made available to officials investigating wildlife crimes in all states, while standard operating procedures for online wildlife crime investigation should also be framed, Sharma added.
The former DGP said the legal framework should also be appropriately used. Notices can be issued by forest officers under Section 91 and 92 CrPC through the court to an intermediary, social media or telecom company to produce documents, including digital documents for inquiry under the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972.