Anti-poaching Activities, Nepal

    During the late 1980s and early 1990s the commercial poaching of tigers for their bones and rhinos for their horns to meet the demand from Traditional Chinese Medicine, became a serious problem.   So drastic was the situation that one eminent authority predicted that the tiger would be extinct by the year 2000.

    In 1991 the Acting Chief Warden of Royal Chitwan National Park requested ITNC to help set up an anti-poaching programme.   The first step was for the warden to pay informants in the villages to supply him with information about who was involved in poaching.  Then, posters were printed and distributed throughout the district, announcing that a reward of up to 50,000 Nepali rupees would be paid to any person who supplied information that allowed the authorities to arrest a poacher or trafficker in the body parts of endangered species.  Finally, special anti-poaching units (APUs) were organised to patrol those parts of the park deemed to be especially vulnerable to poachers. The anti-poaching programme in RCNP being carried out by the Park authorities is directed by Mr. Tikaram Adhikari, a recipient of WWF Abraham Conservation Award, 2000. Tikaram is to be credited for launching the anti-poaching programme in 1991 with the support of ITNC.

    Between 1991 and 1995 ITNC single-handedly financed the entire anti-poaching programme in Chitwan.  From 1996 onwards WWF Nepal Programme assumed the responsibly for supporting the APUs.  ITNC continued to be responsible for the payment of rewards and hiring informers. During 1998, 1999, and the first half of 2000, ITNC paid 590,500 rupees ($8,684) for rewards.  Rs. 147,000 went for rewards for seizures/arrests In respect of tiger bones and skins, Rs. 122,500 for leopard bones and skins, and 227,500 for rhino horns.  A further Rs.93,500 went for miscellaneous rewards.

  The work in and around Royal Chitwan National Park continues to this day and is one of the main factors in the, to some, surprising lack of poaching within the park.  During 2001 an inconspicuous motor-bike was supplied to the intelligence gathering staff of the park service, rendering them even more effective.

   Also in 2001, ITNC agreed to double the funding to the rewards scheme in order to help the Nepali government authorities after those that commission the poachers to do the work, the smugglers and middlemen that co-ordinate the operation.  These people are usually based well away from the park, often wealthy and respected business men who make large amounts of money by organising the shipment of poached items either from the Nepali terai to Tibet or from India, through Nepal to Tibet.

   Success has been achieved with a number of high profile arrests. The middle men, however, are harder to find than the actual poacher, very often being organised criminals rather than a local villager given an offer too good to refuse.

   With this twin-pronged attack on the trade in illegal animal products the Nepali government, supported by ITNC hopes to form an effective barrier to those who make a living from the trade in tiger and rhino parts as well as the wool of the Tibetan antelope, shahtoosh, which moves the other way, often as part of a barter trade.