Kaziranga’s (Indian National Park) ruthless rangers have reduced rhino poaching by simply gunning down poachers at sight
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Tags: India, Kaziranga National Park, rhino poaching
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In Kaziranga, a national park in north-eastern India, rangers shoot people to protect rhinos. The park’s aggressive policing is, of course, controversial, but the results are clear: despite rising demand for illegal rhino horn, and plummeting numbers throughout Africa and southeast Asia, rhinos in Kaziranga are flourishing.
Yet Kaziranga, which features in a new BBC investigation, highlights some of the conflicts that characterise contemporary conservation, as the need to protect endangered species comes into contact with the lives and rights of people who live in and around the increasingly threatened national parks. India must balance modernisation and development with protections for the rights of local people—all the while ensuring its development is ecologically sustainable.
To understand what’s at stake in Kaziranga, consider these three crucial issues:
The militarisation of conservation
The BBC feature shows park rangers who have been given the licence to “shoot-on-sight,” a power they have used with deadly effect. In 2015 more than 20 poachers were killed—more than the number of rhinos poached that year.
The programme accuses the rangers of extra-judicial killings. This resonates with a wider trend in the use of violence in defence of the world’s protected areas and the growing use of military surveillance technologies to support the efforts of conservation agencies.
In India, the forest department, which is responsible for the protection of wildlife sanctuaries and national parks, has always been a “uniformed” service. Rangers wear military-style khakis, are allowed to carry arms, and have powers to prosecute offenders. Recently, the government allowed them to use drones as an anti-poaching measure in Kaziranga.
To justify such escalation and its talk of a “war” against poaching, the government cites the growing power and sophistication of the crime syndicates involved in the illegal wildlife trade.
However, as with all wars, a serious conflict over rhinos risks collateral damage. The worry is that increased militarisation is not conducted within strict legal limits or subject to judicial scrutiny. The BBC alleges that such checks and balances were not in place in Kaziranga.
The rights of local and indigenous populations
The BBC story also points to the growing conflict in and around Kaziranga between the interests and rights of local and indigenous people and the need to protect threatened species. Groups including Survival International, which features in the BBC story, claim that well-meaning conservation projects have denied and undermined the rights of indigenous groups around the world. The group calls for these rights to be placed at the heart of modern approaches to conservation. Most enlightened environmentalists now agree. It’s increasingly hard to look at conservation without also considering human rights and social issues.
The context for these struggles in India is the colonial legacy of forest settlement, which reserved forests for the imperial state, but failed to take account of the rights of people who already lived there. This injustice was recognised in 2006, in a landmark legislation known colloquially as the Forest Rights Act, which restored both individual and community rights based on evidence of historic access and use.
Yet there remains significant tension between India’s wildlife conservation lobby, which perceives the Forest Rights Act as the death-knell for nature, and groups such as Survival International which argue that it is only by recognising the rights of local people that the country’s wildlife will be protected.
Can we keep expanding protected areas?
To protect threatened species across the world, conservationists have called for more and more land to be placed under protection. Renowned biologist EO Wilson, for instance, wants us to set aside “half the planet.”
In an unconstrained world, dedicating half the earth to the protection of the most threatened species and the world’s important habitats might seem like a sensible way to avoid the risks of what people fear might trigger the next great extinction. In reality, there are few places left where such a proposal might practically be implemented.
Perhaps nowhere is this more evident than in rapidly developing India. The country already has a population of 1.3 billion, and it aspires to both develop as a global economic powerhouse and lift its poorest people out of poverty. This development requires land and resources, with little space left for nature.
Plans to double the size of Kaziranga means villagers are being displaced with little due process and there are documented cases of violence and even death. This is a violent “green grab,” where land is usurped for ostensibly progressive environmental objectives, but which results in the dispossession of some of the most vulnerable people on this planet.
Kaziranga illustrates the dilemmas of contemporary conservation. If it is to be successful, environmentalism in India must be seen as part of the changing social and economic context, and not set itself up in opposition to these wider trends.
Conservation needs to recognise the need to build bridges, sometimes with its fiercest critics. While Kaziranga is in many ways a remarkable conservation success, its costs are considerable. The forces driving the world to overuse its resources haven’t gone away, and finding sustainable futures for both people and the planet requires coalitions that work together—let’s begin with Kaziranga.
Shoot on sight isn’t exactly what’s happening, at least according to management. To wit, “First we warn them – who are you? But if they resort to firing we have to kill them.
That makes it sound a lot more reasonable and less “bloodthirsty” than title makes it out to be.
Yes. And the poachers aren’t all innocent and “I am going to surender” shit. It will be a scrimmage. A fight to death. Many rangers do and have died.
So if I have a guide am I good for a picnic then?
Hey. I am from the state (Assam) this park is in. Previously every few weeks there used to be reports of Rhino’s left bleeding to death after poachers cut out their horns. Also there used to be a lot of corruption and bureaucratic hurdles in the forest department. Last few years people have actively engaged in awareness of this problem as a result the govt had to take strict action. Even now during the monsoons, many of the Rhinos die from floods or poachers manage to kill them when the water rises. We still have a long way to go to secure the Rhino population (currently vulnerable UN status), most people here fully support this move even if it’s immoral to some.
Can we contribute to the rangers bullet fund?
same like the intelligent blood pack, just this one will send you sms when they kill somebody with it ? 😀
They need a go fund me. I would throw money at my screen.
“At the $20 level we will shoot them twice for you. At the $30 level, you get all previous perks plus a custom hoodie!”
These rangers regularly put their life on the line to protect the animals in their care. Many died in the service. They are an army, not centred around conquering other nations, not around protecting politicians or flags. They are an army devoted to protecting a species. I say more power to them, poachers want to fuck with them, let the Rangers kill them. Maybe poachers will begin to think twice when the death toll rises.
Maybe this will put the poachers on the extinction list. One could hope.
You really have to get to the market for Rhino horn in Asia and convince them that the powder their taking as an aphrodisiac is just a lie .Thats why viagara was invented.
If you poach our most precious and endangered animals do not be surprised if we value them more than the overabundance of assholes on this planet.
They should pull off their noses and leave them out there too
They’ve tried a lot of things to stop this. Sometimes the only way to force something or someone out is, excessively. This also works as a deterrent to stop future poachers because it’s not so ‘easy’ anymore.
Poachers shoot rangers on site.
So makes sense. Self-Defense is fully justified and these guys are just doing their jobs.
I’ve always thought these big game hunters should be able to pay for the privilege of hunting poachers.
I think it’s justified just fine. 7 billion humans vs The several thousand rhinos that are left in this world. Fuck poachers, they’re a bunch of scumbags.
There was a BBC News documentary on this issue only a couple of days ago. I say ‘documentary’, but really it was more like a 30 minute fairly dry news report. Not quite Planet Earth II.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b08fqyrd/our-world-killing-for-conservation
Guys, I know I’m late to the party here but I hope this gets picked up. There are a number of NGOs that work in this sphere training Park Rangers, who are the ‘thin green line’ standing between endangered species and the increasingly militarised threat they face from industrial poaching. The Thin Green Line Foundation is one such fantastic organisation. They train and equip Rangers to allow them to protect wildlife on Africa’s national reserves. You can donate to the Thin Green Line foundation at https://www.thingreenline.org.au/team/.
(I’m in no way affiliated to them, I just have a huge respect for what they do and how they do it).
So this is the question. Are 100-200 people in a world population approaching 9 Billion worth an entire species when we’re losing a few species every year? No. No they are not. If I could help buy better guns for the rangers, I would. They need some night vision to fuck up some poachers in the dark? I’ll donate to that Kickstarter all damn day. I’m sorry, but not every single human life is precious and must be protected at all times. I’m not a crazy hippy, I vote republican. But when it comes to saving species, we all need to get on board. And one way to stop poaching, is to stop poachers.