PLEASE SIGN TODAY, BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE!
ELEPHANTS NEED YOUR HELP AS NEVER BEFORE…

• Say No to the proposed amendment to dilute Section 43 of the Wild Life (Protection) Act, permitting sale of elephants
• Demand withdrawal of proviso under Section 40 (2B) permitting private ownership of live elephants

How does the proposed Amendment affect elephants?

On December 17, 2021 - the last day of the winter session - the Wildlife Protection Amendment Bill 2021 was tabled in Parliament. Clause 27 of the Bill proposes to permit commercial trade in elephants. This would legalize it for the first time in 50 years.

If the proposed, controversial Clause 27 is passed into law, the blanket ban on trade of wild elephants in Section 43 will exempt live elephants from it and the revised section will read as:

[43. Regulation of transfer of animal, etc.—(1) No person having in his possession captive animal, animal article, trophy or uncured trophy in respect of which he has a certificate of ownership shall transfer by way of sale or offer for sale or by any other mode of consideration of commercial nature, such animal or article or trophy or uncured trophy.

(2) Where a person transfers or transports from the State in which he resides to another State or acquires by transfer from outside the State, any such animal, animal article, trophy or uncured trophy in respect of which he has a certificate of ownership, he shall, within thirty days of the transfer or transport, report the transfer or transport to the Chief Wild Life Warden or the authorised officer within whose jurisdiction the transfer or transport is effected.

(3) Nothing in this section shall apply—

(a) to tail feather of peacock and the animal article or trophies made therefrom;

(b) to transfer of captive animals between recognised zoos subject to the provisions of section 38-I, and transfer amongst zoos and public museums.]

+ (proposed clause 27)

subsection (4) “ section will not apply to transfer or transport of a Live Elephant by a person having a certificate of ownership where prior permission of the State Government has been obtained, and on fulfilment of such conditions as may be prescribed by the Central Government.

Thus an exception is inserted with a new subsection (4) which has excluded live elephant from the prohibition of commercial sale under Section 43.

If the current amendment, now pending before the Parliamentary Standing Committee headed by Rajya Sabha MP Jairam Ramesh, were to pass into law, it would now both be legal to own and trade elephants.

This regressive move will undo five decades of work on elephant protection by legitimizing illegal networks of elephant trade. The last protection for elephants will be destroyed by this mindless proposed amendment of Sec.43, to reactivate trade of a Schedule1 wildlife in India.

The fate of captive elephants: horrific beyond belief

Illegal capture from the wild, brutal training methods, transport by trucks and trains to commercial markets, bought by brokers to resell to private parties - the outcome of this will be too horrific to contemplate! It would undo decades of conservation work with elephants – even now a species under grave threat of overdevelopment and destruction of their habitats. Though elephants are traded, leased, rented, bought and sold, the law provided a protective bulwark to hold these smugglers and criminals in check. Decades of awareness building and policy changes have significantly diminished the sale of elephants.

Currently, Section 40 (2A) & (2B) allow elephants - the only wild animal - to be legally owned by a private individual is a deep anomaly in law that needs correction. Elephants have been exempted from protection that other wild animals are covered under, which is a travesty of law and an injustice to elephants.

Activists have been campaigning for legal ownership of elephants to be banned as it encourages their illegal capture and trade, seen in countless examples across India.

The WPA, however imperfect, is essentially a progressive law. It banned hunting of wild animals and created protected wildlife areas that have allowed flora and fauna to flourish. In addition, by banning commercial trade in all wild animals it has played a vital role in redirecting our domestic policy away from their commodification.

But, WPA has always been ambiguous about captive elephants. Because an elephant can be legally owned, there has always been a demand to further monetize this ownership to permit their trade in the open market. Countless deaths of mahouts and members of the public have been reported over the years, as elephants run amok due to trauma and abuse they are subjected to in parades and processions.

The elephant ownership exception is frankly an embarrassment, not to mention a potential illegality, at odds with the core objective of WPA.

This will be further reinforced if this unjust amendment comes to pass!

A Schedule 1 protected wildlife, protected under CITES and other international agreements can and should never be legally owned or traded.

A 2011 report authored by Chaturbhuja Behera of the Wildlife Crime Control Bureau warned of an active nexus of illegal capture of wild elephants from Assam and their trade via the Sonepur Mela in Bihar to meet the temple demands in the Southern states:

“Gangs and network of elephant trafficking: Well-organized elephant traffickers are spread over various districts of Assam, Bihar and UP.... Temples, religious organizations and political parties place their demand through messengers and sometimes directly through Government officials. Sadhus are sent by Maths. Wildlife Crime Control Bureau information reveals that well-conversant traffickers visit interiors of Assam and Arunachal Pradesh and make direct purchase from the owners.”

Proposed Clause 27 of the current WLPA amendment is a volte face. It is a dangerous, inexplicable regression from the progress made so far.

The bill today lies for review and stakeholder comments before Jairam Ramesh, who as the former Minister of Environment and Forest, in 2010, commissioned Gajah the only exhaustive Indian government report on elephants – both wild and captive. The report decisively recognized captivity as cruel and recommended that commercial use of elephants should be phased out.

Please sign this petition and support the national movement to prevent elephants from further exploitation.

The Petition along with the signatures will be send to Shri Jairam Ramesh, Member of Parliament, Rajya Sabha, and the Chairman of the Standing Committee on Science, Technology, Environment, Forest and Climate Change.

Photo: Sick Elephant under Private Ownership in Hardwar – Feb.2020