PHOTO: wwfpak.org
ISLAMABAD: Experts at a workshop emphasised upon government agencies to play a proactive role for effective enforcement of existing laws to address illegal wildlife trade in the country.
Traffickers are adopting new strategies to transport wildlife, so law-enforcement agencies need to adopt new technologies to tackle this challenge, they said.
The wildlife experts were speaking at a consultative workshop here on Wednesday.
The workshop was organised by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) aimed at developing a strategy to combat illegal wildlife trade in Pakistan.
Experts from the K-P and the AJK wildlife departments, Ministry of Climate Change, Pakistan Customs, Federal Judicial Academy, and the WWF-Pakistan shared national and provincial-level efforts being made to combat illegal wildlife trade and challenges associated to tackle the issue effectively.
Ministry of Climate Change Inspector General (Forests) Mahmood Nasir appreciated the representation of all major stakeholders in workshop.
He also emphasised that such events provided an excellent opportunity to further strengthen the knowledge and skills of law-enforcement agencies and to develop partnerships among them to effectively curb wildlife trade.
Nasir also pointed out that the wildlife traffickers were adopting new strategies to transport wildlife illegally, thus there was a need for local law-enforcement agencies to adopt new technologies to tackle this challenge.
Nasir quoted the recent incident of black-spotted pond turtles seized at the Lahore Airport. He mentioned that around 144 anesthetised turtles were being carried wrapped in a crockery consignment.
Published in The Express Tribune, February 11th, 2016.
COMMENTS
Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive.
For more information, please see our Comments FAQ