Hunting to extinction

Thanks to an uproar on social media, officials of the provincial Levies Force have registered a case against Balochistan Home Minister Sarfraz Bugti for hunting a Markhor, which is an endangered species. This is neither here nor there.

But the fact that a case was lodged after the Balochistan High Court took notice of the illegal hunting is somewhat significant. The forest department said the country’s national animal, whose poaching is prohibited by the state, was hunted in the Taktu area of Balochistan last month. A photo showing Bugti with his rifle and a dead Markhor has since gone viral on social media.

But will that affect the minister in any way? Probably not. When contacted by the media, he said that he had not received any notice. This is surprising given that the provincial high court had directed the forest department to either penalise the home minister or take legal action against him.

We know that the Balochistan government takes a particularly lenient view on its endangered animals. One recalls that in 2015, the provincial Balochistan government challenged in the Supreme Court a high court ruling outlawing the hunting of Houbara bustards.

Adviser to the Chief Minister on Forest and Wildlife Ubaidullah Jan Babat said Saudi royals have been hunting Houbara bustards in Balochistan for years. He maintained that his government was not in favour of a blanket ban on Houbara bustard hunting in the province. So much for wildlife protection.

Babat also made it clear that challenging the high court’s decree did not mean the government wanted to allow the Arab princes to hunt rare birds but that the permission to give this favour should rest with the provincial government.

Apparently it was a turf war. The Balochistan government pleaded that allotting areas for hunting was a provincial subject after the 18th Amendment yet the federal government requested that dignitaries of friendly countries be cared for.

One can only wonder who benefits from this policy. Is it Pakistan or is it the corrupt politicians who use these favours to ingratiate themselves with the ruling elite of the Gulf countries? It is no secret that most of our rulers – past and present – have found refuge in the Gulf states or in Saudi Arabia when times got tough for them.

But is this a price the wildlife of Pakistan should be paying? The federal government has said that the royals have launched hospitals and other development projects in different areas of the province so their trips are not for hunting purposes only. This isn’t entirely true.

Sartaj Aziz argues that to seek favour with communities on whose land they pursue prey, Arab hunters have built roads, schools and mosques in places like Balochistan. Residents also benefit from international-standard airstrips that can spring up. One can only wish this were the case. Balochistan continues to be the most backward province in terms of development and the Arabs have played little or no part in helping it.

What we have seen is that new four-wheel-drive vehicles brought in for the hunt are sometimes left behind as gifts for local chiefs.

Given that the provincial government’s ministers are only interested in lining their pockets, in January 2017 an interesting incident took place. A group of villagers brandishing guns and knives attacked the convoy of a Qatar royal family member on an expedition to hunt the Houbara bustard. The hunting party was unhurt, but three security guards were wounded during the attack in Musakhel, Baluchistan. A case was registered against the people.

Police said the villagers turned violent after they were prevented from meeting the visiting royal to seek donations to build a mosque. This wasn’t outrage over killing of wildlife, only people begging the royals for some pittance.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature lists the bustard as a vulnerable species with a global population ranging from 50,000 to 100,000. It has almost vanished on the Arabian Peninsula.

It seems now the wildlife of Pakistan is also being made extinct. In this, it is not the Arabs who are to blame but our greedy foreign affairs ministry and local chieftains who seem not to care for our environment. One wonders who will be able to stand up to this deadly duo in the days to come.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 3^rd, 2017.

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