Nepal collaborates with neighbors to gain wildlife crime intel but struggles with enforcement
Nepal collaborates with neighbors to gain wildlife crime intel but
struggles with enforcement
Kosh Raj Koirala, Mongabay
March 26, 2025
See link
https://news.mongabay.com/2025/03/nepal-collaborates-with-neighbors-to-gain-wildlife-crime-intel-but-struggles-with-enforcement/
for photos.
In February this year, Indian media reported the rising number of cases
involving tiger bone glue — an illicit sap-like substance made by
pressure-cooking tiger bones and sold illegally in China, Vietnam and other
countries across Southeast Asia as a supposed remedy for muscle-and-bone
ailments and as an aphrodisiac.
Following the publication of the reports, in next-door Nepal, the Central
Bureau of Investigation (CIB) of Nepal Police alerted the customs and
police officials at key transit points, urging vigilance for suspicious
cargo resembling the glue-like substance.
While such information coming from different sources outside of Nepal helps
the country’s law enforcement fight emerging threats, weak legislation and
overlapping jurisdictions at home hinder effective response and action,
stakeholders say.
“The modus operandi of wildlife crime is constantly evolving,” says
superintendent of police Sudhir Raj Shahi of the CIB, a wing under Nepal
Police dedicated to investigating organized crime. “As Nepal is a crucial
transit country for smugglers, we remain highly alert to emerging trends
abroad, especially in neighboring India.”
At the heart of the cross-border collaboration against illegal wildlife
trade between Nepal and its neighbors is the real-time information sharing
mechanism between wildlife crime enforcement agencies such as the Wildlife
Crime Control Bureaus (WCCBs) in Nepal and in India and the South Asia
Wildlife Enforcement Network (SAWEN), headquartered in Kathmandu.
Law enforcement officials in Nepal receive intelligence from counterparts
in India, Bhutan and Sri Lanka, which has led to the bust of major
cross-border wildlife trade rackets in the past. “We hold regular meetings
where we analyze the latest trends in wildlife crime. Our priority is not
just alerting frontline officers at customs and border checkpoints but also
raising awareness in major entry and exit routes,” Shahi explains.
Shahi tells Mongabay that they recently received intelligence from India’s
WCCB indicating that smugglers make beads from elephant skin to facilitate
its cross-border trade. Additionally, they have learned that poachers are
increasingly targeting leopards, particularly in parts of India and Sri
Lanka, to extract and smuggle their paws.
Information and intelligence sharing has not only helped track emerging
threats but also exposed major rackets. Shahi said that, in 2014, Nepal
successfully apprehended members of a nomadic group from Rajasthan, India,
allegedly responsible for poaching tigers and trafficking their parts
across Southeast Asian countries. “By compiling information received from
various countries, including Nepal, Bhutan and China, we were able to
uncover the key networks driving the illicit trade of wildlife parts,” adds
Shahi.
But even with so much information coming in from abroad from various formal
and informal sources, sharing of intelligence and coordinating
inter-departmental action hasn’t been easy.
Most cases of wildlife crime, particularly those related to seizure of
parts, come through Nepal Police, the biggest law enforcement agency in the
country. However, tackling wildlife related crimes is still not a priority
as, according to law, they need to hand over suspects to either the local
forest or national park office for prosecution.
Pradeep Bhattarai, senior environment officer at SAWEN, says, “Many police
personnel struggle to differentiate between legal and illegal wildlife
products. Additionally, the district wildlife crime control units, which
are mandated to tackle these crimes at the local level, lack dedicated
workforce and expertise, making enforcement even weaker.”
Similar is the case with the Armed Police Force (APF), the country’s
paramilitary security force guarding its frontiers. Prasanna Yonzon,
founding member and CEO of Wildlife Conservation Nepal (WCN), an NGO
working on illegal wildlife trade, says he believes enforcement
shortcomings allow perpetrators to go unpunished. “The APF, which has
traditionally focused on fighting illegal timber trade, doesn’t have legal
jurisdiction to handle wildlife-related crimes. They must hand over
suspects and seized materials to forest offices, leading to delays and,
often, lack of thorough investigation,” Yonzon says.
While national park rangers are relatively well-versed in prosecution,
their counterparts in provincial division forest offices and district
wildlife crime control units, who lack expertise and dedicated human
resources to deal with the wildlife related crimes, have stymied these
efforts.
“The lack of information-sharing between these agencies severely hampers
efforts to dismantle trafficking networks,” says Shahi.
For example, on June 28, 2022, police arrested a Korean national at the
Tribhuvan International Airport in Kathmandu with 716 grams (25.25 ounces)
of musk pod. He was initially handed over to the CIB, which later
transferred the case to the forest office.
Although existing laws allow for a prison sentence of up to 15 years and a
significant fine for such offenses, the forest office fined him 500,000
rupees (approximately $3,630) and released him.
There was no further follow-up in the investigation to look at
international networks, making it difficult to trace and dismantle the
criminal networks involved. “When we make any arrest related to wildlife
crimes, we hand them over to the forest authorities. We generally do not
have much information on how the investigation proceeds afterward,” says
Shahi.
While Nepal sees sporadic incidents of rhino poaching for its horns and
illegal hunting of musk deer and elephants, the smuggling of tiger parts
remains particularly concerning. With over 5,000 wild tigers estimated to
be living in South Asia, poaching and illegal trade is a persisting
challenge in the region.
The challenge of fighting against poaching is compounded by the open border
regime between Nepal and India, along with cross-country kinship and
cultural ties. This facilitates easy sharing of information among criminal
networks and poachers active in either country who can choose to cross the
border when they realize they are under police surveillance.
Officials report some progress, however limited, in training law
enforcement to fight wildlife crime. But such training rarely focuses on
inter-agency coordination and cooperation.
Devendra Subedi, former additional inspector general of Nepal Police, who
was awarded with Abraham Conservation Award in 2007 for his active
initiation in tackling wildlife related crimes by the World Wildlife Fund
(WWF), says that Nepal Police has started dedicated efforts to curb
wildlife crime after the Maoist conflict formally came to an end in 2006.
Similarly, the CIB now has a dedicated department to tackle wildlife
crimes, and the Armed Police Force has also been training its personnel to
address these offenses.
The proactive approach taken by the law enforcement is evident from the
number of arrests made in connection with wildlife-related crimes over the
past few years.
During the fiscal year (FY) 2019-20, Nepal Police arrested 120 individuals,
including 47 apprehended by the CIB, one of whom was a foreign national. In
FY 2020-21, police arrested 172 individuals for various wildlife crimes,
followed by 136 arrests, including one foreigner, in FY 2021-22. In FY
2022-23, police again apprehended 136 individuals, and 63 in FY 2023-24. In
just the first seven months of FY 2024-25, police have already arrested 13
individuals, including one found in possession of a tiger hide.
Hemanta Malla, former deputy inspector general of Nepal Police, an expert
in wildlife crime investigations, stresses the need for improved training
and crime scene documentation in poaching cases. “While law enforcement
officials have begun receiving training, the effectiveness of their work in
curbing wildlife crime continues to remain limited. We need more targeted
and coordinated efforts,” he says.
Progress is also being made on the international front to further optimize
information sharing mechanisms. In India, Wasim Akram, director of
sustainability and special projects at the conservation NGO Wildlife SOS,
says international collaboration is needed at all levels. “We are enhancing
collaboration at various levels — through enforcement agencies, border
police, security forces and customs — to combat these crimes. Bilateral
meetings between Nepal and India allow for the exchange of intelligence and
best practices,” he says.
“As part of the efforts, both the countries are also preparing to sign a
memorandum of understanding (MoU) for law enforcement agencies from both
countries to conduct joint patrols against poachers,” says Krishna Prasad
Acharya, secretary general of SAWEN.
Meanwhile, officials in Nepal continue to monitor media reports and talk to
counterparts in neighboring countries to prepare themselves for potential
threats. The tiger bone glue is yet to be recovered in Nepal.