Sascha?Wil­son

While hunt­ing as­so­ci­a­tions are hap­py that the two-year hunt­ing mora­to­ri­um will be lift­ed in Oc­to­ber, they are con­cerned that gov­ern­ment has not ad­dressed the crit­i­cal prob­lem of poach­ing.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar the an­nounce­ment at a po­lit­i­cal meet­ing at Kan­hai Pres­by­ter­ian Pri­ma­ry School, Bar­rack­pore, on Mon­day night.

She said the na­tion­al wildlife sur­vey was still in progress, but the ban could now be lift­ed.

In a tele­phone in­ter­view yes­ter­day, Win­ston Nanan, as­sis­tant chair­man of the Con­fed­er­a­tion of Hunters As­so­ci­a­tions for Con­ser­va­tion of T&T, said the an­nounce­ment came as no sur­prise to him. Nanan said he ex­pect­ed that the gov­ern­ment would lift the ban be­cause it was an elec­tion year.

Nanan said his as­so­ci­a­tion was not so much against the ban but the man­ner in which En­vi­ron­ment Min­is­ter Gan­ga Singh im­ple­ment­ed the ban with­out hav­ing prop­er di­a­logue and con­sul­ta­tion with the hunt­ing groups.

He in­sist­ed that bona fide hunters were not to blame for in­dis­crim­i­nate hunt­ing.

"The im­pact on the en­vi­ron­ment com­ing from peo­ple who are poach­ing an­i­mals, not on­ly dur­ing the sea­son, but through­out the year they reap­ing an­i­mals left, right and cen­tre. There are lit­tle or no pa­trols to po­lice this be­cause the forestry staff is so thin. The min­is­ter said that they will be in­tro­duc­ing a pa­trol sys­tem us­ing the reg­i­ment and the po­lice but that nev­er ma­te­ri­alised. The poach­ing is ram­pant."

He said hunters served as a de­ter­rent to poach­ing.

"When you re­move the hunters, poach­ers could do what they want. Hunters are al­so con­cerned about the en­vi­ron­ment and how the en­vi­ron­ment pro­duces."

Nanan sug­gest­ed that gov­ern­ment en­sure a strong pres­ence of game war­dens in the forests.

He al­so said Forestry Di­vi­sion should be "friends" with the hunters so they could work in uni­son to stop in­dis­crim­i­nate hunt­ing. "Hunters are the eyes and ears of the for­est."

Back­ground in­fo

When the an­nounce­ment was made by En­vi­ron­ment Min­is­ter Gan­ga Singh in 2013, hunters ob­ject­ed.

They claimed the ban was un­fair and was be­ing im­ple­ment­ed with­out prop­er con­sul­ta­tion.

Protests were held out­side the Forestry Di­vi­sion and hunters threat­ened to with­hold their votes which they claimed amount­ed to 100,000.

In their cam­paign against the ban, the hunters al­so stuck stick­ers on their ve­hi­cles which stat­ed No Hunt­ing, No Vote.

In ad­di­tion, the Con­fed­er­a­tion of Hunters As­so­ci­a­tions for Con­ser­va­tion filed for ju­di­cial re­view chal­leng­ing the min­is­ter's de­ci­sion. That mat­ter is still be­fore the High Court.

Poach­ing is the prob­lem

Shar­ing sim­i­lar con­cerns about the poach­ing is­sue, South East­ern Hunters As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Bho­la Singh said: "We are hap­py to have the sea­son open back. We did not be­lieve in the mora­to­ri­um as we did not think it was nec­es­sary."

Singh said hunters were act­ing re­spon­si­bly.

"Poach­ing is a se­ri­ous prob­lem. All per­sons who go in­to the for­est to hunt dur­ing the closed sea­son should be jailed. We don't be­lieve there is suf­fi­cient en­force­ment in those ar­eas."

Say­ing that the pa­trols were in­suf­fi­cient, he said: "They have to look at a more rigid mon­i­tor­ing sys­tem". Singh said hunters were will­ing to work hand in hand with the Forestry Di­vi­sion to try to ar­rest the poach­ing prob­lem.

"As a hunt­ing as­so­ci­a­tion we con­duct sem­i­nars and ed­u­cate the pub­lic about the en­vi­ron­ment,"

He said the pub­lic was un­aware of the sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tion hunters make to the sur­vival of wildlife.

"We are the ones who are al­ways in the for­est. Ex­pe­ri­ence hunters can tell you when the mon­keys are dy­ing of yel­low fever, when there is no wa­ter, when­ev­er wild life is at risk."

Singh said his hunt­ing as­so­ci­a­tion as­sists in the de­crease in il­le­gal hunt­ing through its ed­u­ca­tion­al out­reach sem­i­nars.

No more un­reg­u­lat­ed hunt­ing

Marc De Ver­teuil of the en­vi­ron­men­tal group Pa­pa Bois Con­ser­va­tion said they were hop­ing that the ban would have been ex­tend­ed be­yond two years.

He, how­ev­er, hoped the hunt­ing in­dus­try would be prop­er­ly reg­u­lat­ed and mon­i­tored.

Com­ment­ing on the is­sue on the group's Face­book page, De Ver­teuil said: "The an­i­mals had a break. Thank you Min­is­ter Gan­ga Singh for push­ing this is­sue. It wouldn't have hap­pened with­out the min­is­ter's sup­port. We now hope that when hunt­ing re­sumes it will be based on a sci­en­tif­ic man­age­ment plan. We can­not go back to the near un­reg­u­lat­ed hunt­ing that took place in the past. We need quo­tas and tags. We need in­creased en­force­ment."