{"id":217884,"date":"2022-12-10T19:23:10","date_gmt":"2022-12-10T13:53:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=217884"},"modified":"2022-12-10T19:23:10","modified_gmt":"2022-12-10T13:53:10","slug":"parliament-passes-wildlife-bill-questions-remain-on-elephants-vermin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/parliament-passes-wildlife-bill-questions-remain-on-elephants-vermin\/","title":{"rendered":"Parliament passes Wildlife Bill: Questions remain on elephants, vermin"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Source: <\/b>The post is based on the article<\/span> \u201c<\/b>Parliament passes Wildlife Bill: Questions remain on elephants, vermin<\/b>\u201d <\/b>published in <\/span>Indian Express <\/b>on 9th December 2022<\/b><\/p>\n

What is the News?<\/b><\/h5>\n

The Wild Life (Protection) Amendment Bill 2022 has been passed by Rajya Sabha.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Bill has invited scrutiny on two major issues: the exemption made to allow the transfer of captive elephants, and the sweeping powers given to the Centre to declare species as vermin.<\/span><\/p>\n

About the Elephant Protection<\/b><\/h5>\n

In 1897, the Elephants Preservation Act<\/strong> prohibited the killing or capture of wild elephants unless in self-defense or to protect property and crops, or under a license issued by the district collector.<\/span><\/p>\n

In 1927, the Indian Forest Act<\/strong> listed the elephant as \u2018cattle\u2019, prescribing the highest fine of Rs 10 for every impounded jumbo \u2014 in comparison, a cow attracted a fine of Re 1 and a camel of Rs 2.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Wildlife (Protection) Act (WLPA),1972<\/strong> identified the elephant along with the bullock, camel, donkey, horse, and mule, as a \u201cvehicle\u201d. Given the highest legal protection in 1977, the elephant was the only animal in WLPA\u2019s Schedule-I that can still be owned legally \u2014 by means of inheritance or gift.<\/span><\/p>\n

In 2003, WLPA was amended to prohibit trade in all captive wildlife and any (non-commercial) transfer across state boundaries without permission from the concerned chief wildlife warden.<\/span><\/p>\n

Now, the Wildlife Protection Bill,2022 <\/strong><\/span>permits the transfer or transport of a captive elephant for a religious or<\/span> any other purpose<\/b> by a person having a valid certificate of ownership.<\/span><\/p>\n

What are the objections to the present amendment?<\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/h5>\n

T<\/span>he sweeping ambit of \u201cany other purpose\u201d in the present amendment will empower elephant traders, put wild populations at greater risk of capture and defeat the very purpose of WLPA. Instead, the Parliamentary Standing Committee recommended that it should be limited to temple elephants kept for religious purposes.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2013 However, there is also a counter view that prohibition on commercial transfer only drove the live elephant trade underground as traders switched to dressing up commercial deals as gift deeds to bypass the 2003 amendment.<\/span><\/p>\n

What is the stand of the new Bill on Vermin Species?<\/b><\/h5>\n

The Wild Life (Protection) Amendment Bill, 2022 makes a significant amendment as it reduces the number of schedules from six to four. <\/span>The Bill seeks to do away with Schedule V for vermin species entirely.<\/span><\/p>\n

This gives the Centre direct power to declare any species to be \u2018vermin\u2019 and make way for them to be freely hunted. Thus, declaring any species as vermin becomes easier.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Source: The post is based on the article \u201cParliament passes Wildlife Bill: Questions remain on elephants, vermin\u201d published in Indian Express on 9th December 2022 What is the News? The Wild Life (Protection) Amendment Bill 2022 has been passed by Rajya Sabha. The Bill has invited scrutiny on two major issues: the exemption made to… Continue reading Parliament passes Wildlife Bill: Questions remain on elephants, vermin<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10317,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1566,4182,9],"tags":[10500],"class_list":["post-217884","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-factly-articles","category-environment","category-public","tag-indian-express","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217884","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10317"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=217884"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217884\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=217884"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=217884"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=217884"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}