VZCZCXRO3050
RR RUEHHM RUEHLN RUEHMA RUEHPB RUEHPOD
DE RUEHNE #5322/01 3510116
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 170116Z DEC 07
FM AMEMBASSY NEW DELHI
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 9721
INFO RUEHCI/AMCONSUL KOLKATA 1393
RUEHCG/AMCONSUL CHENNAI 2078
RUEHBI/AMCONSUL MUMBAI 1180
RUEHKP/AMCONSUL KARACHI 8356
RUEHLH/AMCONSUL LAHORE 4236
RHEBAAA/DEPT OF ENERGY WASHDC
RUEHC/DEPT OF INTERIOR WASHDC
RUEAWJL/DOJ WASHDC
RUEHZN/ENVIRONMENT SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY COLLECTIVE

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 NEW DELHI 005322 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR OES/PCI, OES/ENV, AND SCA/INS 
INTERIOR FOR FRED BAGLEY AND MINI NAGENDRAN 
 
E.O. 12958:  N/A 
TAGS: SENV TBIO SOCI KSCA IN
SUBJECT:  Ranthambore Wildlife Crime Workshop Emphasizes Need for 
Enforcement Training to Protect India's Tigers 
 
 
NEW DELHI 00005322  001.2 OF 003 
 
 
¶1.  SUMMARY:  The New Delhi ESTH and Public Affairs sections held a 
wildlife crime workshop November 4 - 6 near Ranthambore National 
Park (RNP) in order to highlight USG commitment to wildlife 
conservation and to provide much needed training to park rangers, 
local police, and prosecutors in crime scene techniques, forensics, 
intelligence gathering, and case prosecution.  Held under the 
auspices of the Coalition Against Wildlife Trafficking, OES 
Assistant Secretary Claudia McMurray attended the workshop as did 
senior officials from the Government of India, the Rajasthan State 
Forest Department, several NGOs, and over 60 forest guards from both 
Ranthambore and Sariska National Parks.  The workshop received 
substantial local press coverage.  END SUMMARY. 
 
¶2.  The ESTH Office, with funding from Public Affairs, partnered 
with the Wildlife Protection Society of India (WPSI), a leading NGO 
dealing with wildlife crime and headed by the dynamo of Indian tiger 
conservation, Belinda Wright.  The first day of the three-day 
conference was focused on policy with the remaining two days 
reserved for training park rangers and local police in techniques 
for gathering prosecutable evidence and intelligence networking with 
a heavy emphasis on the importance of basic forensics.  Sawai 
Madhopur, outside Ranthambore National Park, was selected as the 
venue for the workshop due to the fact that the most serious threat 
to Ranthambore's tiger population is from illegal poaching. 
 
--------------------------------------------- ---- 
KEYNOTE PLAYS A KEY ROLE DURING POLICY DISCUSSION 
--------------------------------------------- ---- 
 
¶3.  Assistant Secretary McMurray's keynote address emphasized the 
long-standing cooperation between the United States and India in the 
field of wildlife conservation and highlighted the need to 
strengthen enforcement both bi-laterally and multi-laterally through 
organizations such as CAWT in order to combat the illegal wildlife 
trade which is now widely recognized to be part of international 
organized crime.  Considering R.N. Mehrotra, the Principal Chief 
Conservator of Forests in Rajasthan, noted the fact there is no 
domestic market for poached tigers and that all illegal tiger parts 
are sold outside the borders of India, the commitment of the United 
States to stopping international wildlife trafficking was strongly 
welcomed by all participants. 
 
¶4.  Additional presentations by the Wildlife Institute of India 
(WII), TRAFFIC International, WPSI, and local police officials 
focused on the need for better understanding of wildlife laws to 
improve conviction rates; the importance of forensics in crime 
solving; the use of science based conservation techniques to aid 
better management of endangered wildlife populations; and the 
importance of better resources, training, and facilities for forest 
guards to ensure effective patrolling. 
 
------------------------------------------ 
DISSENTION HIGHLIGHTS NEED FOR COOPERATION 
------------------------------------------ 
 
¶5.  In a provocative speech, Fateh Singh Rathore, the celebrated 
former director of both Sariska and Ranthambore National Parks and 
founder and current head of the NGO Tiger Watch, raised the issue of 
competition between NGOs for funding and highlighted questionable 
practices of government organizations charged with wildlife 
conservation and other NGOs who he accused of planting evidence such 
as tiger skins in order to obtain arrests.  This led to a heated 
exchange between Tiger Watch and Ranthambhore forest officials with 
V.P. Singh, Chairman of Rajasthan's Steering Committee on Forestry 
and Wildlife, questioning Tiger Watch's activities since 2005 and 
noting that Tiger Watch was quick to criticize the Forest Department 
during the decline in the tiger population but has said nothing 
regarding the Forest Department's success over the last two years in 
reviving the tiger population at RNP.  The incident underscored the 
theme of Consul General Peter Kaestner's speech which emphasized the 
need for all parties to put their differences aside and focus on the 
real problem, conserving the tiger. 
 
¶6.  The following two days of the workshop were conducted in Hindi 
and were solely focused on training forest guards and police 
officials on handling wildlife crime.  Important aspects of the 
wildlife protection laws were discussed as was an overview of 
poaching techniques, signs to look for in a wildlife crime scene, 
indicators signifying the presence of poachers in the area, and 
other extraneous factors that lead to increased poaching activities. 
 
NEW DELHI 00005322  002.2 OF 003 
 
 
 This was followed by the creation of four mock wildlife crime 
scenes in which the participants were divided into four groups and 
then tasked with evaluating the scene, apprehending the guilty, 
preparing the necessary paperwork for prosecution, and producing 
evidence.  The workshop culminated with mock trials and an 
evaluation.  The response of the forest guards and local police was 
overwhelmingly positive, with multiple calls for additional 
training. 
 
-------------- 
PRESS COVERAGE 
-------------- 
 
¶7.  Embassy New Delhi's Information Office coordinated media 
coverage for the opening session of the workshop in order to 
highlight U.S. support for wildlife conservation.   Several English 
and vernacular language newspapers with both regional and national 
readerships as well as a national TV news channel carried positive 
stories on the workshop that underlined the need for all relevant 
stakeholders to work collaboratively toward the common goal of 
protecting India's tigers. 
 
¶8.  A leading 24-hour English TV news channel, "Times Now" which has 
an estimated viewer-ship of 20 million, accompanied A/S McMurray 
into Ranthambore National Park as part of a story on the dwindling 
tiger population and U.S. efforts to bring together officials from 
the national and state governments in addition to experts from 
non-governmental organizations involved in wildlife protection.  The 
story featured comments from A/S McMurray stressing the need for 
Indian citizens to be aware of the tiger poaching problem in order 
to halt illegal trafficking and to restore the tiger population. 
 
¶9.  The English daily "The Hindu" (circulation 981,000) described 
the workshop as a collaborative effort between India and the United 
States to protect India's wild tigers and prevent wildlife crime and 
quoted American officials as saying there was an "urgency" to 
protect "the rest of the tiger population before it is too late." 
 
¶10.  The "Dainik Bhaskar," one of India's largest Hindi dailies 
(circulation 2.2 million) highlighted the workshop's goals of 
stopping poaching and preventing illegal wildlife trafficking.  In a 
related story on the workshop, the Hindi Daily "Rajasthan Patrika" 
(circulation 670,000) called wildlife trafficking a global problem 
requiring a global solution.  Both papers welcomed the training for 
forest guards and police officials provided by the workshop.  There 
was also widespread coverage in the Urdu language press including 
the "Urdu Times," "Jadeed in-Dinon," "Pratap," "Hindustan Express" 
and "Akhbar-e-Mashrique" which all noted U.S. support for tiger 
conservation in India. 
 
--------------------------------------------- ---------- 
TRAFFIC INDIA WORKING TO CREATE AWARENESS AT ALL LEVELS 
--------------------------------------------- ---------- 
 
¶11.  In a side meeting with A/S McMurray, Samir Sinha, the head of 
TRAFFIC India, discussed their efforts to raise awareness of illegal 
wildlife trade issues though the South Asia Cooperative Environment 
Program (SACEP) rather than through the South Asian Association for 
Regional Cooperation (SAARC), due to TRAFFIC's contention SAARC has 
become too political.  He emphasized the need to close existing gaps 
in wildlife laws in transit countries which are currently used by 
poachers and middlemen to evade prosecution and noted that while the 
GOI's much anticipated Wildlife Crime Bureau (WCB) was now finally 
in existence, it is not yet functioning due to unspecified 
bureaucratic issues within the GOI. 
 
¶12.  Sinha also outlined TRAFFIC India's future plans to help curb 
wildlife crime which include providing training to the Indian 
judiciary on the illegal wildlife trade and wildlife crime in India. 
 He commented such training would not necessarily be welcomed "as 
judges do not like being taught the law," but noted the need to 
sensitize the judiciary regarding wildlife crime and its impact.  He 
suggested the participation of John Webb of the Department of 
Justice's Environmental and Natural Resources Division would be most 
beneficial in facilitating the workshop. 
 
--------------------------------------------- ---- 
WILDLIFE INSTITUTE OF INDIA ASSISTANCE FOR TIGERS 
--------------------------------------------- ---- 
 
 
NEW DELHI 00005322  003.2 OF 003 
 
 
¶13.  In a separate meeting with A/S McMurray, the Director of the 
Wildlife Institute of India, P.R. Sinha, reiterated the need for 
strict enforcement.  In an effort to address the problem, WII has 
now started providing three weeks of specialized training to customs 
officials on combating the illegal international trade in wildlife. 
Sinha also noted WII is in the process of preparing the final report 
on the status of tigers in India which will be released by the end 
of 2007.  This is the much awaited tiger census that will for the 
first time provide accurate numbers based on a scientific study of 
India's tiger population.  Sinha provided a broad generalization of 
the results stating that by and large, the status of tigers in 
protected areas is satisfactory, but outside national parks the 
populations have drastically crashed.  This in turn is a problem for 
the source populations which have to disperse as they become larger 
and in the absence of good habitat, prey base and protection, they 
become more vulnerable.  He advocated landscape level planning and 
said it is time India starts looking at creating landscape level 
management plans to protect its wildlife. 
 
¶14.  A/S McMurray asked Sinha whether India was willing to engage 
the United States further on tiger conservation considering the 
strong reluctance to do so in 2005.  Sinha candidly admitted India 
was very defensive regarding the tiger situation in the past due to 
lack of adequate data but now that the census is almost completed, 
the GOI is willing to re-engage.  He stated his best estimate was 
that India had only approximately 1500 to 1600 wild tigers 
remaining.  Sinha also mentioned that WII is now in the process of 
mapping the tiger genome across India and that WII has been assigned 
the task of scientifically relocating tigers to the troubled Sariska 
National Park which had lost all of its tigers due to poaching in 
¶2005. 
 
--------------------------------------------- ------- 
TROUBLES WITH TIGER WATCH AND POACHER REHABILITATION 
--------------------------------------------- ------- 
 
¶15.  During a field visit to a school for children of rehabilitated 
poachers run by Tiger Watch, the children's fathers, ex-poachers 
themselves, voiced their concerns to A/S McMurray.  They noted their 
appreciation for the efforts made by Tiger Watch to educate their 
children, but stated they too needed assistance in obtaining a 
livelihood and that without such, they would return to poaching. 
 
¶16.  COMMENT:  Several of Tiger Watch's programs have been shut down 
due to allegations of illegal land transactions in and around RNP 
involving Fateh Singh Rathore and his family.  Tiger Watch counters 
by saying they are being unfairly persecuted for raising awareness 
of tiger losses at Ranthambore.  While this may have been true in 
2005, it is clearly not the case today and Tiger Watch's poacher 
rehabilitation programs remain contentious with other highly reputed 
NGOs preferring to focus on enforcement rather than rehabilitation. 
Enforcement training has widespread support from both the government 
and the conservation community and the success of the Embassy's 
wildlife crime workshop has spawned multiple requests for additional 
workshops in different regions of the country.  END COMMENT. 
 
MULFORD