To Sunday Shillong,
Elephant poaching is currently happening at an alarming rate across South East Asia due to high demands for elephant skin in the wildlife market. The elephant skin is used for producing specialised jewellery in South East Asia and China. It is polished and dyed and processed into red-coloured beaded necklaces and bracelets fetching high prices in illegal international wildlife markets. The profit being very high is encouraging highly organised poaching groups operating in South East Asia to wipe out Asiatic wild elephant populations with special emphasis to Myanmar due to close proximity to the Chinese border.
The ever increasing demand for poached skins of wild Asiatic elephant is therefore putting heavy hunting pressure on their wild population in several pockets of South East Asia. Several carcasses of Asiatic elephants have been detected in the forests across the region with skins being harvested with professional precision alarming the local conservation authorities. The bad news for many adjoining South Asian nations like Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and India with significant wild populations of Asiatic elephants is that they may be the next target of professional poaching units operating in the region.
The South Asian nations should be extremely cautious of the ground situation and take appropriate measures to protect their wild elephant population. The massacre of the wild Asiatic elephants for skin harvest may soon reach their shores and wipe out local wild population unless concrete steps are planned and executed right now. A Joint Conservation Initiative (JCI) for wild Asiatic elephants among South Asian nations may help adjacent countries in better tackling this new onslaught on local and indigenous wildlife better.
Thanking you
Saikat Kumar Basu
