Guwahati, Oct 14: About 55 personnel from Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) deployed in Gopinath Bordoloi International Airport in Guwahati, were today sensitised on how best they could contribute towards prevention of ever proliferating illegal wildlife trade that often targets airports for faster surreptitious movements of illegal wildlife, wildlife parts and items made of wildlife parts in a collaborating sensitisation workshop conducted by resource persons from Legal and Advocacy Division of Aaranyak and Wildlife Crime Control Bureau (WCCB). The workshop was conducted at a CISF facility at Kahikuchi near the airport today and hosted by the CISF.
Dr Jimmy Borah, Deputy Director of the LAD, Aaranyak addressing a technical session in the workshop explained how the CISF personnel who are usually engaged in checking of cabin baggage of passengers in most of the airports across the country, can contribute towards early detection of attempts to illegally transport protected wildlife/ wildlife parts and items made of such wildlife by suspects involved in the illegal trade that is detrimental to conservation of precious bioresources.
Dr Borah cited several examples of how alert action of airport security personnel within and outside the country have prevented wildlife trafficking on many occasions and underlined the need for coordination among multiple agencies including CISF, Customs, airlines security, WCCB, state police, state forest department for effective prevention of illegal wildlife trade.
He said, in airports every shipment must pass a checkpoint, terminals, cargo sheds and baggage belts, where trained personnel and sniffer dogs can stop the crime.
Wildlife traffickers targets air routes because speed keeps live animals alive, flights span continents in hours, and busy passenger and cargo flows give small consignments cover, he said adding airport authorities, customs, forest departments, police, airlines and NGOs must share intelligence and act as one team.
Nippon Kumar Baishnab, Assistant Director i/c, WCCB, during another technical session tipped the attending CISF personnel how to facilitate effective detection of protected wildlife, wildlife parts and various consumer items made of Scheduled wildlife species during checking of passenger baggage through X-Ray machine and the immediate follow up action to be taken by the CISF on detecting such items.
He enlightened the CISF personnel particularly about Scheduled I and Scheduled II species as well as other scheduled flora and fauna as enlisted in the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972 (Amended in 2022) that are strictly prohibited from trading.
Baishnab along with Bijay Basumatary, Intelligence Assistant, WCCB exhibited a number of wildlife parts that are prohibited from trading for the knowledge of the CISF personnel and provided them hands-on experience about detection of these parts through the X-Ray machine