In a letter written to Chavan on April 30, Kishor Rithe, member of SWBL and chief of Satpuda Foundation, said, "Time has come to think seriously about how effective our tiger cells are and whether we really need a new and advance mechanism in Maharashtra."
The tiger cells and anti-poaching units were set up 10 years ago after detection of many wildlife poaching and trade cases in Maharashtra. "However, after almost a decade, I found that most of the district tiger cells are defunct. Police and forest officers conduct meetings as merely a formality. The tiger cells could not become an effective law enforcement mechanism with fixed objectives to regularly gather required intelligence and prevent and detect the wildlife crime cases in the state," Rithe said.
In last so many years, forest department could not build its image as the best law (forest & wildlife) enforcement agency. The new Special Tiger Protection Force (STPF) will also make no difference if police and forest departments are not tuned to wildlife crime details and latest modus operandi of poachers and wildlife traders. Read the full report here.
Source: Times News Network, Nagpur.
