The draft Wildlife (Conservation) Act - 2010 provides for fining up to Tk 5 million and up to 12 years in prison for killing national animal of Bangladesh- Royal Bengal Tiger.
The proposed law also includes regulations to preserve endangered wild species like elephants, leopards, clouded leopards, gibbons, sambar deer, crocodiles, gavial crocodiles, whales, dolphins, different categories of birds and plants.
Environment and forest secretary Mihir Kanti Majumder told bdnews24.com on Monday that new additions are being made to the list.
"The draft has already been sent to the law ministry for its opinion. It will then be submitted to the cabinet for final approval," he added. The secretary also expressed hope that the act will be tabled at the next parliament session.
Majumder added that the draft has provisions of sentencing an illegal hunter from 2 to12 years in prison and fines ranging between Tk 50,000 and Tk 500,000, based on the severity of the violations.
The forest department had initially proposed life sentences as the maximum punishment for violations of the law.
The current law was last amended in 1974, which provided jail term for two months to two years and a fine of Tk 500-Tk 2,000.
Wildlife experts claim that human carelessness, ignorance and lack of implementation of laws have led to the extinction of many species of wildlife while endangering many others.
Mohammad Anwarul Islam, chief executive of Wildlife Trust, an NGO, and the government's wildlife advisor, told bdnews24.com: "The current conservation law is outdated in terms of socio-economic perspective, international conventions and protocol. The punitive measures are extremely inadequate. The implementation of a new law has been proposed taking all these factors into consideration." Read the full report here.
Source: Moinul Hoque Chowdhury, Dhaka, (bdnews24.com).
