A new handbook on wildlife law enforcement promises to be just the insight that enforcement officials and agencies need into the growing wildlife crimes in India.

The Handbook on Wildlife Law Enforcement, written by the head of TRAFFIC India Samir Sinha and launched by India’s proactive environment and forests minister Jairam Ramesh, is a ‘comprehensive and detailed publication on wildlife trade and crime, conceived from several discussions with senior enforcement officials and experts.’

The book has sections on offence prevention, identifying early signs, wildlife crime scenes, internet as a tool for illegal wildlife trade, securing electronic evidence and conducting interrogation. According to Ravi Singh CEO of WWF-India the book has been published at a time when many of our own species and conservation landscapes are depreciating, some beyond even long term recovery.

I remember Sinha telling me sometime back that the main challenge for wildlife law enforcement agencies in the country was poor acknowledgment of the magnitude of the problem. There are very organised criminal syndicates operating in this country, he said. Sinha was also disturbed at the tiger-centric focus of conservation while other species were left out to fend for themselves. The fundamental enforcement challenges, however, were lack of ‘legs on the ground’ — a long time peeve of all agencies — the abysmally low number of forest guards that man India’s forests.

Hope the book answers these questions and takes the conservation debate beyond tigers by highlighting crimes on other species.