Bengaluru: A collective of animal rights groups wrote to the Union environment ministry on April 1 to strengthen the recently-notified captive elephant transfer and transport rules.
The collective has argued that “ambiguity” in the Captive Elephant (Transfer or Transport) Rules, 2024, may enable illegal capture, exploitation and commercial trading of captive elephants. Legal experts told The Wire that what the animal rights groups have suggested are based on implementation and accountability challenges that exist due to loopholes in the new Rules, especially because it is often difficult to determine if an elephant is captive-bred or wild-caught.
While conservationists and experts in environmental law have expressed concern ever since the Union government amended the Wild Life Protection Act (1972) in 2022, and after the government notified the Captive Elephant (Transfer or Transport) Rules in March this year, the letter penned by the collective of animal rights groups to the ministry also comes after Himal, an independent media house, recently published a detailed investigative report on the Reliance-owned zoo Vantara in Jamnagar, Gujarat, and established incongruencies in how the zoo may have acquired more than 200 captive elephants enabled by these amendments.
Also read: Govt Notifies Captive Elephant Transfer Rules
Elephant transfers and the controversy
The Union environment ministry notified the new Captive Elephant (Transfer or Transport) Rules, 2024, on March 15. These Rules list the process for transferring or transporting Asian elephants, a Schedule I species as per the Wildlife Protection Act (1972) and thus afforded the highest protection in the country. Elephants are also classified as “Endangered” by the IUCN Red List due to population declines due to several reasons, among others. The capture of elephants from the wild, and its trade, is illegal in India.
As per the newly notified Rules, however, elephants can be transferred between individuals or states for “religious and other purposes” – something that the law did not permit before.
But first, let’s delve into some background.
Through Sections 40 and 43 of the Wild Life Protection Act (1972), people could acquire and transfer live, captive elephants but only with prior approval from the state’s chief wildlife warden and as long as it didn’t involve commercial transactions (i.e. selling elephants). The latest amendment to the Act – proposed by the union government in 2021, however, proposed to permit the transfer and transport of live elephants. In union environment minister Bhupender Yadav’s words, as he presented the The Wild Life (Protection) Amendment Bill, 2021 in Parliament:
“[The Bill, inter alia, proposes to—]…insert a provision to allow for transfer or transport of live elephants by person having ownership certificates in accordance with conditions prescribed by the Central Government”
This, legal experts and conservationists have said, would encourage trade in captive elephants and threaten their populations in the wild.
“It is well-known that the [Wildlife Protection Act 1972] law is violated and elephants are illegally procured and kept in captivity. A proposed change in 2021 Bill does away with some provisions of Section 43, allowing the transfer and transport of live elephants by persons having a certificate of ownership. The reason for this is clear: to make keeping captive elephants easier,” commented conservationist and author Neha Sinha in her commentary on The Wire.
The clause “can severely impact elephant populations by legitimising live trade of elephants, reviving a now-dying illegal trade in wild-caught elephants, and thus negating years of successful conservation efforts,” Varun Goswami, a senior scientist and director of Conservation Initiatives (CI), a trust that works on wildlife and habitat conservation in the northeast, had said in CI’s letter to the Standing Committee that reviewed the Bill proposed by the union government.
The Parliamentary Standing Committee (on science and technology, environment, forests and climate change) chaired by Congress leader Jairam Ramesh reviewed the amendments proposed by the union government and took into note the issues mentioned in letters from the public, including those such as Goswami’s. However, the Committee noted that religious and cultural institutions in some states “own elephants which play a crucial role in daily worship and rituals”. To “strike a careful balance to ensure that age-old traditions are not interfered with while at the same time addressing widespread concerns that nothing should be done to even give an impression that private ownership of elephants and trade in them is going to be encouraged,” the Committee suggested the following:
“Provided that the Central Government, may if it considers appropriate, prescribe such additional terms and conditions as may be necessary, subject to which any transfer or transport of an existing captive elephant for a religious institution may be conducted by a person having a valid certificate of ownership.”
However, when the government notified the Wildlife Protection Amendment Act in December 2022, it said that the transfer or transport of a captive elephant for “religious or any other purpose by a person having a valid certificate of ownership shall be subject to such terms and conditions as may be prescribed by the Central Government.”
The union government lays down the regulations for this in its new Captive Elephant (Transfer or Transport) Rules, 2024.
Ambiguity in Rules is a cause of concern
Following the union environment ministry’s notification of the Captive Elephant (Transfer or Transport) Rules, 2024, on March 15, a collective of animal rights groups wrote to the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) on April 1.
The letter has been issued by the People for Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) India, Heritage Animal Task Force, Kaziranga Wildlife Society, the Federation of Indian Animal Protection Organisations (FIAPO) and the Centre for Research on Animal Rights (CRAR).
According to Alok Hisarwala, founder of CRAR, “urgent steps are needed to ensure that there is no ambiguity in the rules that may enable illegal capture, exploitation and commercial trading of captive elephants”.
Identifying “crucial gaps that demand immediate attention to prevent potential exploitation and illegal trade of elephants”, the collective has made several recommendations.
One is that the government set up a national database of captive elephants, including details of ownership certificates, genetic mapping, owner information and location. These must be made publicly accessible, they say. “Until the genetic mapping currently being undertaken by the government is completed, only transfers for rehabilitation should be permitted,” the collective recommended.
Regarding the all-important Ownership Certificates for captive elephants, they recommend that Rule 7(1) of the Captive Elephant (Transfer or Transport) Rules, 2024 be amended to ensure that transfers are restricted to elephants with valid ownership certificates issued within the stipulated period of 180 days of the Declaration of Wild Life Stock Rules, 2003.
(DWSR) on 18 April 2003. This is important to prevent people who have illegal custody of elephants to again use these Rules to claim a second period of amnesty to “regularise” their illegal custody of elephants, Khushboo Gupta, advocacy officer, PETA India, said in a press release.
Currently, there are no uniform national guidelines for the upkeep and care of captive elephants. So until robust and updated national guidelines are issued, the implementation of Rule 4 – which necessitates that the Deputy Conservator of Forests (DCF) keep tab of the upkeep and housing conditions for the elephant both at the donor and donee’s disposal – be restricted, the collective recommends. This rule also has to be expanded to ensure that all elephant transfers are only non-commercial in nature, the collective added. And officers must continue to annually assess the welfare of the elephant in question, and be permitted to seize the animal if its best interests are not met.
Embargo on elephant transfers from select states
Interestingly, the collective has also called for a five-year embargo on elephant transfers from India’s northeastern states and Kerala, except for rehabilitation.
“There is a real fear that the permission to ‘transfer ’elephants might end up facilitating the capture of wild elephants in the North-East, especially in parts of Assam and Arunachal Pradesh,” said Mubina Akhtar of the Kaziranga Wildlife Association, in a press release.
That’s because as per data (as on January 2019) submitted by the union environment ministry in the Parliament in 2022, the northeastern states are home to the highest number of captive elephants. Of the total 2,675 captive elephants in India, Assam has the highest number at 905, followed by Arunachal Pradesh with 109. Together, Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Tripura, Nagaland, and Meghalaya account for more than 41% of India’s captive elephants.
The embargo on elephant transfers from Kerala, the collective says, would also be in line with the Supreme Court directives in May 2016 restricting inter-state transfers of elephants with Kerala. In 2016, the apex court restrained the Kerala government from issuing ownership certificates to elephant owners, and directed that people who possess elephants in the state do not transfer the animals outside the state.
Data submitted by the MoEFCC in 2022 says that Kerala now has 518 captive elephants. According to a survey by the Heritage Animal Task Force (HATF) Kerala was home to 521 captive elephants in 2018, reported The Hindu. But 88 of them died, and as of 2022. Temple rituals, often conducted during peak summer months, are known to exact a toll on the health of captive elephants used for festivals and other occasions.
Interestingly, Kerala’s wild elephant populations are not doing well either. As per the 2017 elephant census, Kerala had 5,706 wild elephants. This number however, has declined to 2,386 as per the latest census in 2023: a whopping 58% drop. Kerala has also been at the eye of a storm with several reports of illegal elephant hunting and trade surfacing in the recent past.
Another crucial recommendation that the collective makes is that the controversial term “any other purpose” — which is what threatens the welfare and conservation of elephants in the Rules — be defined better and “narrowed down to include only transfers to recognised rescue and rehabilitation centres”.
“Additionally, a comprehensive list of exclusions to transfer must be provided, including the use of elephants for commercial purposes, for tourism, for circuses, for rides, for begging, for hard labour, in public parades and loud processions, in any situation that can cause harm to humans and elephants, and in public or private zoos,” they write.
The rules must also be altered to allow any party to challenge transfer decisions, so as to ensure fairness and accountability, the collective recommends.
“Until these urgent reforms are implemented, we ask the MOEFCC to halt transfer applications
(except for rehabilitation) under the Captive Elephant (Transfer or Transport) Rules, 2024,” said Bharati Ramachandran, CEO, FIAPO, in a press release.
This is not the first time the animal rights groups have written to the union environment ministry regarding the loophole that legalizes the transport and transfer of elephants across states. In November 2022, following the proposed amendment to the Wildlife Protection Act, a collective of 13 bodies wrote to the MoEFCC raising concerns about how the amendment would open the doors to the illegal hunting of elephants from the wild.
‘Very important to plug gaps’
What the collective of animal rights groups have suggested in their letter to the union environment ministry on April 1 is clearly based on implementation challenges, said Debadityo Sinha, Senior Resident Fellow and Lead, the Climate and Ecosystems team at the Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy.
“People like them know the on-ground challenges as is evident from various reports [such as the recent report on Himal]…it is very difficult to track which elephant is captive-bred and which is wild-caught,” he told The Wire. “For instance, genetic mapping is not taking place – they just make certificates. Who is going to verify these things? Who has access to the history of the animal anyways? It is not so transparent that anyone can go and check it. That is why it is very important that the law should not leave any loophole.”
As per the MoEFCC, India has finished the DNA profiling of 270 of the 2,675 captive elephants in the country as of March 2023.
The collective’s comments also focus on the issue of accountability too, he added. “They have also asked for an embargo on elephants from the north-east and to Kerala which I think is based on some evidence.”
But are there any hopes that these concerns will be addressed at all, especially at a time when India is witnessing a dilution of wildlife and environmental laws?
Based on the performance of the government over the last six to seven years, there are very few examples where the government has brought changes to laws based on such demands from civil society, Sinha commented.
“But it is also a political issue,” he said.
The initial WLPA, for instance, did not say anything about using elephants for religious purposes, only for “special purposes”. The standing committee to which the amendment to the Wildlife Protection Act was referred to said that while conservation is important, peoples’ religious sentiments should also be taken into consideration, Sinha said.
“So for the government, they have to keep everyone happy…the term “religious purposes” was not suggested by this government but by the standing committee headed by Jairam Ramesh,” said Sinha. “Now the current government has added “religious and other purposes”. So whom do we blame here,” he asked. “Overall, the lack of political will is a concern.”
Ramesh made it clear that his standing committee report said that exceptions should be made only for captive elephants owned by religious institutions. “…but you have expanded the ambit of expansion in a very open-ended and loose manner,” Ramesh said in August 2022 in his letter to Yadav. Nonetheless, the Wildlife Protection Amendment Act became law in December 2022.
Moving elephants cross-country
A detailed investigative report, authored by journalist M. Rajshekhar funded by the Pulitzer Center and published by independent media house Himal on March 20 this year, has cast dark shadows on the murky means by which Vantara, a Reliance-owned zoo in Gujarat’s Jamnagar, may have acquired more than 4,000 animals (both native and exotic).
The report suggests that many animals – including Asian elephants – that were not in need of rescue may have also landed up at Vantara. The report puts the ease at which this was done down to the changes in India’s wildlife laws and regulations brought in by the union environment ministry in recent times, such as the changes that the Wildlife Protection Amendment Act 2022 enables.
Vantara consists of the Radhe Krishna Temple Elephant Welfare Trust and Greens Zoological, Rescue and Rehabilitation Centre, and is spread across a 3,000-acre compound inside Reliance’s Jamnagar refinery complex in Gujarat. Per sources who spoke to journalist Rajshekhar, as well as information shared by Anant Ambani during a press conference in February, the report lists that Vantara is now home to more than 4,700 animals, ranging across an unknown number of species.
This includes more than 200 captive Asian elephants.
These include elephants that have arrived from states as far as Arunachal Pradesh (around 90 in all). The report also noted how locals and forest officers have come across trucks laden with elephants – including a 49-vehicle convoy transporting 25 elephants to the Trust from Namsai in April 2023. If rescue was the mission, the animals could have been housed at the closer rehabilitation center in Assam’s Kaziranga. However, officials or locals who stopped the vehicles have found that all their paperwork was in order and they were bound for the rehabilitation center in Jamnagar.
This is where the collective’s recommendation on April 1 that a five year embargo be placed on captive elephant transfers from the northeastern states would make a change.
Other concerns also abound, the Himal report noted. While Vantara may have the “world’s best veterinarians” to take care of its ‘rescued’ animals, experts pointed out in Himal’s report that many species being housed in Vantara are species adapted to living in cooler climes and habitats, when compared to the heat that Jamnagar experiences.
Greens, however, through its Director Brij Kishor Gupta has refuted the setting up of targets for species or numbers, calling the allegations “frivolous and baseless”. Greens also denied that provisions in the country’s wildlife laws were weakened for their benefit.
