Wildlife crime investigators in Nepal face various challenges, such as lack of training, resources, evidence and database, as well as political and legal pressure.
CHITWAN, Nepal — When Hemanta Malla Thakuri, former deputy inspector-general of the Nepal Police, started training the country’s frontline wildlife crime investigators last year, he realized they operated similarly to how the police did when he joined the force nearly four decades ago. Under Nepal’s conservation laws, local officers from the Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation stationed at various protected areas across the country are authorized to investigate wildlife crimes inside the protected areas and surrounding buffer zones. Wildlife crimes that occur elsewhere fall under the jurisdiction of local officers from provincial divisional forest offices.
Officers say around 120-130 cases of wildlife crime are recorded across the country’s protected area and division forest offices each year, although official data aren’t available. The DNPWC’s last published figures for wildlife crime, from 2017-18, listed 122 cases during that period. But these were likely just the tip of the iceberg, as most cases in remote areas seldom get reported.