SHAHTOOSH
BAN GAINS MOMENTUM WORLDWIDE
If the Tibetan people, as
a nation, have to take up cudgels against the occupation of their
country by a larger and more powerful neighbour, there also exists a
native animal species in the country – the Tibetan antelope - which
perforce has to wage a last ditch-battle against its very extermination
at the hands of a more formidable foe – the international poacher. And
the only reason why this animal is so ruthlessly persecuted is that its
fur unfortunately yields the highest quality of wool ever known to man.
The Tibetan antelope,
Pantholops hodgsoni, also known as the ‘chiru,’ is now found only in the
remote plateaus of Tibet, and the Xinjiang, and Qinghai provinces of
China. It is estimated that the chiru population ran into several
million at the turn of the 20th century, during which time they were
also known to converge in the valleys of northern Laddak, but their
population has now alarmingly dropped to less than 75,000 today.
Wildlife biologists and conservationists aver that chiru are currently
being illegally hunted at the rate of 20,000 per year for their wool,
commonly known as ‘shahtoosh’ (king of wools, in Persian). The
slaughtered animals end up supplying a high fashion trade of fine, soft
shawls made from their wool. Sold in fashion outlets in New York, Paris,
London, and Hong Kong, these shawls generate thousands of dollars each,
from buyers who are often unaware that they are obtaining a product
which is illegal internationally.
Tibetan antelope are
protected under Appendix I of the Convention on International Trade in
Endangered Species (CITES), which prohibits any trade in their products,
worldwide. They have also been given Class I protection status under
China’s Wildlife Laws, while in India they are listed in Schedule 1 of
The Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972, at par with the tiger, elephant and
other highly endangered species.
The high rate of
decimation of chirus at the hands of poachers and traders has now
galvanized the international conservation community to plunge headlong
into the battle to save the species. In India, the Wildlife Protection
Society of India (WPSI), the WWF-India and the Wildlife Trust of India (WTI)
have all made significant contributions to its conservation. Whereas
WPSI took the issue of shahtoosh to court and was instrumental in
obtaining a restraint order from the Jammu High Court against the use of
shahtoosh as material for the making of shawls by Kashmiri weavers, the
WTI collaborated with the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW)
to conduct an in-depth investigation of the illegal trade in Tibetan
antelope wool.
On June 27th,
2001 IFAW and the WTI held simultaneous press conferences in London,
Beijing, and New Delhi, and announced the results of the joint
investigation that revealed the international scope of the highly
illegal trade in Tibetan antelope wool from China and shawls from India
– a trade, which the report says, may cause the extinction of this
unique species within the next five years.
According to the report
entitled , "Wrap Up the Trade - An International Campaign to Save the
Endangered Tibetan Antelope", the raw shahtoosh wool is smuggled into
India, ending up in the state of Jammu and Kashmir where it is woven
into high quality shawls, which continue to be sold illegally to the
wealthy elite in countries such as the UK, USA, Italy and France. The
investigation lasted for over eight months, and was carried out by five
teams in three countries. The teams collected first-hand information and
video footage of the illegal trade of chiru pelts being carried on in
the border areas between China, Nepal and India. For added measure, they
also conducted a socio-economic survey of an estimated 30,000 shahtoosh
workers to determine possible impacts of a ban on shahtoosh weaving in
the state of Jammu and Kashmir.
Fortunately in India, it
seems that the awareness of the illegality of shahtoosh shawls has been
hammered home, and hopefully the elite class that can afford to buy one,
will now have nothing to do with such a shawl. Moreover, with Mrs Maneka
Gandhi recently prevailing upon the outgoing US ambassador’s wife to
disown the shahtoosh shawl in her possession, the media attention and
the subsequent discussions about the event in high-fashion circles must
surely have helped to cement the point.
But the all-important
question which remains to be answered is whether the illegal wildlife
trade in India will cease to deal in shahtoosh, since it is inextricably
linked to the trade in tiger parts, whereby traffickers supplying
illegal tiger parts from India to China, trade them for Tibetan antelope
pelts or wool, which are so highly sought this side of the border. And
going by the massive seizures of tiger skins and bones made by the STF
in Uttar Pradesh recently, it is clearly evident that the wildlife
traffickers in the state have been actively carrying on their sinister
enterprise. In most of these seizures, it was determined by the STF
sleuths that the tiger skins and bones were destined for Nepal, and
possibly onward to China for use in the traditional medicines which that
country is so infamous for.
There is no doubt that
shahtoosh would have been one of the prizes gleefully bartered by the
traders in exchange of the tiger derivatives. A fair exchange, one would
wryly admit. Hardly ironical then, that the Indian tiger and Tibetan
antelope are both listed in the same Schedule 1 of the Wildlife
(Protection) Act.
