Govt to ban trade of peacock feathers

Beautiful peacock feather handicraft or embroidery would soon be history with the government deciding to ban trade of their feathers to protect the national bird, nearly 50 years after it got the exclusive tag.

Updated on: May 1, 2013, 22:06:22 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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Beautiful peacock feather handicraft or embroidery would soon be history with the government deciding to ban trade of their feathers to protect the national bird, nearly 50 years after it got the exclusive tag.

Although the government does not have data on the population of the national bird, its population is said to be dwindling because of poaching for feathers, which fetches a good price in national and international markets.

The only stock-taking of peacock population in India done by World Wide Fund for nature in 1991 revealed that India was left with only 50% of the total peacock population that existed at the time of Independence. Government officials and animal activists believe it number has come down further since 1991 because of habitat loss and poaching.

Alarmed by rising demand of feathers - popularly known as morpankh - having outstripped naturally shed feathers available, the Environment Ministry has decided for complete clamp down on sale, purchase and transport of peacock feathers.

“A decision has been taken to ban trade of peacock feather,” environment and forest minister Jayanthi Natarajan told HT.

Trade of naturally shed peacock feathers is allowed under the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972, which although prohibits killing of the bird.

The loophole in the law has been misused and had lead to rampant killing of the bird across India for highly lucrative feather business. With the limited staff, the forest departments have found it difficult to check their poaching.

A senior ministry official said a decision has been taken to seek the Cabinet approval to amend the Act and make trade of body parts of peacocks an offence equivalent to punishment for killing other non-endangered species.

A person caught selling or purchasing peacock feathers or trophies could be jailed for up to two years under the amended law, officials said. However, possessing peacock feathers by citizens will not be a crime under the law.

Poorva Joshipura, chief executive officer of People for Ethical Treatment of Animals, India, welcomed the government move and said it was time to recognize that which is that the trade in peacock feathers is resulting in slaughter of the national bird. “Anyone who has ever been to a market where peacock feathers are sold can easily see that the sheer number of products produced means the common claim that these products are made of feathers the birds have naturally shed is a myth,” she said, in a statement.

Peacocks are poached for several reasons including its meat and feathers. “There is a belief that keeping peacock feathers in home bring good luck,” an official said. In many places the national bird is killed for meat considered to have medicinal values especially with relation to arthritis.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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