THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Forest Department has too many things of value, especially animal trophies, shut up in its strong rooms across the state. Some of them will now be taken out and displayed in a Heritage Museum to be set up at the Forest Headquarters in the capital. The Department has invited tenders from contractors to set up the museum. Source said “conservation” would be the theme of the museum. A top source said the objective of setting up of the museum was to display the exhibits of antique and educational value available with the Department.
This will include the various types of timber and animal artefacts. “The exhibits, for instance, will teach people the value of forests, the role they play in providing habitat, water, recreation, wood, and a multitude of other benefits,” a top forest official said. The Department’s prize catches like elephant tusks, deer antlers and tiger skins could turn out to be the biggest attractions of the museum. The Department is already sitting on a massive booty of ivory tusks, mostly taken from ded elephants and also confiscated from ivory smugglers. According to official estimates, the ivory collection with the Department would wieigh nearly 10,000 kg or approximately 10 tons.
Earlier, there was a plan to burn the tusks as holding them in ‘strong rooms’, which are strong only in name, would be too tempting for smugglers. “The stockpile of ivory with the Department with its limited infrastructure facilities for keeping them safe is an open invitation for prospective smugglers and thieves,” a senior Forest Department official said. Ivory is valueless, except in the black market, as trade in the material was banned in 1991 through an amendment to the Wildlife (Protection) Act 1972.
