AP to Train Foresters to Fight Wildlife Cybercrime
Poachers and traffickers are increasingly using social media platforms for passing information about their kills, trading in wildlife parts, tagging locations in protected forest areas, and even threatening forest staff at times.
Vijayawada: AP state forest academy (APSFA), which is based in Rajamahendravaram, has called for sensitisation of foresters about cybercrimes to effectively curb online trade in ivory, skins, horns, and other parts of wild animals in the state.
As per the academy, though the foresters are adept in protection and conservation of forests and wildlife, they may not be very familiar with online trade and establishing legally sustainable evidence to bring the culprits to book.
Poachers and traffickers are increasingly using social media platforms for passing information about their kills, trading in wildlife parts, tagging locations in protected forest areas, and even threatening forest staff at times. This has raised concerns among senior forest officials and NGOs dealing with protection of wildlife. They have gone on to track social media platforms and have zeroed in on posting photos / videos of hunted animals, setting up of snares, sale offers of ivory, skins, horns and so on, and timber smuggling.
In such scenarios, the academy says foresters must note the details pertaining to URL, post ID, date and time of posting, and account name / handle. They should take time-stamped screenshots and screen recordings showing the URL bar and should report immediately to the concerned range officer or DFO. They must lodge a complaint on the National Cyber Crime Helpline number at 1930.
APFA has advised foresters to download digital evidence by using the mobile screen recorder for videos, save HTMLs of posts, and take screenshots with date and time visible before the download gets deleted. Foresters have the authority to seize the mobile phone used to access the post for sale offers and so on social media platforms from the poachers, smugglers, and traders. Foresters can take the help of the concerned cybercrime police to get the IP address, email ID, and phone number from the social media platforms through legal process under section 94 of BNSS.
While booking cases, foresters have been advised to use relevant sections of the Wildlife Protection Act, AP Forest Act, and IT Act. They must take a mandatory certificate under section 65 B (4) of Indian Evidence Act, 1872, read with 106 (4) BNSS, 2023, so that the case of offence will stand legal scrutiny.
Given the increasing tendency of cybercrime involving wild animals like tigers, elephants, pangolins, pythons, and a host of others for their body parts like claws, skin, ivory, scales, and so on for varied purposes, there is a need to pay more attention to curb these offences.
AP forest academy director B. Vijay Kumar said, “Forest officers from the top level to the beat officers may not be very much familiar with the procedures to be adopted to deal with cybercrimes. Thus, any lacunae in filing cases will result in rejection in the court of law, allowing the online traders of wildlife to go scot free. So, we plan to sensitise the foresters about the ways of dealing with such cyber criminals.”
