Kathmandu, February 8

The government has enacted the International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora Control Act-2015 to implement the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora-1973, to which Nepal is a party, to protect wildlife against over-exploitation and to prevent international trade from threatening species with extinction.

This Act will be effective throughout the country and any citizen who commits criminal offences in any country outside Nepal will also be put on trial under this law.

Endangered wild flora and fauna means any species or sub-species of wildlife or flora or parts thereof referred to in Apendix-1 of the Convention.

This law has strictly prohibited the sale, purchase, possession, reproduction, import and export of endangered species.

However, any person or organisation may be permitted to do so by obtaining licence from the Department of National Park and Wildlife Conservation or Department of Forests.

“If any person or organisation has possessed any wildlife or flora and fauna for study, research, test, training, exhibition, conservation education, bio-resource protection, educational activities and for any other purpose, they will be required to get them registered with the agencies concerned,” reads the Act.

Such species brought to Nepal from any part of the world should be registered.

Any one who is found guilty of committing criminal offences will be liable to up to 15 years jail sentence or a fine of up to Rs 500,000 or both with confiscation of the wildlife or flora and fauna or parts thereof.

This Act has stipulated a provision of investigation officers from national parks, wildlife reserves, conservation areas and hunting reserves to probe the involvement of any person in activities prohibited by the law.

The government will act as plaintiff of the charge to be filed under this Act. The power to adjudicate the case will be with the concerned district court where the charge is filed.

The law has also provisioned a 12-member Endangered Wildlife and Flora and Fauna National Coordination Committee headed by a secretary at the Ministry of Forest and Soil Conservation to recommend to the government in relation to the policy, legal and institutional measures to curb the crime.