UAE to protect bustards in India while royals hunt them in Pakistan: The Tribune India

Tribune News Service

Sandeep Dikshter

New Delhi, September 2

As India strengthens its ties with the Arab world, it has taken a very different approach compared to Pakistan. This was reflected in one of two memorandums of understanding signed during Foreign Minister S Jaishankar’s visit to the UAE.

Indian Wildlife Research Institute signs a memorandum of understanding with International Hubala Conservation Foundation to protect Greater India during meeting with Emirati counterpart Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan Bustard and Little Floriken.

By contrast, Pakistan has issued permits to Arab sheikhs, including Sheikh Abdullah’s brother and UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, to hunt the highly endangered huba. Pulled bustard, it is a close relative of the Indian bustard.

The blood campaign is so important to Pakistan’s soft diplomacy with the Arab world that it was at one point reversed by Pakistan’s Supreme Court after the government argued it would prompt Arabs to invest in the country and that the ban would affect the country’s relations with the Gulf. A country with a ban on its hunting.

These birds migrate from Central Asia every season and spend the winter in the Indian subcontinent. Although bustard poaching is also a problem in India, Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot launched a conservation plan in 2013 that was later funded by the center and Wildlife Conservation. NGOs made improvements.

In fact, the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) is so disturbed by the indiscriminate hunting of the bustard that it named Pakistan Pakistan while calling for an immediate ban due to its fragile IUCN Red List status.

Its hunting is also banned in Pakistan, but as part of Pakistan’s foreign policy, members of the Arab royal family have been granted special hunting licenses. Although they hunt the Central Asian cousin of the Great Indian Bustard, both are endangered because the meat of the latter is considered an aphrodisiac.

In stark contrast, India’s relationship with the Arab world is not only a two-way street – the UAE and Saudi Arabia store their strategic oil reserves in India – it has also successfully forged a partnership with the UAE’s Houbara Fund, The fund is a bustard breeding program that actually seeks out the birds in neighboring countries while protecting them.