The Government of Pakistan has undertaken a variety of measures to implement CITES, to which it became a party in 1976. It imposed a moratorium on commercial trade of mammals, reptiles, and protected birds, and it has turned down numerous requests for the export of fresh water turtles to specific States. Like exports, import of CITES-listed species is also strictly regulated. Along with strict punitive interventions, the Government of Pakistan has also introduced incentive-based programmes to allow local communities to benefit from the sustainable management of biodiversity.
Pakistan pioneered development of the concept of the Community Based Trophy Hunting Programme (CBTHP). At the 10th meeting of the CITES Conference of Parties (COP) in 1997, Pakistan requested a Markhor-quota (Capra falconeri falconeri) for CBTHP in Northern Pakistan, including the Northern Areas and North West Frontier Province. This request of Pakistan was honoured, and a quota of six trophies was allocated for Pakistan.
The CBTHP seeks to use the revenues received from the trophy hunting fees to generate income and other sustainable development activities in the areas. 80 percent of the revenue goes to the community and 20% goes to the respective government agencies as an administrative fee. After allocation of a quota, for a non CITES listed species, trophy hunting was first allowed in the Bar Valley of Northern Pakistan, where an abundant population of Ibex (Capra ibex sibirica) was selected for implementation of the programme. The Mountain Areas Conservation Project (MACP) — a joint project between the Government of Pakistan, the Global Environment Facility (GEF), UNDP Pakistan, and IUCN — has taken a lead role in administering the CTHP. The community based organisational structures established in the project conservancies in Northern Pakistan are being used for the CBTHP.
The response of local communities has been encouraging, and the confidence building measures of the CBTHP have promoted sustainable management of biodiversity. As a result of the CBTHP interventions, the population of the trophy species has greatly increased as the community is not only protecting the wildlife from illegal hunting but is also assisting the MACP in promoting other measures enhancing their sustainability. As a result of unprecedented success in the past five years, the trophies quota has now been increased to 12 by the CITES COP (at COP12 in 2002). Because of its success, this approach is being extended to other parts of Pakistan. Details of the trophies so far hunted and revenue generation through CBTHP is given in the following table.
For more information, contact Dr. Muhammad Khurshid at khurshidswati@yahoo.com.