India's Forest Department Stores Hundreds of Ivory Tusks for Decades

The forest department preserves wildlife parts recovered from traffickers in its offices. In addition, wildlife that die in conflicts, animals found dead, and ivory that breaks off from trees, etc. are also kept in offices. The situation is that hundreds of ivory tusks are stored in various offices of the forest department. Some of these cases are reported to be nearly two and a half decades old. According to sources, about 215 ivory tusks are kept in various offices of the Rajaji Tiger Reserve. More than 140 ivory tusks are said to be in the Corbett Tiger Reserve (CTR). In the Laldhang Range of the Lansdowne Forest Division, 15 ivory tusks were kept, of which five were stolen. Similarly, elephants are likely to be kept in other forest divisions. Despite a committee set up by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change in the Wildlife Substance Disposal Rules-2023 to dispose of wildlife parts, the office of the Chief Conservator of Forests has not acted on the incident after three years.