Expert suggest Maharashtra Wildlife Crime Control Division in line of Kerala’s HAWK, FIC

Mumbai: In a bid to combat wildlife crime, veteran conservationist and naturalist  Rohan Bhate Shah has suggested formation of dedicated Maharashtra Wildlife Crime Control Division taking cue from Kerala’s Hostile Activity Watch Kernel (HAWK) and Forest Intelligence Cell (FIC).

Rohan, an former Honorary Wildlife Warden, who is based in Karad in Satara district, has written a formal letter to the Nagpur-headquartered Chief Wildlife Warden cum Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (Wildlife).

Rohan, who is a Member of the Governing Council of the Bombay Natural History Society and ex-volunteer of Wildlife Crime Control Bureau, Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, New Delhi, said: Wildlife crime today has evolved into a sophisticated and organized activity involving illegal hunting, trade in wildlife derivatives, and trafficking networks that often operate across state and international boundaries. Addressing such threats requires specialized intelligence gathering, coordinated enforcement mechanisms, and modern digital systems to track offenders and wildlife offences.”

In this regard, the Kerala Forest Department has developed and implemented the HAWK system, a centralized digital platform that has been operational since August 2020. The HAWK system serves as a secure and comprehensive portal for documenting wildlife crimes, maintaining offender databases, tracking wildlife deaths, and monitoring ongoing investigations. Developed in collaboration with the Wildlife Trust of India, the platform has significantly improved transparency, intelligence sharing, and accountability by reducing reliance on manual record-keeping and preventing data manipulation.

Alongside this technological intervention, Kerala has also established a

FIC dedicated to investigating and preventing serious wildlife crimes such as ivory poaching, organized wildlife trafficking, and sandalwood smuggling. The cell plays a crucial role in gathering intelligence,coordinating enforcement operations, and identifying organized criminal networks involved in wildlife crime.

According to Rohan, the Kerala Forest Department further strengthens its enforcement framework through close coordination with the Wildlife Crime Control Bureau (WCCB) and other conservation organizations, enabling regular capacity-building programmes, training of officers in the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972, and improved inter-agency collaboration. The success of the HAWK system has been widely acknowledged and has since been adopted by other states such as Karnataka as a pioneering digital tool for strengthening wildlife law enforcement.

“Considering the scale and biodiversity importance of Maharashtra, it

would be both timely and necessary for the state to establish a Maharashtra Wildlife Crime Control Division, supported by a dedicated digital intelligence and monitoring platform similar to the HAWK system. Such a division could focus on intelligence collection, crime analysis, offender database management, coordination with national enforcement agencies, and monitoring of wildlife crime trends across the state,” he said. 

“Further, incorporating the registration, investigation, and successful prosecution of wildlife offences as a Key Responsibility Area (KRA) for wildlife officers may significantly improve enforcement accountability and encourage proactive action against wildlife crime,” he added.

Giving an example of his home state, he said: "I have attempted to assist the Maharashtra Forest Department over the past several years by developing an informal informer network and sharing credible intelligence inputs. Through these efforts, it has been possible to contribute to enforcement actions that have resulted in the arrest of approximately 175 offenders involved in wildlife crimes, along with seizures involving scheduled live wildlife species, ivory, tiger skins, leopard skins, antlers, corals, and other wildlife derivatives.”