UAE to protect the Bustard in India while its royals hunt it in Pakistan

Sandeep Dikshit

New Delhi, September 2

As India intensifies its ties with the Arab world, it is taking a radically different approach as compared with Pakistan. This was reflected in one of the two MoUs signed during External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar’s visit to the UAE.

On the sidelines of his meeting with his UAE counterpart Sheikh Abdulla bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Wildlife Institute of India signed a MoU with the International Fund for Houbara Conservation for the conservation of the Great Indian Bustard and the Lesser Florican.

In contrast, Pakistan issues permits to the Arab sheikhs, including Sheikh Abdulla’s elder brother and President of UAE Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan to hunt the highly endangered Houbara Bustard, a close cousin of the Indian bustard.

So crucial is the blood sport to Pakistan’s soft diplomacy with the Arab world that the Pakistan Supreme Court once withdrew a ban on its hunting after the Government argued that this induced Arab to invest in the country and a ban would affect the country’s relations with the Gulf nations.

These birds migrate from Central Asia every season and spend the winter in the Indian subcontinent. Although the poaching of the Indian bustard is also a problem in India, Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot had initiated a conservation program in 2013 that was later improved upon by the Centre and wildlife preservation NGOs.

In fact, so perturbed was the World Wide Fund (WWF) over the indiscriminate hunting of the houbara bustard that it named Pakistan while calling for an immediate ban due to its vulnerable IUCN Red List status.

Its hunting is also banned in Pakistan, but special hunting permits are given to Arab royals as part of Pakistan’s foreign policy. Though they hunt the Central Asian cousin of the Great Indian Bustard, both are endangered as the latter’s meat is considered an aphrodisiac.

In stark contrast, not only are India’s ties with the Arab world a two-way street – UAE and Saudi Arabia are storing their strategic petroleum reserves in India – it has managed to strike a partnership where the UAE’s Houbara Fund, a breeding program for bustards, is in fact protecting the birds while hunting for them in the neighbouring country.