Orangutans in Odisha: The laws governing animal trade and repatriation

Why in the News

The Odisha Forest department has rescued five baby orangutans, a critically endangered animal, from a forest in Balasore district. Orangutans are native to the rainforests of Indonesia and Malaysia, and the animals found in Odisha are suspected to be from Sumatra. All three orangutan species are listed under Appendix I of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), which restricts their movement to non commercial purposes. The tension is that a suspected commercial trafficking case creates an obligation to secure the animals’ welfare but no obligation to return them. The case also marks a shift that wildlife crime control experts have repeatedly flagged, that India is no longer only a transit route but is itself fuelling demand for exotic pets.

What is CITES?

1. Regulation rather than prohibition: International trade in wildlife, their body parts and trophies is not prohibited, and the treaty instead regulates it strictly. Its aim is that cross border trade in wildlife and plants is legal, sustainable and traceable without harming survival in the wild.
2. How it operates: It is essentially a licensing system that places checks and controls on the import, export and re export of live animals and plants, wildlife body parts and trophies.
3. The three appendices: Controls run through an exhaustive CITES species list divided into three appendices, and the appendix a species sits in determines the level of protection it is accorded.
4. Coverage: The treaty protects around 6,700 animal species, comprising 339 mammals, 159 birds, 113 reptiles, 24 amphibians, 26 fish and 69 invertebrates.

What does Appendix I listing mean for the orangutans?

1. The Appendix I threshold: Appendix I lists species that face the threat of extinction.
2. What trade remains permitted: Such species can be traded only with valid permits, provided the specimens are captive bred and the purpose is conservation.
3. Contested allowances: Trade permitted for some charismatic species includes elephant ivory, rhino horn, elephant and lion trophy hunting, and crocodile skin.
4. The three orangutan species: The Bornean, Sumatran and Tapanuli orangutans are all Appendix I listed, so their movement is confined to research, transfers between recognised zoos and breeding projects.
5. The alleged breach: The Odisha animals appear to have been traded for commercial purposes, which would place the consignment in violation of the treaty.

How does Indian law connect to the treaty?

1. Treaty membership: CITES came into force in 1975 and India became a party to it in 1976.
2. The harmonising amendment: The Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972 was amended in 2022 to harmonise it with the treaty. The amendment added a Schedule covering CITES listed species.
3. What the amended Act requires: It calls for consultation with the country of export for the animal’s return. Where return is not possible it provides for the animal’s welfare at a recognised zoo or rescue centre.

Does India have to send the orangutans back?

1. No obligation to return: The treaty does not make it obligatory to return confiscated animals to the wild.
2. Survival comes first: The first task facing enforcement agencies is the survival of the trafficked animals.
3. Who decides: The management authority implementing the treaty’s provisions, here the Environment Ministry, is recommended to consult the scientific authorities and, where possible, the state of export or origin before taking a call on repatriation.
4. Who pays: Where repatriation is feasible it has to be carried out at the expense of the state of origin. Where it is not feasible the animal goes to a rescue centre or such other place as the management authority deems appropriate.
5. Indonesia’s approach: Indonesia’s Ministry of Forestry has reached out to Indian authorities and is preparing technical requirements for repatriation if investigations confirm the animals came from there.
6. Informed receipt: The confiscating authority must ensure that recipient states are aware of the impacts of a repatriation before it happens.

Why is repatriation difficult in practice?

1. Establishing origin: A repatriation requires the country of origin to be established, the protocols to be followed and the legal tangles to be resolved first.
2. Animal health through the process: Maintaining the health of confiscated animals across that period is the hardest part of it.
3. Consignments change hands: Wildlife consignments pass through multiple holders and geographies, which makes a return to the wild rarely feasible.
4. Captive bred specimens: Many species in this trade are captive bred and carry no known geographic origin at all.
5. Origin is not the same as habitat: The place of origin is frequently not the range or the habitat where the species is found in the wild.
6. Airport seizures work differently: Most seizures at airports are returned immediately to the place of origin, under the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) guidelines of July 2025.

What does India’s exotic pet trade now look like?

1. From transit route to demand market: The appeal of unique and unusual pets is driving rising trade in exotic wildlife within India rather than only through it.
2. Two routes: Seizures indicate overland movement through the North East’s borders with Bangladesh and Myanmar, and movement by air through the international airports at Chennai, Bengaluru and Mumbai.
3. Trade beyond the treaty list: Indians are acquiring many CITES listed species, and there is also a large trade in species that carry no CITES listing at all.
4. What the amnesty revealed: A voluntary disclosure scheme in 2021 drew 43,693 applications for amnesty from 30 States and Union Territories, on data obtained under the Right to Information Act, 2005. Lemurs, kangaroos and rhinoceros iguanas were among the species declared.
5. How a typical seizure looks: Consignments intercepted at airports, sea ports and land border posts usually carry multiple animals in bulk, with small mammals, reptiles and amphibians stuffed into gunny sacks, small cages or plastic boxes.
6. Why Odisha is atypical: A rescue of five animals from a forested area does not fit that pattern. Eg. Authorities in Mizoram’s Champhai district near the Myanmar border seized 468 animals from six or seven different species in May 2022.

Challenges to enforcing CITES in India

1. Exotic species sat outside Indian law until 2022: Foreign species held in India had no schedule under domestic wildlife law, so possession itself could not be penalised. Eg. The 2021 scheme offered voluntary amnesty to holders rather than prosecution.
   The Fix: Require registration and microchipping of every CITES listed exotic animal in private possession, with periodic physical verification.
2. Porous land borders: The North East’s forested international borders are hard to police against small consignments moved on foot. Eg. Cross border movement along the India Myanmar border has long been governed by a special regime for border residents.
   The Fix: Station Wildlife Crime Control Bureau officers alongside customs at the main land border posts rather than only at international airports.
3. Welfare during custody: Recognised rescue and holding facilities are scarce, so confiscated animals die before any decision on their future is taken. Eg. Trafficked reptiles and small mammals arrive dehydrated and injured after transport in sacks and boxes.
   The Fix: Designate and fund a national network of rescue centres with species specific quarantine capacity.
4. Demand generated online: Listings on social media normalise exotic pet ownership and create buyers faster than enforcement can identify sellers. Eg. Data drawn from social media and seizures shows Indian buyers acquiring many treaty listed species.
   The Fix: Place exotic wildlife listings under a takedown obligation for online intermediaries, with mandatory reporting to the Wildlife Crime Control Bureau.
5. The treaty list does not cover the whole trade: CITES controls reach only species in its appendices, so a large part of the exotic pet trade is lawful to import. Eg. Many small reptiles and amphibians sold as pets carry no listing under the treaty.
   The Fix: Extend the domestic Schedule to species assessed as threatened by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) even where CITES does not list them.

Conclusion

The case sits at the point where a rescue turns into a legal question with no default answer. The treaty and the amended Act both supply a procedure and neither supplies an outcome, so the decision rests on what can be established about origin and on what the animals can survive. The unresolved part is the demand side, because enforcement acts on consignments while the market pulling them in keeps growing. The immediate marker is whether the consultation between the Environment Ministry and Indonesia’s Ministry of Forestry ends in a repatriation or in placement at a domestic rescue centre.

Back2Basics: Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972

1. Purpose: It provides for the protection of wild animals, birds and plants, and for the regulation of hunting and of trade in wildlife and its derivatives.
2. Protected areas: It is the statutory basis for national parks, wildlife sanctuaries, conservation reserves and community reserves.
3. Institutions: It provides for the National Board for Wild Life and the State Boards for Wild Life, and it is the Act under which the Wildlife Crime Control Bureau functions.
4. Schedules after 2022: The 2022 amendment reduced the schedules of protected species to four, the fourth of which covers specimens listed in the appendices of CITES.

Matching Previous Year Question

“[2015] With reference to the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) and the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), which of the following statements is/are correct? (1) IUCN is an organ of the United Nations and CITES is an international agreement between governments. (2) IUCN runs thousands of field projects around the world to better manage natural environments. (3) CITES is legally binding on the States that have joined it, but this Convention does not take the place of national laws. Select the correct answer using the code given below. (a) 1 only (b) 2 and 3 only (c) 1 and 3 only (d) 1, 2 and 3 Answer: (b)”