ISLAMABAD, April 25 : The Convention on International Trade of Indigenous Species (CITES) has increased the hunting quota of Markhor for Pakistan.

Official sources told Dawn on Friday that as a result of the successful implementation of the trophy hunting programme in the country, a recently held CITES meeting increased the hunting quota from six to 12 animals per year.

Pakistan Markhor Conservation Programme’s implementation was quite encouraging, the sources said, adding that more communities were coming forward for grant of hunting permit which could indirectly boost the protection programme.

The rationale behind grant of hunting permit was that these communities would have to be encouraged to save the rare animal in lieu of giving them permits for hunting over-sized and old animals.

The sources said these permits were issued to foreign hunters, who paid about $30,000 per animal. They added that 80 per cent of this amount went to the communities, who had taken the responsibility to protect these animals, while the remaining amount went to the government exchequer.

The sources quoted the environment minister, Maj Tahir Iqbal (retired), as having said allocation of this enhanced quota to the provinces would be granted following a transparent census of Markhor.

The minister further said permit could only be given to those communities, which would successfully implement the protection programme of the rare animal in their respective areas, the sources said.

The minister urged the provinces to come up with proposals to make the protection programme more effective and result oriented.

The minister was informed during a meeting of the National Council of Conservation of Wild Life held on Thursday that no foreigners were interested in hunting Urial because of high hunting fee of $15,000. He was told that the fee was too high in comparison to $5,000 fee offered by the Central Asian Republics (CARs) for the hunting of the same animal in their respective areas.

The sources said to attract more foreign hunters, the government had decided to reduce the hunting fee to $12,000 per trophy for one year. The meeting of National Council for the Conservation of Wild Life was also attended by representatives of all provinces.