ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court has asked the federal and provincial governments to come up with responses to issues raised in a petition moved to seek cancellation of licences and permits granted to foreign VIPs and dignitaries for hunting endangered birds like houbara bustard.

A three-judge bench of the court headed by Justice Jawwad S. Khawaja has issued notices to Attorney General Salman Aslam Butt and law officers of the four provincial governments for the last week of this month to proceed on a petition filed by Advocate Raja Muhammad Farooq on behalf of Aamir Zahoor-ul-Haq.

Among the respondents named in the petition are the foreign and environment ministries, chief secretaries of Punjab, Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan, and secretaries of the forestry and wildlife departments.

The petitioner has requested the court to restrain the foreign affairs ministry and the wildlife department from issuing permits and licences for hunting of the endangered birds.

The petitioner has also asked the court to order setting up of an independent commission to look into the alleged abrogation of their “statutory duty” by the respondents and violation of the provisions of permits and licences by the VIP hunters.

The petition recalled that Pakistan had imposed a permanent ban on the hunting of houbara bustards under the Third Schedule of the Pakistan Wildlife Ordinance 1971, after declaring the species a protected bird. But despite the ban, licences or permits were being issued to VIP dignitaries of the Gulf States for hunting the species.

The petition cited media reports and said as many as 33 special permits had been granted to the foreign dignitaries for hunting of the species during the year 2013-14, spe­ci­fically allocating areas in the country’s four provinces for the purpose.

Whereas the permits allow hunting down of up to 100 birds, this limit is often crossed by the hunters.

The petition said the issuance of licences/permits for hunting of the species should be declared illegal and unlawful without lawful authority and jurisdiction.

The petition said that special permits were being issued also in violation of laws like the Punjab Wildlife (Protection, Preservation, Conser­vation and Management) Act 1974.

Houbara bustard is listed in the Convention on Migratory Species of Wild Animals, also known as the Bonn Convention, and its irrationally brutal hunting in its winter habitats is highly objectionable, especially because it is an endangered species.

It has also been declared as “vulnerable” by the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species because it has undergone rapid population declines over three decades owing to unsustainable hunting as well as habitat degradation. Pakistan is signatory to the conventions.

According to the petition, a large number of houbara bustards are trapped, mainly in Pakistan and Iran, and shipped to Arab countries for use in training falcons to hunt.

Published in Dawn, July 5th, 2015

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