(IN): Shadows around a lamp

[Guest guest]

* " In July 2001, two Russian butterfly hunters were arrested in a National

park in Sikkim, India. I was involved in this case as the only independent

expert, while the international insect mafia (represented by some

professional entomologists from Germany and Russia) and Russian consulate

tried to get the poachers out of jail. Thanks to local environmentalists,

these two " scientists** " had to spend few weeks under arrest, although they

eventually got away with the crime after paying a symbolic fine. The English

translation of an article I wrote for Arguments and Facts, Russia's most

popular weekly newspaper, is here " :

 

Vladimit Dinets*

*

Shadows around a lamp

 

by: Vladimir Dinets

 

*

 

Sikkim is a small Indian province located in the central part of the

Himalayas between Nepal, Bhutan, and Tibet. Once densely forested, it is now

a country of picturesque mountain villages and fields; and the remaining

forests are mostly protected as Nature reserves. The best known of these

reserves is a National park around Khanchenjanga Peak. It is one of the most

interesting Nature reserves in Asia, so it is shown on all maps of the area,

and attracts thousands of tourists from all over the world.

 

Last July, Sikkim suddenly became the focus of Russian media's attention.

Two Muscovites, Victor Sinyaev and Oleg Amosov, were arrested in the

National Park for illegal collecting of insects. Park rangers confiscated an

ultraviolet light trap, and many thousands of dried insects, mostly moths.

The arrested claimed to be Russia's leading entomologists, but also to be

completely unaware of the Park's existence. They had recently bought the

Park tickets (on which the law prohibiting any collecting in the Park was

mentioned), but they said they didn't speak English, so they couldn't read

the warning.

 

Their numerous friends organized an impressive support campaign. Such a flow

of letters, newspaper articles, and official statements hadn't been seen in

Russia since some Russian pilots had been arrested for airlifting arms and

ammunition for Kashmir separatists. Some of the country's most prominent

scientists signed the petitions, while Russian consulate in Calcutta sent a

special envoy to monitor the trial. Under the unprecedented diplomatic

pressure both " entomologists " were soon released after paying a symbolic

fine (equal to a price of one rare *Saturnidae* moth on the Internet). They

refused to return to Russia, but went to Nepal to collect more insects in

Nature reserves around Katmandu.

 

Apparently, most of the people who signed the petitions demanding the

release of Sinyaev and Amosov had been assured that two poor honest Russian

scientists were innocent victims of some cruel legal system. Few people knew

what was really going on.

 

Since Perestroika, Russia became one of the main hubs of international trade

of rare and endangered animals. This illegal business is as important for

Russian shadow economy as drugs and weapons trafficking. Native products,

such as bear bale, caviar, and saiga horns, are sold alongside exotic pets.

So-called butterfly hunters are one of the most numerous kinds of criminals

running this business. Every summer, dozens of " entomologists " , armed with

light traps, butterfly nets, and chemical baits go on collecting trips to

the places where most rare and beautiful butterflies, moths, and beetles

occur: the Far East, Central Asia, and the tropics. With the help of hired

porters and catchers, they collect hundreds of thousands of insects, while

millions more die in traps. All these " scientific collections " are then sold

on insect fairs in Europe, to end up in private collections, mostly in

Germany and Japan, but also in other Western countries. Many professional

entomologists, in Russia and in the West, do not mind combining science with

illegal business. Some German scientists have built their careers on

describing new species from such collections, while one employee of

Prioksko-Terrasny Nature Reserve near Moscow maintains the largest insect

trade site on the Internet. There are some honest amateur collectors, who

work with environmental organizations, and never catch anything without a

permit, but in Russia they can be counted with fingers on one hand.

 

Among these professional poachers, Sinyaev and Amosov are particularly

prominent figures. During the trial letters arrived in their support from

Berlin museum. From these letters it became clear that the two had been

involved in insect trade for about twenty years, and sold hundreds of

thousands of specimens to the West. Many of them were collected in places

like the Philippines, where all remaining forests are Nature reserves, and

any collecting is strictly prohibited. But not Sinyaev nor Amosov has ever

applied for any permit, which is a standard practice among real scientists.

No Russian scientific body ever recognized them as employees.

 

So what, will you say. May be Russian ambassador to India was right when he

wrote to the court: " Should such an insignificant matter as a handful of

bugs be allowed to spoil the relations between our two countries? " May be

Oleg Gorbunov, an employee (I can't call him a scientist) of Severtsov

Institute in Moscow and Sinyaev's best friend, was right, too: " There are no

rare insects. All butterflies and moths are agricultural pests. They hide in

Nature reserves during the days, and attack surrounding fields during the

night " .

 

The truth is, the result of this activity of " amateur entomologists " are

disastrous. During the last decades dozens of species and hundreds of

populations of rare insects went extinct because of overcollecting. One of

the best known examples is *Parnassius apollo*, the most beautiful butterfly

of European Russia. Its only population in Moscow area once existed in the

abovementioned Prioksko-Terrasny Nature Reserve, and was hunted to

extinction by collectors. The situation is particularly grave in the

Himalayan foothills, where many thousands of insect species survive in tiny

forest reserves surrounded by agricultural lands. A group of collectors,

armed with a powerful light trap or specially synthesized chemical bait, can

drive many of these species to extinction in just one field season. Pokhara

Nature Reserve in Nepal, known for a large number of endemic species, became

a favorite target for Russian and Western collectors about ten years ago.

Since than, most large moths there became extinct, and were followed by some

birds, bats, small terrestrial mammals (which used to depend on moth larvae

for food), and by many species of insects-pollinated plants. Now it is a

dying forest, an irreversibly destroyed ecosystem. And it was the only

remaining forest island on a 300-km long stretch of Himalayan foothills.

 

The border between a professional scientist and an amateur collector have

always been dim in entomology. Sometimes an amateur who studies some

little-known group in his spare time is the best and the only expert on it.

But this only means that the responsibility of such amateurs is especially

high. These insects have nobody to protect them, except for a handful of

people who devote their life to these insects' study. A scientist, either

professional or amateur, who violates environmental laws and makes living by

driving species to extinction, is not much different from a doctor who

secretly removes his patient's kidney to sell it on a black market as a

transplant, or from a police officer who sells information to gangsters.

 

Saving our environment is not what many people in Russia think it is:

planting trees on National holidays and making nestboxes. It is a long,

exhausting, desperate, and sometimes bloody war against human greed and

stupidity. As any war, it has its own victims and heroes. And also its

traitors.

 

 

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