The awards, named after Clark R. Bavin, who was the Chief of the United States Fish and Wildlife Service's Division of Law Enforcement and had pioneered the highly effective use of covert investigations and 'sting' operations to uncover illegal wildlife trade. These awards have traditionally been presented by the Secretary-General of CITES during meetings of the Conference of the Parties. In 2010, WCCB won Clark R. Bavin Wildlife Law Enforcement Award for its outstanding work on wildlife law enforcement in the country. Following a seizure in January 2009 of tiger skins by authorities on the Indo-Nepal border a team from the Bureau captured eleven notorious poachers, traders and middlemen and seized a large collection of tiger, otter and leopard parts, effectively shutting down three different international poaching units. The Bureau had, for the first time in India, initiated a criminal proceeding for the creation of fraudulent CITES import documentation.

 

 

 

The IACP Chief David Cameron Leadership in Environmental Crimes Award recognizes excellence in environmental crimes enforcement and education by law enforcement officers and their agencies. WCCB was bestowed with this prestigious award on 24 October, 2011.

This commendation is awarded by CITES Secretariat to the enforcement agency effecting significant seizures of wildlife uncovering a particularly sophisticated method of concealment, or offered lessons that others might learn from exemplary Inter-Agency coordination and collaboration at the local, regional or international level and reflect long-term commitment on the part of wildlife law enforcement, of an outstanding nature that is especially worthy of recognition. Efforts of the WCCB during Operation “Save Kurma” were recognized by CITES Secretariat by awarding a Secretary-General’s Certificate of Commendation during the 69th meeting of the Standing Committee of CITES at Geneva Switzerland on 30-11-2017.

 

A Multinational and Multispecies enforcement operation was launched by INTERPOL in May, 2018 which was coordinated by WCCB in India. 52 wildlife cases were registered and 98 wildlife criminals were apprehended during the operation period. WCCB conducted capacity building/training programs for Forest/Police officials on collection of intelligence, investigation and prosecution of cases involving wildlife species and about the modus operandi in commission of such crime & routes involved in trafficking of wildlife contrabands. Apart from this, WCCB also conducted sensitization/awareness programs for officers from Judiciary, Border Guarding Forces, Railway Protection Force, Government Railway Police, Customs & Central Excise, CISF, Coast Guard, Students and members of Panchayati Raj Institutions. In the final report published by INTERPOL on “Operation Thunderstorm”, WCCB was particularly appreciated for its sensitization and capacity building programs conducted during the operation.

 

Excellent work done in combating trans-boundary environmental crime by WCCB has been recognized by United Nation Environment Programme by awarding Asia Environment Enforcement Awards, 2018. The Asia Environment Enforcement Awards publicly recognize and celebrate excellence in enforcement by government officials and institutions/teams combating trans-boundary environmental crime in Asia. WCCB has been conferred this award in the Innovation category. WCCB has adopted innovative enforcement techniques that have dramatically increased enforcement of trans-boundary environmental crimes in India. Notably it has developed an online Wildlife Crime Database Management System to get real time data in order to help analyze trends in crime and devise effective measures to prevent and detect wildlife crimes across India. In order to involve the public in the fight against wildlife crime, WCCB has also developed a scheme to enroll willing persons as WCCB Volunteers.

Excellent work done in combating trans-boundary environmental crime by WCCB has been recognized by United Nation Environment Programme by awarding Asia Environment Enforcement Awards, 2020. The Asia Environment Enforcement Awards publicly recognize and celebrate excellence in enforcement by government officials and institutions/teams combating trans-boundary environmental crime in Asia. WCCB has been conferred this award in the Innovation category.

CITES and SAWEN Secretariat appreciated WCCB efforts for smooth and successful conduct of operation WILDNET-III to check online illegal wildlife trade. CITES Secretariat specifically requested WCCB to upload report of above enforcement operation on CITES website as success story to share with member countries. Previously CITES has also uploaded report of operation WILDNET-II conducted by WCCB in September 2019