New Delhi: Conservationists and retired forest officials have written to the Assam government urging them to withdraw their order to deploy 1,600 forest staff for the upcoming elections in the state. Assam goes to poll on April 9. Signatories to the letter – addressed to Assam’s Chief Secretary, Chief Election Officer and Special Chief Secretary of the state’s Environment, Forest and Climate Change Department – include Prakriti Srivastava, Uma Shankar Singh, A.K. Jha (former Principal Chief Conservator of Forests in Kerala, Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra respectively), Meena Gupta (former secretary to the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change), Prerna Singh Bindra, a former member of the standing committee of National Board of Wildlife, and wildlife conservationist Debadityo Sinha, who also studies environmental policy and law.Legal violationAssam’s Special Chief Secretary of the Environment, Forest and Climate Change Department had issued an order on March 19 to the Assam Forest Protection Force (AFPF) to mobilise 1,600 AFPF personnel to assist the Assam Police for the upcoming elections, while also continuing their existing duties of overseeing protection and anti-poaching activities in rhino-range areas.However, this order is in “direct contravention of established legal and administrative norms”, the letter written by conservationists and retired Indian Forest Service officers pointed out. “As per the explicit guidelines of the Election Commission of India (ECI), territorial forest forces and serving forest officials—including senior Indian Forest Service (IFS) officers – are not to be requisitioned for election-related duties (Annexure B). These instructions are designed to ensure that critical ecological protection and forest governance functions are not compromised at any time,” the conservationists and retired forest officials wrote in their letter to the Assam government.Part 10 of this June 2023 order issued by the ECI and accessed by The Wire states clearly that both senior officials of the Indian Forest Service and all territorial forest staff in the state forest departments are to be exempted from election duty. The conservationists also pointed out that the Supreme Court, in an order dated May 2024, had exempted forest officials and departmental vehicles from election deployment in the state of Uttarakhand. In March 2024, the National Green Tribunal too had noted that forest staff in states and Union Territories not be included in election duties for the Lok Sabha elections that year.Need for constant forest vigilance“The deployment of AFPF personnel is particularly alarming in the context of Assam’s globally significant wildlife, especially the protection of the endangered Indian Rhinoceros. Assam is home to the largest population of these iconic animals, primarily in protected areas such as Kaziranga National Park, where constant vigilance by trained forest protection forces is critical to prevent poaching and habitat encroachment,” the letter noted. Assam’s Kaziranga National Park is home to the largest population (2,613 rhinos as of 2022) of the Greater One-Horned Rhinoceros (Rhinceros unicornis). Though the species is found across parts of Nepal and India, Assam alone accounts for approximately 68% of the world’s population, as per the Indian government. Listed under Schedule I of the Wild Life (Protection) Act 1972, the species is also listed as “Vulnerable” to threats as per the IUCN Red List. The letter also pointed out that other endangered species that are found in parts of Assam such as the hoolock gibbon (the only species of ape found in India), the pygmy hog (which has witnessed an increase in population after conservation efforts over decades) and other Schedule I species under the Wild Life (Protection) Act 1972 such as elephants and tigers “will be left unprotected, and at the mercy of poachers, if the forest field staff is deployed for election duties”. “Diverting such a large number of AFPF personnel for election duty will inevitably weaken on-ground protection mechanisms, and increase vulnerability to organised wildlife crime,” they wrote. They noted that deploying forest force during election time “undermines forest and wildlife protection at a time of increasing ecological vulnerability but also exposes the state government to potential judicial scrutiny for non-compliance with binding directions” and that this “sets a troubling precedent that disregards both statutory safeguards and institutional integrity”.