Bengaluru: Vantara, the Reliance-owned zoo-cum-rescue and rehabilitation centre in Jamnagar, Gujarat, announced on August 20 that it will not import any live animals for at least a year. This, along with several other “voluntary commitments” listed in its letter dated August 19 to the Union environment ministry (the Management Authority for the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora or CITES in India), has been taken to ‘strengthen its governance, transparency and due diligence in wildlife conservation’, it said.Among the other “voluntary commitments” that Vantara has proposed is that it will not import great apes, big cats or any species listed in Appendix I of CITES, and that it will not import any animal sourced from the wild. Instead, it will choose to assist such animals in India, and their native ranges and countries.Vantara’s activities so far have involved “rescuing” animals by importing them from different sources across the world, including from private collections such as the Kangaroo Animals Shelter in Dubai, United Arab Emirates – an entity that is alleged to have sourced animals from the wild and is under investigation by UAE authorities. Investigative news reports such as this one in March last year had alleged that Vantara’s demand for ‘rescued’ wildlife had fuelled illegal wildlife trade worldwide. However, Vantara told The Wire that these allegations were “baseless” and “misleading”. In September, the Supreme Court dismissed all allegations about Vantara, absolving it of any wrongdoing. No live animal imports for a yearIn its letter to the Indian CITES management Authority on August 19, Vantara announced that it will implement “voluntary commitments” going forward. One is to stop importing live animals from other countries for at least 12 months, effective from June 5, during which time Vantara will implement a new internal three-step-system that every proposal to acquire an animal will need to go through. The proposal will need to be passed by Vantara’s new CITES Due Diligence Committee, Advisory Board and a Governing Council. Vantara has said it will await the government’s proposed Standing Operating Procedure for animal imports before making any new application after a year has passed. It will also not import any great ape, big cat or any species listed in Appendix I of CITES, even if it is from a captive breeding facility – as it has been doing so far. It will not import any animal taken from the wild, and none with a re-export certificate. It will only import animals that originate from a zoo registered with or recognised by the Government of the exporting State, or from a facility registered with the CITES Secretariat, among others.The import of great apes to Vantara, including a lone mountain gorilla from Haiti, chimpanzees from the Democratic Republic of Congo and a Tapanuli orangutan from the UAE were among the many transfers that the CITES Secretariat had raised concerns about in its report on October 31 last year on the grounds that they may have not been bred in captivity but taken from the wild. The report also put the onus on the Indian CMA, saying that India did not conduct ‘due diligence’ while issuing import permits for these and other transfers to Vantara.Vantara has also insisted in the letter that it never bought any animal; this is one of the many allegations that investigations by media houses, among others, have made. In many cases, animals it received from other countries were bought by donors and then “gifted or donated” to Vantara, and every such receipt had “valid documentation”, Vantara’s letter claims. India’s Supreme Court, it said, had upheld the “lawfulness” of such donations.Vantara has pledged to not submit fresh applications for animal imports, and that it has also withdrawn all pending import applications. Instead, it will consider “in-situ alternatives”:“Where Vantara is now approached about an animal abroad, its answer is in-country assistance and not consideration of import,” the letter stated. Focus on conservation in IndiaInstead of importing animals, Vantara’s “first priority now is the rescue, treatment, rehabilitation, rewilding and conservation of wildlife within India”, the letter said. This, it said, would include working with State Forest Departments to manage human-wildlife conflict, support capacity-building at transit treatment centres and rescue centres, undertake conservation breeding of species that can be rewilded in India and more.In a press statement on August 20, Vantara said that the set of “voluntary commitments” it submitted to the CITES Management Authority of India was to ‘strengthen its governance, transparency and due diligence in wildlife conservation’. ‘Not a substitute for regulation’A ‘voluntary commitment’ signals some reflection, but Vantara is proposing to review themselves against standards they have written, with implementation checked by a committee they have appointed, commented Kritika Balaji, a researcher who studies wildlife trade. “This should not be considered a substitute for regulatory oversight, independent audit, or actual consequence,” Balaji told The Wire. This is the time to ask if there is a need for private zoos in India, and what their role and scale should be, Balaji said. While traditional zoos are justified in part through public education and providing people with exposure to wildlife they may not otherwise have access to, what purpose and precedents do private collections and facilities set for wildlife conservation in India, she asked. We also need to think about the role of private funding and its influence, she added. “Conservation policy is ideally, albeit often imperfectly, shaped by ecologists, public officials, field experts, and critically the communities who live alongside wildlife.”“When resources and capital surpass knowledge and lived experience, it risks conservation decisions being made by those who can build the largest facility over those who understand and inhabit the land. It risks the best-funded voice becoming the default, regardless of whether or not it is the most ecologically-sound and socially-just,” she said.