As a child, visiting a house in Rangpur, I saw a tiger skin laid out on the table in the sitting room. At another house in Khulna, I saw a photograph of a group of men in hunting clothes posing with their feet on a dead tiger. They were the family's ancestors. The family had once had aristocratic standing, but now they are ordinary salaried people. Deer heads were also mounted on the faded walls of that house.

In films too I have seen the bodies of animals and birds displayed as luxury items in rich people's homes. Even then I did not understand how killing animals, placing a foot on the carcass or mounting the dead animal's head in the house could make people elite. I still cannot see what this has to do with status. Rather, it shows cruelty, ruthlessness and inhumanity.

That old history has returned through the so-called rich of various societies. Some show off with bags, belts and jackets made from snake or crocodile skin; others are fashionable in coats made from the fur of very rare animals. Demand for valuable jewellery and small furniture made from rhino horn and ivory is worldwide, and stools are made from elephant hide.

Because the meat of animals such as the pangolin is very expensive, 1.95 lakh pangolins were trafficked in 2019 alone. Those who take pride in wearing or using animal body parts deserve pity, because they are accomplices of criminals: they are the customers for the products of those who kill these animals.

Because of this "demand of the elite class", my country, Bangladesh, is turning from a supplier of tiger parts into a consumer country. Among the country's moneyed class, demand is growing for so-called medicines and cosmetics made from tiger parts. This came out in a recent study, reported by The Business Standard, which notes that Bangladesh is home to the endangered Royal Bengal tiger.

Poachers are killing tigers from that forest to send abroad and for use at home. The illegal trade is now growing not only because of foreign demand but because of local demand as well. In other words, those of us who take pride in being the land of the Royal Bengal tiger are the very people killing the tigers and selling and using their body parts.

Nasir Uddin, the lead author of the research paper, told the conservation news outlet Mongabay from China: "In the past, Bangladesh was a major source of supply of live animals or dead tiger parts. But recently we have noticed, at an alarming rate, growing demand among the elite for products made from them. They include both Bangladeshi citizens and foreigners living here."

Bangladesh has seen strong economic growth over two decades. With that growth has come unequal distribution of wealth and the rise of a kind of "wealthy class". This class has only the pride of money and showy glitter; education, awareness and a sense of right and wrong count for very little. Although killing, stealing and trafficking wild animals and using products made from their bones and skins are banned, some base people are using them. The question is: how can those who use these things be an elite? Their education, standing, honour, rank and profession are all meaningless.

Unfortunately, as the number of rich people in Bangladesh has grown, so have illegal markets in various products centred on them. The study found that tiger skin, bones, teeth and dried meat are the products in highest demand. They are moved through Bangladesh's airports and seaports as well as land border crossings.

Elite Bangladeshis have been identified as the most important consumers. The study says these consumers have a major influence on the tiger parts trade, so that Bangladesh is becoming not only a source of illegal exports but also an importer. Tigers are being poached in India and Myanmar to meet this demand.

On the other hand, tiger parts are being trafficked from Bangladesh to 15 countries. Top of the list, along with countries such as Malaysia with large numbers of Bangladeshi expatriates, are China and India, followed by the United Kingdom, Germany, Australia and Japan. Because travel is easy, networks of local buyers and sellers are linking up with traders in international trafficking rings. This means Bangladesh is at the forefront of the tiger parts trade as both buyer and seller.

Is it only tigers? In this country, as the saying goes, "even a dead elephant is worth a lakh". Elephants are being killed the way people are killed by professional killers. Just as murdered people are buried, elephants, 100 times larger than people, are being killed and buried. What a terrible path of crime we are walking. Forest-grabbing gangs are using hired killers to kill elephants, and elephants are being killed the same way in Sherpur, Cox's Bazar and the Chittagong Hill Tracts.

The elephant is a very intelligent animal. It moves in herds, loves its young dearly, goes its own way and becomes enraged when blocked. People have reduced this regal animal to a beggar, and the rate at which elephants are killed is rising. People have taken away the elephants' shelter, cutting trees to clear forests and settling on the routes elephants use.

So where will these harmless animals go, which way will they move, and what will they eat? After trees are cut in the forest, smugglers and forest grabbers grow crops there. When the crops ripen, they fence the land with electric wire to protect them, and elephants blocked on their routes are electrocuted.

Many of us do not care at all about the killing of elephants or tigers. Some senior officials think: Saudi Arabia has no tigers, so has that country not developed? Will the Forest Department, the agency responsible for protecting tigers and elephants, and the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change give any answer? The Forest Department official responsible for wildlife and nature conservation once said the department alone cannot protect elephants, because watching how illegal occupiers inside the forest get electricity connections, grow crops and move about with weapons is not the Forest Department's job alone. Elephants cannot be saved without the cooperation of other government agencies.

The same applies to protecting tigers. A report by the Wildlife Justice Commission says there is also evidence of live tiger cubs being trafficked into Bangladesh. It says cubs fetch higher prices than adult tigers, from $7,648 up to $17,500 per cub.

Md Sanaullah Patwari, head of the Wildlife Crime Control Unit of Bangladesh's Forest Department, has said: "Wildlife trafficking is a very big challenge. Compared with neighbouring countries, Bangladesh's monitoring capacity to prevent trafficking is lower because of limited resources and manpower. This too has made Bangladesh an attractive transit point for international criminal gangs."

In our country some organisations and people are working to protect animals and birds, but on a very small scale. Cruelty to animals and birds is increasing day by day. Dogs, cats, elephants, birds, foxes, mongooses, jungle cats, dolphins and tigers are all being killed alike and traded. I see no concern or anxiety anywhere about this cruelty in Bangladesh, nor do I see offenders punished. Cruelty to animals is a kind of mental perversion or sickness. Only humans can kill people, animals and birds so terribly in order to "look elite"; no other creature can.

The Sundarbans, the world's largest mangrove forest, lies in the south of Bangladesh. It is the country's pride and one of the tiger's main habitats. Until 2017, pirates held sway in the Sundarbans and were involved in killing and trafficking many tigers. The Bangladesh government broke up these pirate gangs through operations in 2017. But while the pirates were eliminated, the killing of tigers did not stop. Several dozen tiger-poaching gangs have now filled the gap, and the Sundarbans' tigers remain at great risk.

This ignorant, greedy group may one day devour not just tigers, deer, elephants or foxes but the whole country, all to show off its status. On this subject I cannot get the story of Chihiro's parents out of my head. Little Chihiro is moving to a new town with her parents. On the way they get lost and enter a small wood. Driving through it, they suddenly see the gate of an ancient building. Chihiro is frightened by the surroundings and wants to go back. Her parents tell her to stay in the car, saying they will just look inside the building and come back.

But frightened of being alone, Chihiro follows them. Inside, her parents see a way out at the back of the building. Going through it, they find another town with no people in it. As soon as they enter, they smell delicious food. A little further on they see rows of food laid out on tables but nobody around. After calling out for a while, Chihiro's parents decide to eat and pay the bill when someone comes to the counter, and they start eating the delicious food.

Meanwhile the silence makes Chihiro even more frightened. Leaving her parents, she wanders around the strange, eerie place. Her parents keep gobbling the delicious food. When Chihiro comes back, she sees from behind that her parents have grown very fat from eating. Frightened, she calls them, and when they turn round she is astonished to see that her parents have turned into fat pigs. The witch of that land catches greedy people this way, fattens them up by feeding them, and one day roasts and eats them. This is part of the story of Spirited Away, an animated film by Japan's Studio Ghibli.

Many of us, like Chihiro's parents, are just eating: other people's land, money, wealth, homes, everything. Even parks, hills, rivers, the coast, land, people, animals and birds are not spared. The number of "devourers" in the country is growing so fast that they are swallowing up protected areas and wildlife.

There are no ordinary people among these devourers: they are a class of the rich, looters, dishonest businesspeople, politicians, bureaucrats and powerful people. It is they who use tiger parts as luxuries and gobble up the country's wealth. Various countries are taking cross-border measures to conserve wildlife and stop trafficking, and are also giving grants. Are we able to be part of these efforts, or do we simply not want to be?

The writer is a communications specialist and columnist.

Source: Jagonews24. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.