Arvind Kumar Chaurasia is the Additional Commissioner at the Indian Revenue Service (Customs & Indirect Taxes) at the Wildlife Crime Control Bureau in New Delhi, India. His areas of expertise range from law enforcement with a focus on tackling transnational smuggling, including wildlife trafficking, combating money laundering associated with wildlife crime, CITES, Digital Forensics to training law enforcement officials of Sri Lanka on combating wildlife cyber crimes.

Being a member of WildHub helped me tremendously in developing a wider perspective about various aspects associated with Wildlife Conservation and Protection through reading contributions of other members on WildHub" (Arvind Kumar Chaurasia, Additional Commissioner, IRS (C&IT), Wildlife Crime Control Bureau, India)

Arvind joined WildHub in November 2020 and within one month he started sharing his expert insights with our community. Since then he has become our 'go-to-expert' when it comes to answering member questions on these topics, such as @ADITI SHARMA's recent question on Guidelines for handling the seized wildlife (live) or wildlife product. 

One of the highlights of Arvind's insight pieces published last June was titled "Let's Stop Quoting Monetary Value of Seized Wildlife" and received 15 member comments, was shared six times and viewed 534 times by both members and visitors to our community. Last July Arvind published his sixth expert insight piece on our platform and reached the status of WildHub Conservation Creator (curious to know how you can reach this status too? Check out the post "how to join our WildHub Core Community"). Please join me in congratulating Arvind by adding your comment below this post! 

Arvind continues to share his expertise on a wide range of topics that are linked to law enforcement, please find the overview of his 2023 contributions below (more can be found under the "content tab" on his profile):

• eCITES : Moving Towards Paperless Enforcement of CITES
• Role of Financial Institutions in Combating Wildlife Trafficking
• Wildlife (Protection) Amendment Act, 2022 : Combating Exotic Wildlife Smuggling
• Is Artificial Intelligence a Friend or Foe for Wildlife Law Enforcement?
• Catastrophic Consequences of Wildlife Trafficking
• Controlled Delivery: Enhancing Law Enforcement Response to Wildlife Smuggling
• Confessional Statement : A Boon or Bane For Wildlife Law Enforcement

To celebrate these important topics within wildlife conservation, alongside Arvind's regular contributions over the past 3 years, we now have set up a dedicated space, a discussion room named Wildlife Trade and Crime, which is meant for sharing lessons learned/resources, and questions and answers, that can help us combat wildlife crime.

I also connected with Arvind to ask him about this journey as a WildHub member. Read below which advice he shared for other members who would like to become a WildHub Core Community Member.     

Thirza: “What helped you to contribute content on a regular basis and therefore helped you become a WildHub Core Community Member?”

Arvind: "What helped me contribute content on a regular basis is my field experience in Customs, Directorate of Revenue Intelligence and Wildlife Crime Control Bureau about wildlife crimes & associated crimes and my belief that sharing my experience with others may also help them in combating wildlife crimes."

Thirza: “Which barriers have you experienced to contributing content to WildHub on a regular basis?”

Arvind: "I have not experienced any barriers in contributing content to WildHub."

Thirza: “What advice would you give to other members who would like to become a WildHub Core Community Member?”

My advice to other members, who would like to become a WildHub Core Community Members, would be that WildHub is the best platform for individuals working in the field of wildlife conservation & protection to connect with each other, share their experiences/work with each other to get benefits from that." (Arvind Kumar Chaurasia, Additional Commissioner, IRS (C&IT), Wildlife Crime Control Bureau, India)

Have you benefited from Arvind’s lessons learned and resources? Follow him on WildHub (profile here) and add how his contributions have made a difference to you and/or your work in the comment section below.