New Delhi, Feb 19 (IANS): The Wildlife Crime Control Bureau (WCCB) under the Union Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change has been awarded the Asia Environmental Enforcement Award 2020 under the award category -- 'Innovation'.

"WCCB getting this award twice in three years is a testimony of India's commitment towards ending wildlife crime," Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar said.

The WCCB was one of the eight awardees receiving this award. It has also been the proud recipient of this award in the year 2018, the Ministry said in a statement.

This Asia Environmental Enforcement Awards publicly recognises and celebrates excellence in enforcement by government officials and institutions or teams controlling trans boundary environmental crime.

These are awarded to the individuals or government organisations or teams that demonstrate excellence and outstanding leadership in enforcement of national laws and combat trans boundary environmental crime.

The thematic scope of the award covers any trans boundary environmental crime such as illegal trade in wildlife and illegal trade in chemical or waste including plastic.

This is the fifth time the awards are celebrated and this year's Awards were given to recipients who demonstrated excellence and leadership in one of more of the categories such as collaboration, impact, innovation; integrity and gender leadership.

The 2020 awards were given by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in partnership with the United Nations Development Programme, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, CITES, INTERPOL and WCO.

WCCB was awarded under the award category 'Innovation' for planning and conducting a multispecies enforcement operation, code named as "Operation WILDNET-II" from 1 to 30 November 2019.

The purpose was to draw the attention of enforcement agencies in the country to the ever growing increase of illegal wildlife trade on the Internet, through social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, and WeChat.