WWF: Lifting Chinese tiger trade ban a catastrophe for conservation

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WWF PRESS RELEASE ( ARCHIVES )

 

Link: http://www.wwfindia.org/news_facts/pres/index.cfm?uNewsID=1820

 

Lifting Chinese tiger trade ban a catastrophe for conservation

 

13 Mar 2007

Gland, Switzerland – Any lifting or easing of the current Chinese ban

on tiger trade is likely to be the death sentence for the endangered

cat species, a new TRAFFIC report says.

 

The report, Taming the Tiger Trade, warns that Chinese business

owners who stand to profit from the tiger trade are putting

increasing pressure on the Chinese government to overturn the 1993

ban. This would allow domestic trade in captive-bred tiger parts for

use in traditional medicine and for clothing to resume.

 

According to WWF and TRAFFIC (the wildlife trade monitoring programme

of WWF and IUCN-the World Conservation Union) the Chinese ban has

been essential to prevent the extinction of tigers by curbing demand

in what was historically the world's largest consumer in tiger parts.

 

In compliance with the resolutions of the Convention on International

Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), the ban

has virtually eliminated the domestic market for tiger products in

traditional medicines.

 

" In the early 1990s, we feared that Chinese demand for tiger parts

would drive the tiger to extinction by the new millennium. The tiger

survives today thanks in large part to China's prompt, strict and

committed action, " said Steven Broad, Executive Director of TRAFFIC.

 

" To overturn the ban and allow any trade in captive-bred tiger

products would waste all the efforts that China has invested in

saving wild tigers. It would be a catastrophe for tiger

conservation. "

 

It is estimated that fewer than 7,000 tigers remain in the wild.

Around 9,000 exist in captivity, the vast majority in the USA and

China.

 

Measures to implement and enforce the Chinese trade ban have ranged

from public education campaigns and promotion of effective

substitutes for tiger medicines to severe punishment for law

breakers, the report shows. As a result, undercover surveys by

TRAFFIC found little tiger bone available in China. Less than 3 per

cent of 663 medicine shops and dealers claimed to stock it, and most

retailers were aware that tigers are protected and illegal to trade.

 

However, a TRAFFIC survey documented 17 instances of tiger bone wine

for sale on Chinese auction websites, with one seller offering a lot

of 5,000 bottles. And demand for big cat skins as status symbol

clothing, particularly in China's Tibetan Autonomous Region, is

increasing, with about 3 per cent of Tibetans in major towns claiming

to own tiger or leopard skin garments even though they knew it was

illegal.

 

Investors in the growing number of large-scale captive-

breeding " tiger farms " in China are pushing for legalizing trade of

products from these facilities, which now house 4,000 tigers, the

report adds.

 

" Allowing trade in tiger parts to resume, even if they are from

captive-bred tigers, would inevitably lead to an increase in demand

for such products, " said Dr Susan Lieberman, Director of WWF's Global

Species Programme.

 

" And a legal market in China could give poachers across Asia an

avenue for `laundering' tigers killed in the wild, especially as

farmed and wild tiger products are indistinguishable in the

marketplace. "

 

WWF and TRAFFIC call on the Chinese government to maintain its

domestic trade ban; strengthen its efforts to enforce the law against

the illegal trade in tigers and other Asian big cats, particularly of

skins; impose a moratorium on all tiger breeding; destroy the stocks

of tiger carcasses; and increase public awareness of the current

trade ban.