Trade in tiger products

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India to seek blanket ban on tiger products trade **

*<http://www.ians.in/loginexists.php#>

*Indo-Asian News Service*

 

New Delhi, June 12 (IANS) India will seek the support of the

internationalcommunity for wildlife conservation and a complete

ban on the illegal trade

in tiger products at a ministerial round table conference in the

Netherlands. Minister for Environment and Forests Shri Namo Narain Meena is to

participate in the ongoing Convention on International Trade in

EndangeredSpecies (CITES) of Wild Fauna and Flora at the Hague. He

left today for the conference.

The convention, to conclude June 15, would discuss several issues

relatingto conservation of endangered species including tiger,

elephant, star tortoise, sharks, an environment ministry statement said Tuesday.

The CITES is an international agreement between governments with an aim to

ensure that international trade in wild animals and plants does

not threaten their survival. At present there are 171 member countries.

Recently India set up a National Wildlife Crime Control Bureau to

controlthe illegal wildlife trade.

In its tiger report published last month, the Wildlife Institute of India

(WII) recorded that there are only 490 tigers in the 16 reserves

of Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Maharashtra and Chhattisgarh. The 2002 census had

recorded 1,233 tigers in these states.

 

 

India wins battle with China to save tiger

14 Jun, 2007 l 0110 hrs ISTl TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Print<http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/msid-

 

NEW DELHI: Tigers will not be bred for trade in their parts and

derivatives. On Wednesday, 169 member-countries of the Convention on

International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), meeting at The

Hague,passed a resolution, dashing China's plan — backed by a business model of

farming captive-bred tigers — to undo a 14-year-old ban on tiger trade.

The resolution came as a hard-fought victory for the Indian

delegation that had lobbied frenetically over the last few days with other key

players at CITES to ensure China's proposal to open trade in tiger derivatives

was defeated.

India notched an unexpected victory with even China agreeing to

formallysponsor the document, suggesting that the trade ban continue and that

captive breeding of tigers be kept at a level supportive only in

conservingtigers in the wild. The resolution stands contrary to

China's initial position on the issue, though over the last few days,

it had begun to dilute its stand, realising that there was

overwhelminginternational opposition.

Last month, a Chinese delegation visited India in an attempt to

gauge New Delhi's views on the proposal to open domestic trade in tiger

parts, and to farm tigers brought up in captivity. China has several thousand

captive-bred tigers and less than 30 in the wild.