Playing Chinese chequers with Chinese tigers

[Guest guest]

*Frontline

Volume 24 - Issue 14 :: Jul. 14-27, 2007

INDIA'S NATIONAL MAGAZINE

from the publishers of THE HINDU *

**

*CONSERVATION

 

Chinese chequers on the tiger trail *

 

TEXT AND PHOTOGRAPHS BY PALLAVI AIYAR

 

*Should China revoke ban on domestic tiger trade to increase the number of

tigers in the wild? Conservationists are divided. *

 

 

 

*A Siberian tiger at the Heilongjiang Siberian Tiger Park in Harbin in

northeastern China. *

 

Sinewy muscles rippled under his striped coat with every measured step that

he took. The Siberian tiger was at once beautiful and menacing, yellow-green

eyes narrowing in concentration as he chased his prey in powerful, bounding

leaps. The prey, however, was not a wild deer or a boar but freshly cut beef

thrown out of the wire-meshed windows of a battered, white mini van. Running

alongside him in the chase were six other Siberian tigers, creating an

effect akin to that of a pack of hunting wolves.

 

Having snagged a piece of meat after a spot of jostling with his

competitors, he retired to a grassy spot to tear into the flesh. His

saliva-coated teeth glistened in the overhead sun and outlines of high-rise

buildings in the not-so-distant background framed the scene at the

Heilongjiang Siberian Tiger Park in Harbin in northeastern China.

 

The government-owned park, housing some 800 tigers, is one of the largest

captive breeding tiger farms in the world and the second largest in China.

It was established in 1986 with a population of 28 tigers. " We have

perfected captive breeding methods and more than 100 cubs have been born in

the park annually in the past few years, " said Liu Dan, the park's chief

engineer.

 

The park has already reported around 100 births so far this year and expects

another 40-odd cubs to be born over the next six months. As a result, said

Liu Dan, the park is fast running out of space and more importantly finances

to support its burgeoning tiger population.

 

The Harbin park's situation is not unique. China is currently estimated to

have 5,000 tigers in captivity in tiger farms across the country. Given that

it costs around 40,000 yuan ($5,200) a year to maintain one adult tiger,

most of the farms face severe financial constraints. Park owners and

managers of these captive-breeding programmes are now lobbying the Chinese

government to lift its 14-year-old ban on domestic trade in tiger parts.

 

 

 

*At the entrance to the park in Harbin. Housing some 800 tigers, it is one

of the largest captive breeding tiger farms in the world. *

 

They want to be allowed to cull a certain number of captive tigers for the

legal sale of their body parts. The resulting profits can be ploughed into

conservation schemes, such as the efforts to return captive-bred animals to

the wild, in addition to ensuring that the remaining tigers on farms are

well fed and healthy, they say.

 

The park owners are essentially borrowing an argument from environmental

economists: to save the tiger, selling it might be necessary. But to many in

the tiger conservation community the mere mention of the idea leads to bared

teeth and extended claws.

 

With China, the world's primary consumer of tiger products, agreeing to a

ban on trade in tiger parts in 1993, the debate appeared settled in favour

of those who held that commerce and conservation could not be bedfellows.

However, recent moves by Beijing signal that the country is taking a long,

hard look at the efficacy of the ban, throwing the issue wide open once

again.

 

For India, home to the majority of the world's wild tigers, the debate has

particularly high stakes. The sharp increase in poaching across the country,

which has cost the lives of hundreds of wild tigers over the past 15-odd

years, is usually linked to the demand for tiger parts in China.

 

Tiger bones, organs and blood are vital ingredients in traditional Chinese

medicine (TCM) and despite China's ban on domestic trade in parts there is

demand for these products. China itself has 50 or fewer tigers left in the

wild. So the underground market that has emerged to feed this persisting

demand sources its products from neighbouring countries such as India.

 

In early July, China's State Forestry Administration (SFA) hosted an

international conference on tiger conservation in Harbin. It was primarily

meant to gather expert opinion on the impact that the lifting of the ban on

domestic trade in tiger parts would have on the wild tiger population in

China and elsewhere.

 

 

 

*Waiting for beef at feeding time. One view in favour of resuming the tiger

trade is that a legal market for tiger products would make poaching

economically less attractive, given the risks involved, and help protect

tigers. *

 

The conference was held less then a month after a CITES (Convention on

International Trade in Endangered Species) resolution on tiger trade, to

which China was a signatory, was passed at The Hague. The resolution, among

other things, stated that " tigers should not be bred for trade in their

parts and derivatives " , leading several analysts in India to trumpet it as a

victory for the Indian tiger. The declaration, they claimed, left no scope

for China to reopen its trade in farmed tiger parts.

 

Ban, a domestic matter

 

However, by holding the Harbin conference China sent out the message that

the decision to rescind the ban on domestic tiger trade was a domestic

matter, outside of the purview of CITES.

 

Eugene Lapointe, former secretary-general of CITES and currently president

of the IWMC-World Conservation Trust, agreed that the CITES resolution was

" irrelevant to China's domestic trade " . An adviser to the Chinese government

and one of the key participants at the Harbin conference, Lapointe is an

advocate of legalising the tiger trade. " The way forward in conservation is

always to develop an economic mechanism around the species that will pay for

the animal's own conservation, " he said.

 

At the crux of his argument is the notion that conservationists should

exploit the fact that the tiger is a valuable and renewable economic

resource to generate the funds to save it, rather than denying the animal's

economic value and focusing solely on law enforcement as a tool of

conservation.

 

 

 

*Taking a stroll. Can they survive in the wild? The Chinese government is

currently supporting a pilot project to reintroduce the South China tiger

into the wild. *

 

Those who accept Lapointe's views are united in their belief that the

efforts thus far to save the tiger have been a failure. They point out that

despite decades of investment in policing and other anti-poaching

enforcement mechanisms, wild tigers today remain dangerously endangered.

 

What is needed, therefore, are alternative strategies, said Barun Mitra,

director of the New-Delhi based Liberty Institute and a leading proponent of

the lifting of the ban on China's tiger trade. Mitra sees the demand for

tiger parts not as the problem but as part of the solution. He argued that a

legal market for tiger products would make the poaching of tigers

economically less attractive given the risks involved and would ultimately

help protect tigers that remain in the wild.

 

Lapointe elaborated, " A ban never stoppers demand, it only drives it

underground. " Pointing to parallels in the drug industry, he argued that

bans actually help criminals since they ensure a captive market and high

profits for smugglers. " What unites law enforcement officials and smugglers

is their common desire to make sure bans remain in place, " he said. " But has

it [the ban] helped tigers? "

 

The idea is that until a range of stakeholders are given economic incentives

for tiger conservation the animal's fate will remain precarious. " If the

protection of the wild tiger becomes linked to the livelihood of people only

then will conservation efforts work, " said Lapointe.

 

Thus, TCM manufacturers who buy poached tiger parts actually have an

incentive to collaborate in wild tiger protection if a legal supply of

products from captive tigers is assured. " We need to link the wild animal to

the legal business. Make it clear that if wild tigers are being wiped out

then the legal trade would stop, thereby adversely affecting the economic

interests of the TCM industry, " said Lapointe.

 

At the Harbin conference, the majority of the conservationist economists

recommended that the Chinese government move to lift the ban in tiger trade

with a controlled experiment. This would involve permitting limited trade

from a fixed number of licensed breeding centres to a limited number of TCM

manufacturers. The resulting tiger-bone TCM would be classified as a

prescription drug and be made available only in select hospitals. During the

period of the experiment no tiger would be culled in order to harvest its

parts. Use would be made, instead, of the stockpiles of tiger remains

available at breeding centres.

 

From captivity to the wild

 

Farming animals to save them in the wild may seem counterintuitive, but

there have been instances where harvesting of captive-bred animals has

helped bring them back from the brink of extinction in the wild. Brendan

Moyle, president of the Australia-New Zealand Sustainable Usage expert team

of the IUCN (International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural

Resources), gave the example of the crocodile.

 

The legal trade in crocodiles did drive out poachers, he said, and in the

process saved several endangered species of wild crocodiles. This led Moyle

to conclude that " scepticism about trade on the basis of bioeconomic models

is misplaced " .

 

In addition to enabling a supply of legal tiger parts, Barun Mitra was also

optimistic of the role that China's captive-breeding programme can play in

enabling the eventual return of captive-born tigers to their natural

habitats. The Chinese government is, in fact, currently supporting a pilot

project to reintroduce the South China tiger into the wild.

 

Two pairs of captive-bred South China tigers have been flown to South Africa

where they have been released into a controlled " wild " environment. Although

one of these tigers has died, the others are being monitored. The hope is

that these tigers will breed and that their cubs will be brought up with

appropriate skills for the wild. The plan is to eventually release these

" re-wilded " tigers back in their natural habitat in China. Mitra's optimism,

however, must be tempered with the fact that there has been no successful

example of tiger re-wilding in history and there are experts who claim that

given the complexities of the process it is impossible to achieve.

 

Urs Breitenmoser, the co-chair of the Cats Specialist Group under the IUCN's

Species Survival Commission, disagreed. He said the successful re-wilding of

cats like the Eurasian lynx proved that similar success was possible with

tigers. However, he remained critical of China's South Africa experiment.

" The habitat and prey-base in South Africa and South China are totally

different, " he said, arguing that any such trial should have been conducted

in China itself.

 

NGOs oppose trade

 

The reopening of the tiger trade debate by China has drawn ire far greater

than that of Urs Breitenmoser's from non-governmental organisations (NGOs)

around the world involved in wildlife. " Lifting the ban on tiger trade in

China would put the final nail in the coffin of the tiger, " insisted Belinda

Wright, executive director of the Wildlife Protection Society of India

(WPSI).

 

She said the majority of experts working with tigers in the field were

convinced that legal trade would only stoke the demand for tiger products

rather than drive it down. No amount of tiger farming would bring down the

price of tiger parts to a level that would make poaching unprofitable, she

said. Rearing tigers was expensive, requiring $3,000-4,000 a year to feed a

single animal. A poached tiger on the other hand could be acquired for as

little as $50, she said.

 

 

 

*Swimming against the tide. The conference at Harbin merely underlined how

polarised the conservation community remains. *

 

Rather than being squeezed out by the competition from legal farms, said

Belinda Wright, poachers would have it easier than ever before, given that

they would be able to launder wild animals through legal trade channels.

 

While advocates of legalising trade argued that strict monitoring systems

ccould prevent the laundering of poached animals, Belinda Wright countered

it with the argument that the enforcement of wildlife laws in China was

questionable. It was thus highly unlikely that the government would be able

to monitor legal farms as strictly as required to ensure that laundering

would be effectively prevented, she said.

 

Justin Gosling, a wildlife crime specialist with the World Society for

Protection of Animals Asia, added that there was no evidence to prove that

legalising trade had an adverse impact on black markets and smuggling

networks. He pointed to the market for pirated DVDs as a case in point.

 

Vested interests

 

The demand for reopening the tiger trade came from businesses with vested

interests whose only concern was to turn a profit regardless of the impact

on wild tigers, Belinda Wright said. Rather than thinking out of the box,

what was really required, she said, was better enforcement of the strategies

already present within the existing box.

 

S.C. Dey, secretary-general of the Global Tiger Forum, pointed out that

Project Tiger had worked well in the past. All that was needed to ensure

future success was greater will and larger resources for adequate

implementation of existing laws in addition to habitat protection and

improvement, he added.

 

Belinda Wright remained deeply suspicious of China's motives in the debate

on tiger trade. She pointed to the fact that at the Harbin conference the

vast majority of the participants were conservation economists rather than

field experts like herself. With the exception of the WPSI, the

International Tiger Coalition (ITC), perhaps the most important grouping of

tiger-related NGOs, was wholly unrepresented at the workshop.

 

" This [conference] is a farce, " said Belinda Wright bluntly, explaining that

many of the ITC's members who had originally planned to attend the

conference were at the last moment kept out by a series of hurdles thrown up

by the SFA, including quibbles over travel arrangements, registration fee

and other logistics.

 

" It's obvious that China has already made up its mind to reopen the trade.

Otherwise why would they have developed so many tiger farms? " she asked.

Indeed, in the Harbin tiger park alone more than 100 carcasses of dead

animals are currently lying in storage, in freezers it costs some 2 million

yuan a year to operate.

 

What became clear at Harbin was that rather than achieving any kind of

bridge-building between detractors and supporters of the legalisation of

tiger trade in China, the conference merely underlined how polarised the

conservation community remains.

 

The problem, as Urs Breitenmoser pointed out, was that neither side based

its arguments on hard data. Instead, the debate was opinion-driven with both

opponents and proponents arguing on the basis of economic modelling or gut

feeling rather than empirical knowledge or facts.

 

How many in the wild?

 

The degree to which the entire field of tiger conservation lacks firm data

is astonishing. There is no reliable information even about facts as

fundamental as the total number of tigers in the world. For example, during

the Harbin conference experts came up with wildly divergent estimates of the

percentage of the world's wild tigers residing in India, with figures

varying from 70 per cent to 50 per cent and even as low as 25 per cent.

 

The official Indian figure, announced in 2002, was 3,700 wild tigers. The

results of the latest government tiger census using an improved methodology

are scheduled to be released at the end of the year. It is expected to

reveal a 40 per cent drop in tiger numbers over the previous figure.

 

In the absence of reliable data, it becomes impossible to assess accurately

other questions crucial to the debate, such as the impact of China's 1993

ban on the wild tiger population.

 

Urs Breitenmoser was of the opinion that in the absence of reliable data it

was better to err on the side of caution. " The risk of taking the wrong

decision with a critically endangered species like the tiger is too high, "

he said, advocating a stay on the current ban. Lapointe countered that the

risk of doing nothing was equally great because, given current trends, the

tiger was likely to go extinct in any event.

 

While Urs Breitenmoser advocated consensus-building as the way forward in

devising conservation strategy, the outlook for a compromise looked dim if

the Harbin conference was any indication. The economists amongst the

delegates accused the NGOs of using conservation for fund-raising rather

than fund-raising for conservation. The NGOs accused the economists of

serving vested commercial interests inherently inimical to conservation.

 

At the conference, finger-pointing and allegations of ulterior motives

abounded behind the scenes. " The biggest disaster for the tiger is quite

simply the polarisation within the conservation community, " said Urs

Breitenmoser. Rather than poachers, TCM manufacturers or tiger farm

operators, it will be the inability of conservationists of different stripes

to open their minds to each other that will ring the death knell for the

animal they are all ostensibly trying to save.