Sino Indian discord on tiger conservation

[Guest guest]

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/year-of-the-tiger-india-raises-poaching-alarm-\

beijing-cool/509236/

 

Year of the Tiger: India raises poaching alarm, Beijing cool

 

 

WITH 2010 being the Chinese ‘year of the tiger’ — which comes once in 12

years and when demand for tiger and leopard parts shoots up — a team of

Indian wildlife officials will visit China in November to specifically

discuss tiger and leopard poaching.

 

The meeting between officials drawn from the National Tiger Conservation

Authority and the Wildlife Crime Control Bureau, and Chinese officials was

finalised during the visit of Minister of Environment Jairam Ramesh to China

this week.

 

During Ramesh’s trip, tiger poaching was one of the issues on agenda. In a

written statement to Chinese officials, his ministry submitted that one of

India’s main concerns was that demand for tiger and leopard skins and bones

would go up in 2010. India also asked China to enforce a tiger skin

registration scheme and crack down on tiger trade through Nepal.

 

“The dialogue and enforcement on tiger conservation needs to be taken

forward. This is why a team from Project Tiger and wildlife enforcement

officers will be visiting China as a lot more needs to be done especially in

this year of the tiger,” Ramesh told The Indian Express.

 

The ministry has also contended that China should restrict its tiger farms

as this creates a demand for Indian wild tiger products and has urged China

to keep a domestic tiger-trade ban in place.

 

But the Chinese response appears to be lukewarm. Responding to concerns of

tiger poaching for Chinese demand, the Chinese officials said India was not

doing enough to check Chiru (Tibetan Antelope) poaching. They also said that

there is no link between Chinese tiger farms and Indian tiger poaching.

 

Ramesh said he does not agree with China linking Chiru poaching to that of

the tiger. “The case of poaching of the Chiru antelope and the tiger are

totally different things,” he said. The statement submitted to China made

the case that breeding tigers “on a commercial scale” was a serious threat

to tiger conservation efforts. It said that there are no techniques to

distinguish a wild tiger part from that of a farmed tiger. “Raising a farmed

tiger is 250 times more expensive than poaching a wild tiger,” it said,

inferring that poachers will always prefer poaching wild tigers in India.

 

India has a protocol on tiger conservation with China, which was signed in

1995. One of the main planks of the protocol is joint conservation. However,

nothing has moved on the protocol and communication between the two

countries has been low.

 

India had asked China at the Convention on International Trade in

Endangered Species (CITES) summit to shut down large-scale tiger farms, and

only keep the farms ‘at a level supportive of tiger conservation in the

wild’ (proceeds from these tourist attractions are supposed to go to wild

tiger conservation). CITES has now asked China to file a report on its tiger

farms and what steps were being taken to restrict trade in tiger parts.