| Help! |
| Pallavi Aiyar / Mumbai February 13, 2010, 0:36 IST |
The tiger is in danger. One controversial debate has conservationists baring their teeth as they face off: to save the tiger will it ultimately be necessary to sell it? Pallavi Aiyar is on the trail.
On February 14, Chinas 1.3 billion people will ring in the new lunar Year of the Tiger. As the spotlight turns on the dangerously endangered animal, at the heart of the matter is the continuing demand in China for tiger parts which are an ingredient in a variety of traditional Chinese medicines. It is this demand that fuels the poaching of the tiger in neighbouring India, home to the largest number of wild tigers in the world.
Although Beijing officially banned trade of tiger parts in 1993, Chinese demand has remained untamed, fed by poachers and international smugglers. The result for the tiger in China itself has been catastrophic. In January, WWF Chinas director for conservation of bio diversity, Zhu Chunquan, warned of a high risk that the 50 odd remaining wild tigers in the country would soon disappear all together in the absence of urgent measures.
The adverse effects are far from confined to the north of the Himalayas. Last year was one of the worst for the beleaguered animal in India, with 85 deaths recorded, 32 of which have been confirmed to be poaching related according to Belinda Wright, Executive Director of the Worldlife Protection Society of India (WPSI). In contrast, 29 tigers were killed in 2008, up from 27 in 2009. The conservationist world was also shaken up when the results of a new tiger census released in 2008 showed the animals to number only 1,411 in the wild, a 50 percent decline over the 3,642 figure touted by the previous census. In a matter of five years, India appeared to have lost more then half of its tigers.
A large portion of this loss can be explained by the fact that a different, more accurate methodology (photographic capture rather than pug mark identification) was used in gathering the latest data according to S.C. Dey, secretary-general of the Global Tiger Forum. But the cold truth remains that despite vast resources having been poured into policing and other anti-poaching enforcement measures, the tiger remains in grave peril.
Thinking out of the box
What is needed, therefore, are alternative strategies to those that have been tried so far, says Barun Mitra, director of the New-Delhi based Liberty Institute and a leading proponent of the lifting of the ban on Chinas tiger trade.
For Mitra this entails a change in perception. The demand for tiger parts has to be viewed not as the problem, but as part of the solution. He argues that a legal market for tiger products will make the risks involved in poaching economically less attractive, ultimately protecting the wild tiger. Such thinking has found support among sections of Chinese officialdom and Beijing is actively mulling the possibility of lifting the ban on tiger trade.
Since 2007, the Chinese State Forestry Administration (SFA) has consulted with a range of wildlife experts and conservation economists from around the world on the matter. One of these is Eugene Lapointe, President of the IWMC- World Conservation Trust. The way forward in conservation is always to develop an economic mechanism around the species that will pay for the animals own conservation, he asserts.
He believes that conservationists should exploit the fact that the tiger is a valuable and renewable economic resource, and thus generate the funds to save it, rather than deny the animals economic value and focus solely on law enforcement as a tool of conservation. The Liberty Institutes Mitra, who has visited China several times to meet with the authorities, agrees. An experiment in controlled trade he says should be tried.
Making it legal
From every thing we know, the scale of trade, if it is legalised, simply out-competes the illegal poachers. Take the crocodile. It is still an endangered species in India, but world wide over 1 million crocodiles are harvested from farms in Australia, South Africa, United States and elsewhere. Yet, there has hardly been any report of poaching from India.
The proposal the Chinese are toying with is in essence one where large numbers of captive tigers would be bred, a certain percentage of which would then be harvested for legal sale of their parts. There are already between 5,000-6,000 captive bred tigers in tiger farms around the country today and SFA officials estimate that given a free hand, China could breed 100,000 captive tigers over the next ten to fifteen years.
Proponents of trade legalization also claim that China’s captive-breeding programme can play a role in re-wilding efforts or the eventual return of captive-born animals to their natural habitats. The Chinese government is, in fact, currently supporting a pilot project to reintroduce the South China tiger into the wild (see box below).
Up in arms
But arrayed against these arguments, the majority of the worlds wildlife conservationists insist that legalizing the trade would put the final nail in the coffin of the tiger. WPSIs Wright speaks for them when she says that legal trade would only stoke the demand for tiger products rather than driving it down. No amount of tiger farming can ever bring down the price of tiger parts to a level that would make poaching unprofitable, she says. Rearing tigers is expensive requiring $3,000-4,000 a year just to feed a single animal. A poached tiger on the other hand can be acquired for as little as $50.
Rather than being squeezed out by the competition from legal farms, Wright also fears that poachers would in fact have it easier than ever before, given that they would be able to launder wild animals through legal trade channels. With concerns that the Year of the Tiger might lead to a spike in demand for tiger parts, the international community is closely monitoring moves by China. Biding time?
According to John Sellar, chief enforcement officer of CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species) there are some signs that the Chinese might have decided against reopening the trade for the time being. He says that until recently the official line in Beijing was that the authorities were studying the matter. However the most recent communiqué submitted by the Chinese to CITES in January states that China has not any plan to use the captive-bred tiger bones as clinical medicine at this moment.
Whether we can interpret this to mean that the study period for the proposal is over is difficult to say, but its a possibility says Sellar. Mitra also thinks that international pressure, fuelled by events like the Beijing Olympics, appears to have pushed the tiger (trade legalization) issue to the back burner.
Yet, many conservationists believe China has come to no such conclusion and is merely biding its time. Wright points to the fact that in December 2009, the SFA issued a directive urging improved protection of tigers, but unfortunately, the directive is largely about management of tiger farms. The existence of these farms she insists is proof that one day China intends to use them to legalise the trade.
Moreover, in the same communiqué to CITES the Chinese also stated that the global practices of farming and use of deer, primates, pheasants, falcons, parrots, crocodiles, frogs and other wild animals have shown that the farming and use of these species has played a very good role in rationally using the natural resources, alleviating the hunting pressures and protecting the wild populations.
CITES Sellar admits that his organization is neutral when it comes to the issue of farming animals, since it has worked in many other cases. But he believes reopening trade in tiger parts to be a gamble that is too risky. If it goes wrong, we will lose the tiger all together. What the Chinese game plan going ahead will be, remains unclear. But what is clear is that India cannot rely on the Chinese alone.
India on alert
Wright praises the fact that since Jairam Ramesh took over as Minister of Environment and Forests, the Indian government has greatly increased the budget for tiger conservation to about Rs 650 crores in the 11th Plan period from Rs 150 crores in the 10th Plan. However, poaching will continue to be a critical issue as long as there is a demand for tiger parts, which of course is almost exclusively from China, she concludes. Mitra prefers to stress the room for cooperation between the neighboring countries. China knows that the real test of their commitment to the tiger will come if they can successfully re-wild tigers with the help of their breeding programmes. No country has as many people with so much knowledge about how to maintain a forest conducive for the tiger, as India. This is a perfect complementarity that is waiting to happen.
Li Quan and Tiger Woods
The fate of the South China tiger, the worlds most endangered sub-species of the animal, may lie in the unlikely hands of an ex-fashion executive and Tiger Woods.The former is Li Quan, an idealistic Chinese woman who has waged a decade-long battle to save the Chinese tiger by re-wilding captive-bred animals. The latter is a male South China tiger who has fathered the cubs it is hoped will give the sub-species another shot at survival.
There are currently an estimated 20-30 South China tigers left in the wild, although no confirmed sighting has taken place in years, causing some experts to believe the animal might have already disappeared all together. A dismayed Li is working with the Chinese government on a pioneering project that involves teaching captive bred tigers hunting skills with the aim of releasing them back into the wild.
Controversially, Li, who has no formal background in conservation, chose to set up her project far away from South China, in South Africa, saying that wildlife management expertise in Africa is superior and that both land and tiger prey is available there in plenty.
Using her personal funds and that of investment banker husband Stuart Bray, Li was able to persuade the Chinese government to give her five South China tigers to take with her to Africa back in 2003. One of these died, but the remaining four, named Tiger Woods, Madonna, Cathay and 327, have flourished and produced cubs.
source: http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/help/385512/