Wildlife group alarmed over push to lift ban on tiger-parts sales

Apr 18, 2007, 5:39 GMT

Kathmandu - The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) has expressed concerns over a campaign by Chinese businessmen to lift a ban on the trade of tiger parts, Kathmandu media reported Wednesday.

'Since China is the biggest market of tiger parts, the lifting of the ban will affect conservation efforts,' the English-language Himalayan Times quoted Sue Lieberman, the director of the WWF's global species programme, as saying. 'This is going to be the real and biggest threat for the tigers and the tiger conservationists.'

Businessmen are reportedly putting pressure on the Chinese government to lift the ban and are also stepping up their campaign on the international community to allow China to commercially breed tigers for their body parts.

International trade in all tigers and tiger products is banned under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species. However, wildlife organizations said illegal trade in big cat skins and body parts is worth about 8 billion dollars a year. The tiger body parts are in high demands in China and other East Asian countries for their perceived medicinal value.

The concern expressed by the WWF coincided with the start of an international tiger symposium in Kathmandu that was being attended by tiger experts and conservationist from 12 nations, including China.

The symposium is to discuss tiger conservation in 10 Asian countries and draw up strategies to protect tigers, which are considered an endangered species.

The WWF estimated 5,000 to 7,000 tigers live in the wild, of which about 4,000 are royal Bengal tigers found in India, Nepal and Bangladesh.

The WWF said that over the past 100 years, tiger numbers have declined by 95 per cent and three sub-species have become extinct - with a fourth not seen in the wild for more than 25 years.

The latest government figures from Nepal said about 370 tigers live there in the wild, distributed in Chitwan National Park in central Nepal and Bardiya National Park in western Nepal.