13 countries agree plan to save wild tigers
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A dozen Asian nations and Russia vowed Friday to work to double the number of wild tigers by 2022, crack down on poaching that has devastated the big cats and prohibit the building of roads and bridges that could harm their habitats.
However, the historic declaration adopted by the 13 countries that have wild tigers includes no new money to finance the conservation efforts.
The agreement only includes plans to approach international institutions like the World Bank for money and to develop schemes to tap money from ecotourism, carbon financing and infrastructure projects to pay for tiger programs.
“This is a historic meeting. Before this, not many people paid attention to tigers,” Thailand’s Minister of Natural Resources and Environment Suwit Khunkitti said after the three-day meeting in Hua Hin. “Stopping the depletion of tigers is a very important issue for all of us.”
The declaration will now be considered for approval by heads of state of the 13 countries in September at a meeting in Vladivostok, Russia.
Tiger numbers in recent decades have plummeted because of human encroachment – with the loss of more than nine-tenths of their habitat – and poaching to supply a vibrant trade in tiger parts. From an estimated 100,000 at the beginning of the 20th century, the number of tigers today is less than 3,500.
Along with a target for doubling tiger populations, countries agreed to protect core tiger habitats as well as buffer zones and corridors that connect key sanctuaries and national parks.
Governments also committed to reduce poaching through beefed-up law enforcement and to minimize human-tiger conflicts through job creation programs and other efforts.
The only setback, delegates said, was a successful effort by China to take out language in the draft declaration that called for maintaining a permanent ban on the tiger trade.
China’s concern is the impact the language would have on its domestic tiger trade, which has been banned since 1993 but which they have lobbied to reopen at some point.
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