Sticking by the tiger

This Thursday, at this year8217;s Convention for International Trade in Endangered Species Standing Committee meeting...

This Thursday, at this year8217;s Convention for International Trade in Endangered Species Standing Committee meeting, the Indian delegation stood up to make an intervention that was reflective of a new, aggressive conservation voice.

Last year at CITES, India had said that tiger farms, which keep the tiger captive 8212; of the sort run in China 8212; should be phased out. This year, India set a new precedent by suggesting that measurable benchmarks be set up to ensure that populations in these farms are indeed being restricted: a logical follow-up of a decision last year which ruled that tiger populations at farms be restricted to a 8220;level supportive8221; only of conservation efforts in the wild.

India aims for the next best thing to actually shutting down farms, running which China claims is a sovereign right. As a result, a working group is being set up at CITES to examine how measurable checks can be made on restrictions on captive tigers and breeding licences.

This is part of a new, aggressive Indian stand, which wants the world to know that this country is ready to put its skill 8212; and its money 8212; behind the cause of the tigers. Earlier this year, India refused a World Bank proposal to help the wild tiger, part of a global initiative, pointing out that this country had put up sufficient funds for the tiger and was ready to follow its own unique conservation strategy. Now India announced that, apart from the regular budget allocations for Project Tiger Rs 72 crore it had also set aside 50 crore for a Tiger Protection Force, a better, more disciplined enforcement regime involving ex-army persons.

This proposal on tiger farming made at CITES comes after a confident 8220;no8221; to the World Bank is a clear statement that the country has put much at stake 8212; all under the gaze of the world conservation and trade enforcement community. It wants the world to know, also, that China8217;s tiger farms are as much about Indian wild tigers as about Chinese tigers in captivity.

Tiger farms, captive tigers. Oxymorons that evoke a string of opposing reactions: can the wild, blazing tiger be farmed like a domestic chicken? The tiger farm lobby in China, backed by some free-market NGOs, maintains that the tiger should be harvested commercially in order to stem illegal demand and lower the clandestine price on tiger parts. But China, which has a ban on domestic trade in tiger parts since 1993, is also the world8217;s biggest illegal market for poached tiger and bear parts. The Environmental Investigative Agency this year found that big cat skins were being sold in Linxia in China, for the fourth year in a row, while tiger wine was being sold at two national parks within four kilometres from Beijing: indications that the black market in China has a deep, flourishing and well-rooted base.

India believes that opening trade in tigers, a suggestion that did the rounds in CITES last year, would open the floodgates to tiger poaching.

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Responding to a news report that first appeared in this paper 8212; on the Corbett Tiger Reserve which had increased its forest buffer zone with the tiger population going up 8212; Kirk Leech, project manager for Research Defence Society, argued in The Guardian on June 15 in favour of tiger farming: 8220;India should adopt the Chinese approach. Numbers of wild tigers in China have also declined but the numbers of tigers bred in captivity, in the 14 registered tiger farms, have increased. The cost of these centres is very high, and not helped by the 14-year ban on domestic and international trade in tigers, enforced by CITES. If the tigers were bred for their parts as well as for sale to zoos and circuses, then these enterprises would become self-sufficient. It may also have the effect of undercutting the illegal trade in tiger parts by providing a steady supply to the market.8221;

While many have thought that the tiger has hogged all conservation concerns, recent projects that India has undertaken for wildlife tell a different story. The Wildlife Institute of India will study lesser carnivores in tiger reserves, while there are other projects afoot to move new species to tiger reserves. This is because tiger reserves are and always have been some of the best and most pristine bio-geographical forests in the country. Apart from acting as serious carbon sequestration units, the tiger shares reserve forest with some of India8217;s richest and most isolated animal populations 8212; like the gaur and the clouded leopard.

India now has its mechanisms in place to help the tiger 8212; and, in the process, help other animals through its Tiger Protection Force. Through its CITES intervention, it has also made clear that it will not sell its tigers cheap 8212; now, it only needs to stick to its stand in spirit.

neha.sinhaexpressindia.com