Yahoo News 27 Oct 09;
KATHMANDU (AFP) – Tigers will become extinct unless the international community unites urgently to find new strategies to ensure their survival, campaigners and scientists in Nepal said Tuesday.
Nepalese Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal told the opening of a conference of 200 delegates from 20 countries that action by individual countries would not succeed.
"Global and regional solidarity and collective strategies armed with concrete actions are more necessary now than ever," he said, adding that poaching and habitat loss posed the most serious threat to tigers' survival.
Tiger hunting is illegal worldwide and the trade in tiger parts is banned under a treaty binding 167 countries, including Nepal.
But endangered species attract huge sums of money in China and elsewhere in Asia, with their body parts used in traditional medicines and aphrodisiacs while their skins are used for furniture and decoration.
Wildlife experts say a single tiger skin is traded for a maximum of about 1,000 dollars in Nepalese markets, but at least 10,000 dollars internationally.
World Bank president Robert Zoellick, who sent a video message to the forum, said that illegal activities of traders and poachers were "better organised" than policy makers and conservationists.
"At present the illegal trade in wildlife is estimated at over 10 billion dollars (annually) across Asia -- second only to weapons and drug smuggling," he said.
Mahendra Shrestha, programme director of the US-based Save the Tiger Fund, said only 3,200 tigers survived in the wild, down from 100,000 a century ago.
"We need strong law enforcement and regional cooperation," he said.
Nepal expands critical tiger habitat
WWF 27 Oct 09;
Kathmandu, Nepal - The Government of Nepal announced today an expansion of Bardia National Park in the Terai Arc Landscape by 900 sq km, which will increase critical habitat for tigers.
WWF welcomes the announcement, which was made at the inaugural session of the Kathmandu Global Tiger Workshop.
Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal also stated that the government would establish a National Tiger Conservation Authority as well as a Wildlife Crime Control Committee saying, “The solutions will be area specific, but the future of conservation will depend upon how we act now and how we make tiger conservation and overall biodiversity much more valuable to the livelihoods of local communities.”
“This is indeed a great conservation initiative, which will certainly help in curbing illegal wildlife trade and poaching in Nepal,” said Anil Manandhar, Country Representative of WWF Nepal. “We are confident that by embracing innovative conservation strategies Nepal will succeed in doubling its number of endangered tigers.”
Earlier this year the first ever nation-wide estimate of the tiger population revealed the presence of 121 breeding tigers in the wild within four protected areas of Nepal. In order to ensure that these tiger numbers remain stable and start to increase, WWF and its partners called on the government to increase anti-poaching activities and habitat protection.
“In making these commitments at a global forum before the 12 other tiger range countries, the Government of Nepal has set an important precedent for others to follow,” said Mike Baltzer, Leader of WWF’s Tiger Initiative. “The next three days of the workshop are vital as countries and tiger experts band together to create a game-changing plan to save tigers in the wild.”
The Kathmandu Global Tiger Workshop is the first in a series of political negotiation meetings occurring throughout the year and leading up to a final Heads of State Tiger Summit in September 2010, which is the Year of the Tiger.
The workshop is hosted by the Ministry of Forests and Soil Conservation, Government of Nepal, co-organized and co-sponsored by the CITES Secretariat, Global Tiger Forum, Global Tiger Initiative, Save The Tiger Fund, World Bank.
World's tigers seen facing potential extinction
Gopal Sharma, Reuters 28 Oct 09;
KATHMANDU (Reuters) - Tigers could become extinct in the wild in two decades unless the world ramps up conservation efforts to halt the decline in their population, wildlife experts said on Wednesday.
Barely 3,500 tigers are estimated to be roaming in the wild in 12 Asian countries and Russia compared with about 100,000 a century ago, experts and conservationists said.
Tigers are being illegally killed for their body parts and Asia is a hotspot for the illegal wildlife trade which the international police organization Interpol estimates may be worth more than $20 billion a year.
Skins sell as rugs and cloaks on the black market, where a skin can fetch up to $20,000 in countries like China.
Habitat destruction and depletion of prey base were other perils facing the "Asian heritage", conservationists said.
"A business as usual approach in tiger conservation will doom the tiger population in the next 15 to 20 years," Mahendra Shrestha, program director of the Washington-based Save the Tiger Fund told Reuters on the sidelines of a conference on tiger conservation.
He said law enforcement, patrols to stop poaching and the preservation of remaining habitat would improve the situation.
"There is hope. We can do it. It is not rocket science. It does not require a lot of new activities," Shrestha said.
"But there has to be strong political will to conserve tigers and also strong global international support for the activities of the tiger range countries."
Tigers still roam terrain in Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Russia, Thailand and Vietnam.
John Seidensticker, chief scientist at the Smithsonian National Zoo's Conservation Ecology Center, said tiger habitat had declined by 40 percent in the last decade due to destruction of forests.
"Our challenge is to make landscapes with tigers alive worth more than landscapes where tigers have been killed," Seidensticker said. "I think we have a decade from where we will slip from being caretakers to undertakers."
(Editing by Bappa Majumdar and Ron Popeski)
Tiger experts call for urgent action to save species
WWF 30 Oct 09;
KATHMANDU, Nepal – More than 250 experts, scientists and government delegates from 13 tiger range countries this week called for immediate action to save tigers before the species disappears from the wild, citing the urgent need for increased protection against tiger poaching and trafficking in tiger parts.
WWF welcomes the recommendations from the Kathmandu Global Tiger Workshop 2009, where organizers on Thursday stated in closing remarks that “without immediate, urgent, and transformative actions, wild tigers will disappear forever.”
The recommendations from the workshop include support for implementing a resolution related to tigers in the Convention on the International Trade of Endangered Species (CITES), and to avoid financing development projects that adversely affect critical tiger habitats.
“These are a good start but the momentum from Kathmandu needs to be carried forward all the way to the Tiger Summit during the Year of the Tiger 2010 and beyond,” said Mike Baltzer, head of WWF’s Tiger Initiative. “The tiger range countries are clearly committed to saving their wild tigers and the world needs to extend unstinting support to this mission because once tigers are gone, they’re gone forever.”
There are only about 3,200 tigers left in the wild and WWF’s goal is to double that number by 2022, the next Year of the Tiger. Tiger populations are declining in face of massive poaching for illegal wildlife trade, habitat loss and fragmentation, and conflict with humans.
“I am convinced we are on the right road to saving tigers,” said Dr. Eric Dinerstein, WWF’s Chief Scientist, in his closing remarks to delegates from 20 countries at the conclusion of the meeting. “We will look back on this meeting as the dramatic turning point for conserving this magnificent species, its habitats, Asian biodiversity, and the billions of people who depend upon healthy natural landscapes for which tigers are the talisman.”
The Kathmandu Global Tiger Workshop is the first in a series of political negotiation meetings occurring throughout the year and leading up to a final Heads of State Tiger Summit in September 2010, which is the Year of the Tiger.
The workshop was hosted by Nepal’s Ministry of Forests and Soil Conservation, Government of Nepal, and co-organized and co-sponsored by the CITES Secretariat, Global Tiger Forum, Global Tiger Initiative, Save The Tiger Fund, and the World Bank.
