New Report on Tiger Farms Released
The International Fund For Animal Welfare (IFAW) released its new
report on tiger farms in China - Made in China. The report found that "numerous
zoos, wildlife parks and tiger farms in China breed and keep hundreds of
tigers, often in abhorrent conditions. Although both international and
domestic trade in tiger bone is banned, some facilities have openly
marketed products containing tiger. Many of the facilities stockpile
tiger carcasses in the hope that legalized tiger trade one day will be
reopened. Defying the domestic trade ban issued by China’s State
Council, several of these facilities have already started selling tiger
bone wine. Some market their products to foreign tourists by using
foreign languages on product leaflets and price tags."
Sell The Tiger To Save It
By Barun Mitra, the director of Liberty Institute, a research
organization that promotes free-market economics wrote this letter to
the New York Times, published 15/08/06
WHICH country is thinking about applying free-market principles to
wildlife preservation and, in the process, improving the survival
chances of a long-endangered species while giving its economy a
boost?
Communist China, of course.
China joined the international effort to protect the tiger in 1993.
But today there is a growing recognition among many Chinese officials
that a policy of prohibition and trade restrictions has not benefited
the tiger as much as it has helped poachers and smugglers of tigers and
tiger parts.
Conservationists say the worldwide illegal trade in forest products
and wildlife is between $10 billion and $12 billion, with more than half
of that coming from Asia.
Of the planet’s estimated 5,000 wild tigers, about 75 percent
are in India, which, like most nations, believes that commerce and
conservation are incompatible. Only a relative handful of tigers —
probably a few dozen — can be found in China’s forests. (The
United States is home to some 10,000 tigers, owned by zoos and private
citizens.) The tiger, in short, is still staring at extinction.
But like forests, animals are renewable resources. If you think of
tigers as products, it becomes clear that demand provides opportunity,
rather than posing a threat. For instance, there are perhaps 1.5 billion
head of cattle and buffalo and 2 billion goats and sheep in the world
today. These are among the most exploited of animals, yet they are not
in danger of dying out; there is incentive, in these instances, for
humans to conserve.
So it can be for the tiger. In pragmatic terms, this is an extremely
valuable animal. Given the growing popularity of traditional Chinese
medicines, which make use of everything from tiger claws (to treat
insomnia) to tiger fat (leprosy and rheumatism), and the prices this
kind of harvesting can bring (as much as $20 for claws, and $20,000 for
a skin), the tiger can in effect pay for its own survival. A single
farmed specimen might fetch as much as $40,000; the retail value of all
the tiger products might be three to five times that amount.
Yet for the last 30 or so years, the tiger has been priced at zero,
while millions of dollars have been spent to protect it and prohibit
trade that might in fact help save the species. Despite the growing
environmental bureaucracy and budgets, and despite the proliferation of
conservationists and conferences, the tiger is as close to extinction as
it has been since Project Tiger, a conservation project backed in part
by the World Wildlife Fund, was launched in 1972 and adopted by the
government of India a year later.
If we truly value the tiger, this crisis presents an opportunity to
help it buy its way out of the extinction it now faces. The tiger breeds
easily, even in captivity; zoos in India are constantly told by the
Central Zoo Authority not to breed tigers because they are expensive to
maintain. In China, which has about 4,000 tigers in captivity, breeding
has been perfected. According to senior officials I met in China, given
a free hand, the country could produce 100,000 tigers in the next 10 to
15 years.
(Disclosure: I have been writing on tiger conservation for more than
10 years, and over the course of that time have suggested using the
power of commerce to save the tiger. Earlier this year, I was invited by
the State Forestry Administration of the People’s Republic of
China as part of an international group to learn about the Chinese
perspective on the issue; the agency paid for my airfare and
accommodations.)
Wildlife farming and ranching could potentially break the poverty
trap that most forest villagers find themselves in. In Zimbabwe, before
the current spiral into chaos, villagers had property rights on the
wildlife in the forests around them, and they earned revenue by selling
a limited number of hunting licenses. They had a stake.
At present there is no incentive for forest dwellers to protect
tigers, and so poachers, traffickers and unscrupulous traders prevail.
The temptation of high profits, in turn, attracts organized crime; this
is what happens when government regulations subvert the law of supply
and demand.
But tiger-breeding facilities will ensure a supply of wildlife at an
affordable price, and so eliminate the incentive for poachers and,
consequently, the danger for those tigers left in the wild. With
selective breeding and the development of reintroduction techniques, it
might be possible to return the tiger to some of its remaining natural
habitats. And by recognizing the rights of the local villagers to earn
legitimate revenue from wildlife sources, the tiger could stage a
comeback.
Market economics greatly favor the tiger. If China decides to unleash
the tiger’s commercial potential, the king of the forest might be
more secure in his kingdom.
Sound off! - have
your say on our online tiger trafficking discussion forum.
CATT's conservation partners took strong exception to this dangerous
idea:
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