|
Contact Us Give Site Map NFWF |
 |
|
Campaign Against Tiger TraffickingCampaign Against Tiger Trafficking (CATT) was a three-year initiative by the Save The Tiger Fund. With its partners, CATT galvanized support and leadership from tiger range and consuming countries. CATT was the first global partnership initiative focused exclusively on stopping trade in tigers and their parts. Save The Tiger Fund launched its Campaign Against Tiger Trafficking (CATT) at the Jackson Hole Wildlife Film Festival in September 2005. CATT aims to galvanize more effective, allied efforts to end the poaching and illegal trade in tiger parts that is hastening the extinction of the world’s estimated 5,000 tigers remaining in the wild. “Poachers and smugglers are well financed and coordinated. An organized response is needed to stop this organized crime,” said Judy Mills, director of CATT. “The CATT campaign marks the first global partnership initiative focused exclusively on ending trade in tigers.” The campaign was urgently needed, as three of the nine tiger subspecies became extinct in the past 40 years. Another, the Sumatran tiger, may be gone by 2020. CATT worked to build, inform and support alliances between civil society, governments and consuming groups that stop the criminals who are killing the world’s last wild tigers and destroying their priceless forest habitats. Poachers kill wild tigers to satisfy commercial demand for their skins and bones for ceremonial clothing, medicine and decoration. By focusing on tigers, which sit at the top of the food chain, CATT’s efforts also protected other species and entire ecosystems. Save The Tiger Fund (STF), a partnership of the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, ExxonMobil Foundation, and Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund, has invested a decade in stabilizing the remaining wild tiger populations. It works on tiger conservation, with government, public and private organizations and local communities, by addressing the mutual welfare of tigers and their human neighbors. The hard-earned progress of the past ten years is now being rolled back by poaching and illegal trafficking of tiger parts across international borders. Serving as a convener and broker for partnerships, CATT mobilized leaders of governments, nongovernmental organizations, businesses, and social and religious institutions to take immediate, coordinated action including: • Joint international law enforcement operations to stop
tiger smugglers; CATT’s launch coincided with that of the U.S. State Department’s Coalition Against Wildlife Trafficking (CAWT), which recognizes illegal wildlife trade as a black market second only to arms and drug smuggling. Partnering with other governments and with nongovernmental organizations, including STF and CATT, CAWT will focus on a wide array of species threatened by trade, including elephants, rhinos, exotic birds, as well as tigers.
Reports on the Tiger Trade
CATT was supported by Save the Tiger Fund, the ExxonMobil Foundation, the Rufford Maurice Laing Foundation and the Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund. |
