Tiger skin. Kathmandu, Nepal 2005

Write to your Minister
You can take action for Tigers ahead of the Global Tiger Summit in Russia in September 2010. China will be once again be under the spotlight over tiger trade and tiger farming.

Ask that your country delegation to this meeting, and to CITES, takes a strong stand at the meeting, demanding improvements in enforcement, sharing of intelligence and support for international institutions like Interpol, CITES and the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (see suggested text below).

If you’re in the UK, please write to:

Caroline Spelman MP
Secretary of State for Environment, Farming and Rural Affairs
DEFRA
Nobel House
17 Smith Square
London SW1P 3JR

ps.caroline.spelman@DEFRA.GSI.GOV.UK

Sample letter text

Dear XXXXXX,

Urgent action is required to prevent our most treasured symbol of biodiversity – the wild tiger – from going extinct.

In this Year of the Tiger, experts believe that there may be as few as 3000 tigers remaining in the wild. These last populations are under intense pressure from habitat loss, poaching and the illegal trade in their parts and skins, which are used for home décor, luxury clothing and traditional medicine.

Evidence suggests that China remains the largest consumer of illegal Asian big cat parts, which are smuggled in from neighbouring countries. While China’s 1993 decision to ban the trade in tiger products deserves credit for reducing the trade in tiger products, there is much more which could be done to clamp down on the illegal trade. Sadly however, within China advocates for tiger farming are going the other way, pushing for the ban to be lifted in an attempt to prompt the resumption of legal tiger trade within China. The international community, and many within China, are united in believing that legalizing trade in tiger products within China or any other country would be disastrous for wild tigers.

Farming tigers for trade will rekindle the dying demand for tiger parts while increasing poaching pressure on wild tigers. Killing a wild tiger can cost as little as US$10, as opposed to several thousand dollars to breed one, making profit margins from poaching tigers far greater than those from raising them on farms.

Furthermore, legal trade in products from tiger farms would only speed the demise of wild tigers by creating more consumers and simultaneously facilitating the illegal laundering of parts from wild-caught tigers into legal stocks.

With so few tigers remaining in the wild, the only way to stop their decline is to end the consumption of tiger parts from any source. The traditional Asian medicine industry already has plentiful and effective substitutes for tiger derivatives and indeed supports the ban as a way to ensure the continued harmony of people and nature.

In the lead up to the Global Tiger Summit in Sep 2009, I urge your government to lead global efforts to truly declare 2010 ‘The Year of the Tiger’ and work to protect this magnificent species, the forests it lives in and everything which is stands for. The first step to achieving this is for you to call on all tiger range states, including China, to take real steps towards fully implementing all the decisions of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, and working to ensure that the ban on the use of tiger parts from all sources remains in place.

Saving the wild tiger is not just about saving a species, but about saving the forests it lives in and the ecosystems which rely on them. It is a symbol of our ability to tackle wider environmental issues. If we cannot save the tiger, what can we save?

Yours sincerely,

XXXXX

No Title

Stop Tiger Farming
Tiger farmers in China are petitioning the government to lift the domestic trade ban and legalise trade in tiger bone wine from farmed tigers. EIA believes this would be disastrous for wild tigers as it would reignite demand and provide a means to launder wild tiger parts.