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Latest News Following EIA and WPSI Skin Trade Expose

The End of the Trail – Tiger and Leopard Skin Trade Out of Control

On the 1st August 2005, a joint team from EIA and the Wildlife Protection Society of India (WPSI) began a four week investigation that would take us across the Tibetan plateau and to the end of the trail for India’s tigers and leopards.

The truly staggering scale of the local market for skins is frightening and leaves us in no doubt that the local demand for tiger and leopard skins for decorating costumes, is the main driving force behind the catastrophic levels of poaching that have occurred in India’s Tiger Reserves.

We saw hundreds of people openly wearing costumes decorated with great swathes of tiger and leopard skin, sometimes the entire skin of the animal. The tiger skins were all fresh, all purchased within the last two years and according to the traders all sourced in India.

We also documented the open sale and availability of tiger and other endangered big cat skins on the streets and in the markets of towns in Sichuan Province, Gansu Province and the Tibet Autonomous Region.

On the 23rd September we publicly released the findings of our work and further details can be found in our press release and fact sheet here.

You can also see some of the chilling film that we took - click here.

Prior to the public release, EIA and WPSI presented the findings of our investigation at a special meeting of the UN Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES); the Silk Road CITES Enforcement Seminar in Urumqi, Xinjiang Autonomous Region of China, at the end of August 2005. The participants; representatives of neighbouring countries, the CITES Secretariat and international NGOs were deeply concerned by the information and images we showed them. It was apparent that the magnitude of the illegal cat skin trade was far greater than anyone had realised.

EIA and WPSI provided the Chinese CITES Authorities with a Confidential Briefing document and wrote to Hu Jintao, President of the People’s Republic of China, Dr Manmohan Singh, Prime Minister of India and Mrs Sonia Gandhi, President of India's National Congress Party. Mrs Gandhi has responded, sharing our alarm at the situation and reporting that India is developing new mechanisms to share intelligence on wildlife crime with China.

The CITES Secretariat has also written to the CITES authorities in China regarding the serious escalation in the trade and market for tiger and other Asian big cat skins, and the skin trade will be on the agenda of the next CITES Standing Committee meeting.

The Prime Minister of India has responded to the widespread coverage of the EIA and WPSI investigation in the Indian and international press by ordering the various border security forces to undergo training in wildlife crime. He has also instructed the Ministry of Environment and Forests to put the proposal for the long-awaited multi-agency enforcement unit in front of the Cabinet in October 2005.

Through diplomatic channels India will initiate high level discussions with Nepal and China and Dr Singh has given the Minister of State for Environment and Forests the task of specifically raising this matter with Chinese counterparts during a forthcoming visit to China.

EIA and WPSI also wrote to the UK and US governments, as both countries have a historical and keen interest in tiger conservation matters. The UK’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) in particular has had a prominent role in keeping the tiger high on the international agenda, especially through CITES, and have provided funding for meetings of the CITES Tiger Enforcement Task Force. The UK Minister for Rural Affairs, Landscape and Biodiversity, Mr Jim Knight has written to say he shares our concerns and confirms that the UK will continue to encourage greater cooperation between the relevant countries.

In the US, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Environment, Claudia McMurray launched a new Coalition Against Wildlife Trade that will seek to address wildlife trafficking in Asia with government and non-government partners. A new wildlife NGO coalition has also been formed following the Urumqi meeting, coordinated by the Save The Tiger Fund in the US. For further details see www.savethetigerfund.org/CATT/

It is critical that effective and targeted enforcement action is immediately taken to combat the criminal networks operating between India, Nepal and China that are responsible for the trafficking of tiger and leopard skins. There is a wealth of information in India and China on the criminal networks involved and it is essential that these countries share information and work together.

EIA and WPSI spent a lot of time talking to the people who are wearing the skins and it was clear none were aware of the plight of the tiger or that tigers are deliberately killed in another country to supply them with a skin.

Travellers to Tibet in 1995 documented the use of tiger and leopard skins to decorate costumes known as chubas, mostly among the Khampa people from eastern Tibet. Historically however, the wearing of skins was restricted to victorious war commanders, rewarded with a patch of skin by the great Kings of Tibet; it is not traditional for every day Tibetans to wear tiger and leopard skin. It was never traditional to wear the entire skin or great swathes of skin. Tragically, anyone with the affluence is able to wear this illegal product.

Skins are worn at the New Year festivals, weddings and horse festivals; the latter are annual events which provide an opportunity for future husbands and wives to meet each other. Wearing one’s finery is an important way of displaying family wealth and today, the crème de la crème are wearing tiger skin. Targeted and appropriate outreach and education is just as important as effective enforcement.

This trade has been spiralling out of control for five years; each year huge consignments of skins have been seized in India, Nepal and China, many of which have provided evidence indicating the ongoing involvement of Tibetans in the tiger trade. The skin trade has been discussed in detail at CITES meetings since 2000, including at special meetings between key countries in the Tiger Enforcement Task Force.

The governments of India, Nepal and China are perfectly aware of the problem but apart from isolated seizures, no real coordinated and cooperative enforcement action has taken place. Our repeated calls for action have been met with promises on paper, but the tiger can’t cope with any more rhetoric. EIA and WPSI have returned with the most compelling and disturbing images and footage possible, if this doesn’t shock governments into action, what will?

Stop Press:
The government of China is reportedly discussing the re-opening of limited domestic trade in tiger bone from farmed tigers. This would be disastrous for wild tigers. It’s clear that the current poaching levels witnessed in India are fuelled by demand in China and Tibet, where there is no domestic enforcement and no cross-border cooperation.

Legalising trade in captive bred tiger parts provides a means of laundering illegal wild caught tiger parts, which are cheap and clearly easy to obtain. It turns back the clock on ten years of conservation effort and undermines progress in changing attitudes to the use of tiger. It shows total disregard for international conservation opinion, which has consistently argued that for tigers, farming for commercial purposes is not a viable conservation measure.

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