Can we really say we've seen any progress since then? I don't mean, have there been seizures of tiger (and other Asian big cat) parts in trade, or have there been promises of money for tiger conservation, or have governments sat around the table swapping stories and signing MoUs. Nope. I don't mean those things, because at EIA we don't believe they are anything other than cosmetic actions.
They're not what we would consider to be indicators of real change. To feel confident that the fortunes of the tiger, and everything it represents, are turning for the better we want to see the following happen:
Unfortunately, that's not what we're seeing right now. In fact, in China - despite Wen Jiabao's promises in St Petersburg - the State Forestry Administration's Wildlife ‘Conservation' Department is positively encouraging trade in farmed tiger and leopard skins through a scheme to register, label and sell them. Only EIA and our friends at the Wildlife Protection Society of India have challenged the Chinese authorities on this. But we are lone voices, our respective governments being too scared to challenge China.
Another indicator of real change would be the actual sharing of nominal intelligence on known and suspected wildlife criminals, instead of governments merely saying they will share it (and this applies to all types of wildlife crime!). Sadly, the CITES Decision calling for governments to send intelligence to INTERPOL for analysis is still unfulfilled, and it remains to be seen if tiger range countries will indeed send senior police and Customs officers to a forthcoming tiger crime meeting in Bangkok.
For every piece of good news, it seems there's always a bit of the bad and the ugly. This month's selection comes not from a tiger consumer country, but the major source country of India. Read the full report here.
Source: Debbie Banks, Lead Campaigner, EIA, Environmental Investigation Agency.
