[FEL-L] Sell the Tiger to Save It

[BigCatSimba at aol.com]

Just passing some news along hope everyone has a Roaring Grrreat Weekned...

Todd

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By BARUN MITRA
Published: August 15, 2006
New Delhi
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. 
Barun Mitra is the director of Liberty Institute, a research organization 
that promotes free-market economics.
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