[FEL-L] tiger farms in China

[Gary Breuckman]

China Pressed to Rein in Tiger Farms
By ARTHUR MAX, Associated Press Writer

Wednesday, June 13, 2007

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(06-13) 11:17 PDT THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) --

The body regulating wildlife trade told China on Wednesday it should
stop breeding tigers for traditional medicine, but failed to reach an
agreement on whether to loosen a global ban on ivory sales.

Conservationists hailed the tiger decision as a powerful message to
dismantle farms in China, where nearly the same number of tigers are
bred in captivity as the 5,500 remaining in the wild.

The debates on tigers and elephants have overshadowed a score of
other issues at the two-week meeting of the 171-nation Convention on
International Trade in Endangered Species, or CITES, which regulates
the trade in 35,000 kinds of plants and animals.

China shut down the domestic trade in tiger parts in 1993, imposing
stiff sentences on offenders and ordering pharmacies to empty their
shelves of tiger medications believed to cure ailments from
convulsions to skin disease and to increase sexual potency.

The successful program helped stem a catastrophic wave of killing
across Asia, where wild tigers face extinction, though poaching
continues to feed a black market.

But China, now more sympathetic to private enterprise than 14 years
ago, has come under intense pressure from influential businessmen to
allow farm-bred tiger products back onto the market. The first tiger
farms started before the ban, but others sprang up afterward because
speculators thought it would be temporary.

Farm owners say legal products would help eliminate the illicit
trade, and that revenues could go toward conservation projects.
Environmentalists say it would stimulate smuggling.

"A legal market in China for products made from farmed tigers would
increase demand and allow criminals to launder products made from
tigers poached from the wild," said Steven Broad, head of the
international monitoring group TRAFFIC.

Chinese delegate Wang Weisheng told the triennial CITES meeting that
Beijing has no immediate plans to lift its ban, "unless it can be
demonstrated to have a positive effect on conservation of wild tigers
internationally."

During debate on a tiger statement, it became increasingly
unambiguous as the United States and others introduced amendments
sharpening the language.

"Parties with intensive operations breeding tigers on a commercial
scale shall implement measures to restrict the captive population to
a level supportive only to conserving tigers," said the key
paragraph. "Tigers should not be bred for trade in their parts and
derivatives."

It was supported by every country with wild tiger populations -
India, Bhutan, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Russia and Nepal.

"This is very gratifying because CITES is talking about not just
international trade but domestic trade," said Susan Lieberman of the
World Wildlife Fund for Nature. "This is a strong message that we
hope China will take back."

While the conference rallied to defend the tiger, African nations
squabbled over their elephant populations, and whether to ease the
ban on the ivory trade.

After three weeks of private talks, a vote by a key CITES committee
was postponed three times in the hope the Africans could reach a
consensus.

"We still need time to come to a conclusive agreement," Zimbabwe
Environment Minister Francis Nhema told the conference.

"We are in the right direction. We feel confident. We are almost
there," he said after two days of nearly round-the-clock
negotiations.

The arguments for and against selling legal ivory follow much the
same lines as for the tiger trade. But unlike tigers, some African
elephant populations have rebounded due to careful management by
conservation agencies.

The southern African countries were pushing to reopen a window of
trade that CITES closed in 1989 when it banned all international
trade in ivory. If allowed to sell government stockpiles, they
pledged to earmark revenues for conservation, arguing that sales
would benefit wildlife and the people who live close to the animals.

Critics say softening the ban will encourage an already booming
illegal ivory trade.