28 January 2008
China encouraged to continue ban on tiger trade
(PTI) The US-based Save the Tiger Fund (STF) called on the Chinese authorities to maintain its 15-year-old moratorium on the trade in tiger parts, warning that lifting the ban would be "disastrous" for the big cats. The trade, whose routes go mainly through Tibet, continues to endanger the existence of the few remaining wild tigers in India and Nepal. STF quoted results from a poll conducted in China and disseminated by the official news agency Xinhua according to which 95 per cent of the population across the country backed the tiger trade ban, imposed in 1993, and 77 per cent said the ban was important for China's image. Almost 95 per cent said they would abstain from the use of tiger products to save the big cats, Xinhua said. "The results (...) present the strikingly clear message that most Chinese people care so much about wild tigers that they are willing to change behaviour that threatens the survival of tigers in the wild", Judy Mills from STF was quoted as saying.