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Nations unite to fight tiger’s burning plight

tiger cub.jpgThe nations that are home to the last wild tigers have pledged to try to double the numbers of the world’s largest* cat and to “significantly expand” its habitat by 2022.

By the time the next year of the tiger rolls round, the 13 countries hope to have some 7,000 Panthera tigris stalking around inside their borders.

The WWF says Russia, India and other nations will cough up some $127 million in new funding to support the ‘Global Tiger Recovery Programme’. The World Bank is also in discussions about providing at least $100 million in loans for habitat protection and reducing the trade in tiger body parts.

“Everybody understands full well that we are talking not just about a concrete representative of the live nature, a tiger, but we are talking about the state-level understanding with which we begin to address the environmental issues,” said Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin (LA Times). “We are thinking not about the next elections but about the next generations.”

Aline Kuehl, a scientist with the Convention on Migratory Species secretariat, says “This really was a milestone achievement. How often does it happen that you get heads of state together at such a level?”

Kuehl does express some regret that there wasn’t more new funding forthcoming. “They will need a whole lot more,” she says.

The United Nations estimates that there are just 3,500 tigers left in the wild today, with three sub-species extinct and the remaining six in a precarious state.

Doubts have also been aired over the existence of one of these six remaining subspecies – the South China Tiger. This has not been observed in the wild since the 1970s and the Sunday Times recently reported that a genetic study of those in captivity suggests they are all crossbreeds (subscription required).

The IUCN’s Red List classifies tigers as ‘endangered’, one stage below ‘critically endangered’, two below ‘extinct in the wild’.

The 13 nations that signed up to the Global Tiger Recovery Programme are India, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Nepal, Russia, Bhutan, China, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Burma, Thailand, and Malaysia.

  • generally considered largest, and no, ‘Hercules’ doesn’t count.

Image: photo by Pavel Sigarteu via Flickr under creative commons.

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