The Hindu : New Delhi News : Three Indian species in danger

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, May 17, 2007
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New Delhi

Three Indian species in danger

Staff Reporter

`Most threatened by trade'

NEW DELHI: Ahead of a global meeting on wildlife trade in The Netherlands next month, the World Wide Fund for Nature-International on Wednesday released a list of the world's top ten species most threatened by illegal trade. Three of them - the tiger, the Asian rhinoceros and the elephant -- are from India.

Others on the list include porbeagle, spiny dogfish, sawfish, red and pink coral, European eel, great apes and bigleaf mahogany.

Urging immediate global action to reduce the threat from trade, WWF-India Chief Executive Officer Ravi Singh said: "Nothing will change unless governments take trade and its impact on conservation and local people's livelihoods seriously."

The list has been released ahead of the 14th Conference of Parties to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) due from June 3 to 15 in The Hague where delegates from 171 countries are expected to meet.

"Some of the species on WWF's top ten priority list are among the most endangered. For example, the tiger, the elephant and the Asian rhino have required constant and urgent action over the past decades, because of the ever-present, pervasive threats to their survival, including poaching and illegal trade. Others, particularly marine species, are on the list because their populations have declined massively in recent years," said Mr. Singh.

WWF-India Species Conservation Programme Director Sujoy Banerjee said: "Poaching is one of the main contributors for the decline in the population of tigers. Curbing poaching will remain an arduous task as long as there is a market for the skin, bones and other body parts in the international market. Lifting of the domestic ban on trade in tiger and its derivatives by the Chinese Government will only serve to fuel the market for tiger parts, which is currently on the decline. This, in turn, will only encourage poaching of tigers from the wild. At a time when the tigers are under tremendous threats, if the ban on domestic trade in tiger parts is lifted by China, it will certainly sound the death knell for the tigers in India."

Also an international coalition of 35 organisations has expressed deep concern over China's intentions of lifting this domestic ban. In a joint statement on Wednesday, the coalition expressed hope that the Indian Government would strongly urge China to keep this ban in place to secure a future for India's tigers.

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