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China may lift ban on domestic tiger trade

Pallavi Aiyar

Beijing: China on Tuesday announced that it would eventually lift its 14-year-old ban on the domestic trade of tiger parts according to state media. “The ban won’t be there forever, given the strong voices from tiger farmers, experts and society,” said Wang Wei, deputy director of the Department of Wildlife Conservation of the State Forestry Administration (SFA) according to the China Daily newspaper.

This statement comes only a few days after a resolution was passed by a conference of parties to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) at The Hague, which analysts in India claimed left no scope for China to trade in farmed tiger parts.

According to the resolution, to which China was a signatory, “Tigers should not be bred for trade in their parts and derivatives.”

Dr. Xu Hongfa, China Director of TRAFFIC, the wildlife trade monitoring network, said in an interview to The Hindu that China’s statement had created a “strange situation”. “I am surprised they made such a st rong statement so soon after the CITES resolution. They probably want to send a strong signal to the international community about their determination to keep their options open,” he said.

According to Barun Mitra, director of the New-Delhi based Liberty Institute and a leading proponent of the legalisation of tiger trade, if after reviewing evidence and opinions,

China were to decide on a limited opening of trade in tigers for its domestic market, it could do so completely within the CITES mandate. “The CITES provisions don’t apply to domestic regulations only to international trade,” he argues.

Though China banned the domestic trade of tiger parts in 1993, it has one of the world’s largest captive tiger breeding programmes, currently numbering around 5,000 animals.

As recently as Monday this week the country’s tiger breeding centre in the northeastern city of Harbin announced the birth of 84 Siberian tigers — amongst the world’s rarest type — since March of this year.

Officials from the SFA estimate that given a free hand China could breed 1,00,000 captive tigers over the next 10 to 15 years.

However, less than 50 wild tigers are thought to exist in the country.

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