Yangtze > Update
WWF Fights Legalizing Tiger Trade in China
Reversing the domestic trade ban on
tigers will put them at greater risk.
© WWF-Canon/Martin HARVEY
China is considering reversing a domestic trade ban that makes it illegal to sell tigers and their parts. WWF was instrumental in convincing the Chinese government to implement the ban in 1993, which has helped keep the endangered tiger from extinction. WWF is now working with a coalition of other conservation organizations to keep the tiger, and the ban, from going extinct.
A rising middle class in China has resulted in increased demand for tiger skins used for clothing and decoration, and tiger parts used in traditional Chinese medicine. Some Chinese officials want to remove the ban to legalize trade within the country of products from "tiger farms" that breed captive animals, ostensibly as tourist attractions. Conservationists and economists believe reopening the trade would cause a catastrophic increase in killing of wild tigers by giving poachers a legal market through which to launder poached tigers.
"The current wild population of tigers is estimated at about 5,000 and the species cannot afford an increase in poaching," said Sybille Klenzendorf, WWF's director of Species Conservation. "There is no doubt in my mind that if the trade ban is lifted, poaching will increase."
Tiger trade advocates claim that tiger farming will supply all demand at an affordable price and that legal trade in farmed tigers will reduce the poaching of wild ones. Experience shows that adequately supported and enforced bans do work. The trade ban must be kept in place and strengthened with professional law enforcement efforts all along the trade chain, from the forest to the market.
Poaching a tiger will always be less expensive than raising a tiger and, therefore, more lucrative. It costs thousands of dollars a month to keep and feed tigers on farms. It costs $40 at most to poach a tiger. And consumers of tiger parts often prefer wild tiger parts, believing them to be more "powerful" than those from farmed tigers, which are bred to be docile. Poaching, smuggling and illegal trade are often run by organized crime networks with large profit margins, and legalizing trade in products from farmed tigers is likely to create rather than end black market opportunities.
WWF and the tiger coalition have been meeting with government officials in China and in the countries whose wild tigers would suffer from the easing of the trade ban. We are also working with leaders of the traditional Chinese medicine community who have been instrumental in educating consumers and practitioners about alternatives to remedies made from tiger parts. WWF accepts nothing less than a total, international ban on trade of tigers and their parts. Preserving the ban means protecting wild tigers.
