Posted on 04/30/2005 11:01:52 AM PDT by Arjun
Thy Fearful Cemetery
Death decor and catskin fashion in China spurs India's tiger genocide
PRAMILA N. PHATARPHEKAR
There's only one tiger census in India whose numbers are deadly certain. And increasing. These cold facts are born during wildlife seizures, when dead tigers are counted by their skins, skulls, bones, paws, claws and whiskers.
It's a gory toll: over 700 tigers and 2,500 leopards in 1994-2004, as per Wildlife Protection Society of India (WPSI) figures. Last year, over 33 tiger and 114 leopard skins and parts were recovered from wildlife criminals in India. This January, for the first time in Project Tiger's 30-year history, Rajasthan's Sariska has the shameful status of being India's only tiger reserve to lose all its tigers. Now a CBI investigation report (see box alongside) submitted to the prime minister confirms: "At least three organised poacher networks were killing Sariska's tigers and leopards since July 2002." Another overwhelming truth: seizures indicate just one-tenth of India's wildlife crime.
At a time when Project Tiger's online census data is de-activated, two hefty hauls in Delhi, on January 31 and April 6, reveal a new criminal demand for tiger and leopard skins. Both hauls largely consisted of skins. Many were signed in Tibetan. Unlike before, few had bullet marks.
"Every seizure of 30-40 skins means we're minus one national park population."
All are signs of a heinous trans-Himalayan trend, a striped trail that leads from India to China. New evidence shows that Tibet's traditional tiger and leopard trim overcoats are fashionably in, selling openly in Lhasa's bustling Jokhang Square. In
mainland China, death decor is in too, in the mansions of the fiendishly rich, where tiger and leopard skins are splayed out on floors and settees. Undamaged by bullet holes that mar natural stripes and spots. Flaunted for their flawless cut-throat worth, flatly symbolising China's affluent tiger economy status.
India's great cats are Asia's new fashion victims. Slitting open the eyes of the world to this spiralling tiger and leopard skin trafficking, in October 2004, London-based campaigners of the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) made public their report and video: The Tiger Skin Trail. This 15-minute film contains chilling footage of the world's largest ever skin seizure, made on October 6, 2003. Where Chinese customs officials in Lhasa recovered 31 tiger, 581 leopard and 778 otter skins (used for snow and sleet-proof overcoats). The source of origin? Undoubtedly India. Proven by Hrithik Roshan's smiling face on a Delhi newspaper used as wrapping. This haul alone, then worth $1.2 million, represented the erasure of 1 per cent of India's wild tigers.
Documenting the escalating volumes of the India-China skin trade in the last five years, EIA's report has red alert flags flying. The tiger is a flagship species of the UN Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species and Fauna (CITES). And the CITES Tiger Enforcement Task Force is being convened in Delhi on May 17, 2005, "to examine in particular the illicit trade of Asian big cat skins". Here enforcement officers from India, Nepal and China will exchange intelligence and plan action. At the ongoing UN Crime Congress in Bangkok, Asia's wildlife crime is being discussed for the first time.
Ending what were garbled Chinese whispers till now, EIA's detailed 21-page report identifies India, Nepal and China as source, transit and destination countries for tiger and leopard skins. Says Debbie Banks, senior campaigner, EIA: "We were shocked at how eager traders (in Lhasa) were to sell whole leopard skins to us as home decor. Describing how easily it folds since the skins were so well-tanned that they fit between clothes in your suitcase and can't be picked up by x-ray." In the film, a trader describes his wealthy Chinese clientele who prefer more expensive tiger skins as floor rugs and sofa drapes.
Macabre killing methods (see To Kill A Great Cat) provide clinching clues about skin trafficking by kingpins from Delhi to Beijing.
"Our data is sporadic, depending on good officers, it also cannot reflect skins sourced from India when seized in Nepal, Tibet and China," says Belinda Wright, executive director, WPSI. This ngo, known for its formidable intelligence network (see route map above) and scientific wildlife crime database, has spent a decade tracking dead tigers by their trail. After tribals or locals living near reserves are tempted in tiger killing, consignments of Panthera tigris and Panthera pardus skins are dispatched to north India's tanneries, scribbled with signatures to avoid cheating. Deliveries then go from Delhi via Kathmandu to Tibet, the trade hub.
Current figures show the leopard-tiger trade ratio is about 5:1. A senior government official points out: "It's time we woke up to leopard plunder. As we're running out of tigers, leopards are under serious threat." With tiger scarcity, leopard skins and parts are the closest substitute.
James Harkness of WWF China, whose territory includes the Tibet Autonomous Region, says defensively: "There is genuine commitment to protect wildlife, but in poorer parts of the country there is more corruption, like in Tibet, the entry point for most of the illegal trade." The obvious solution, he says, is "strengthening border enforcement in Tibet, which is a priority for the Chinese government".
To neutralise the Tibetan threat, the Wildlife Trust of India (WTI) has just adopted a softer approach. This month, they and other conservation organisations coopted the Dalai Lama into the campaign to stop wildlife trade. Says Ashok Kumar, senior advisor, WTI, "Enforcement is not working. Some Tibetans in India are engaged in this trade, others out of loyalty don't rat on them. This spiritual appeal might work." On April 6, in Delhi, the Dalai Lama addressed Tibetan community leaders, professionals and students invoking the mahakaruna of Tibetan Buddhists.
While ayurvedic medicines are mainly derived from plants and herbs, traditional Chinese medicine specifies use of tiger parts. In the '70s, while India created Project Tiger and the Wildlife Protection Act to save Panthera tigris, China, in the throes of its its Cultural Revolution, was destroying tigers. "They were perceived as a sign of the decadent feudal order and a threat to agriculture," says environmental historian Mahesh Rangarajan. Besides, there's little demand for tiger skins in India other than from tantric sadhus. Finally, China only has about 50 wild tigers while India is home to half of the world's wild tigers.
India was hit by tiger demand in the mid-'80s after China ran out of the tiger in the '70s. Says Wright, "India's tiger cemeteries were being dug up in the '80s. It was a huge 400-kg tiger bone haul in the '90s that blew the lid off the trade." China banned tiger bone trade in '96. But the trade just went underground, using established routes and Tibetan traders. That bone transfer still continues.
What's new is the volume of skin being trafficked. A changing Tibet has brought changed demand. "Mercedes and BMWs are cruising the streets of Lhasa, as prosperous people with disposable incomes move in, and as traditional festivals designed to entertain increasing tourist inflow require costumes designed with tiger skins," according to EIA's sources. Which means every time a tiger goes missing in India, perhaps a tailor gets busy in Tibet.
Detailing the impact of these big tiger and leopard skin hauls, senior wildlife biologist Raghunandan Singh Chundawat says, "Every seizure of 30-40 skins means we're minus one national park population." Using science and field realities, he says most of India's tigers are divided into tiny populations. Right now, extinction processes are acting on all these populations simultaneously.
Indian priorities depend on how we count tigers. As live or dead.Valmik Thapar, member of the PM's recently formed Tiger Task Force, accuses Indian officials of denying poaching and "waving pugmarks like fishmongers".
"If India is a key supply source then it's our duty to cut off supply," asserts senior ecologist Ulhas Karanth of the Wildlife Conservation Society. The only scientifically robust way to monitor key tiger breeding populations is with camera traps sampling. Says Karanth, "Camera trap photos are also valuable forensic tools, which can be used when skin seizures take place. So, authorities can trace the origin of poached tigers and fix protection failures."
Till 2002, the global agency conducting research on wildlife trade originating in India was TRAFFIC. The largest international monitoring body, its India office opened in 1991—spurring seizures of everything from turtles to tigers. In 2002, TRAFFIC Delhi was wound down to reopen as TRAFFIC South Asia's regional office. But due to bizarre politics, this office has just opened in Colombo, Sri Lanka. A country out of the illicit trade loop.
Says Kumar, former founder-director, TRAFFIC India, "With TRAFFIC moving out of India, the advantage will only be to the wildlife traders." Wright asserts wildlife crime is most acute in India: "So TRAFFIC can't be effective from Sri Lanka." Only WWF India's Ravi Singh is optimistic. Since TRAFFIC is run through WWF, he believes they'll open offices in Delhi and the field. Question is: How soon?
The need of the minute is cross-border communication and specialised enforcement units with powers to combat transnational criminal networks. China is feared by every other country for its chicanery. "But EIA's experience is that it acts when given information," says Banks.
On our part, Thapar warns: "We have to move fast, before the monsoon, when it's poaching prime-time." There is new hope. Eleven MPs, led by Jyotiraditya Scindia, have set up the Tiger and Wilderness Watch, committed to preventing poaching by increasing patrolling and other measures. The CITES Tiger Task Force meeting on May 17 will provide intelligence reports to China's enforcement authorities. Hopefully, they'll swoop down upon wildlife criminals in Tibet, Qinghai and Xinjiang. For none of China's cutprice manufacturers can ever recreate the magnificence of India's wild leopards and tigers.
Pramila N. Phatarphekar with Pallavi Aiyar in Beijing
It's sad when you have all the animal rights people over here concerned about people drinking milk or calling themselves pet "owners." There are real problems they could be worried about.
Not a word in the article about the official Chinese attitude toward curtailing this trade or catching and punishing the criminals (including the wealthy buyers). Gee, I wonder what it is??
However, what can be expected from a government that either cannot or will not enforce international copyright laws and cannot be relied on to honor its own signature on WMD nonproliferation treaties?
Jai Hind!
India was hit by tiger demand in the mid-'80s after China ran out of the tiger in the '70s. Says Wright, "India's tiger cemeteries were being dug up in the '80s. It was a huge 400-kg tiger bone haul in the '90s that blew the lid off the trade." China banned tiger bone trade in '96. But the trade just went underground, using established routes and Tibetan traders. That bone transfer still continues.
Who are we to judge? After all, all cultures are equal - with the possible exception of American values being worth less than all others. Why are we trying to apply western standards?
Hmmm, we already have game ranching (here and until recently in Zimbabwe) and alligator and crocodile ranching (Australia). I wonder as to the possibilities of tiger "ranching." I do know that gator and croc farming fatally undercut poaching more effectively than any amount of enforcement and that the White Rhino was similarly saved.
Chest pounding is a symptom of insanity. The only cultures and societies where "concern" for wildlife has any meaning at all are those which are advanced beyond the "barest necessities of life stage", and have the excess energy and capital to afford the luxury.
Unfortunately, tigers live pretty much exclusively in the other kind.
Ducks and cows will never be extinct because there are economic reasons for keeping them around. The best way to keep tigers, lions, elephants alive is to find economic uses for them.
Give the Indians a break, man. They gotta have more room for Dell installations and buildings.
Maybe the Indian goverment should try to implement tactics that have been successful elsewhere (at times too successful).
For example in South Africa and Kenya more rangers were added, with all of them being given military training. And on top of this orders were given to shoot poachers on sight. No need to try and arrest them. And furthermore the more specialized military units would train by going into the bush after poachers. The result was that the elephant and rhino populations soared as poaching virtually dropped to nil in those 2 countries, to the effect that at times elephant culling has to be done to reduce the numbers (elephants can do bloody murder to trees if they are too many).
Thus maybe the Indian special forces need to go for jungle training in these regions?
Antoher thing would be to link prosperity with the animals for the local villagers. If the tigers are worth more to the locals alive than as powdered bone sold as bush-viagra to Chinese a thousand miles away, maybe that will stem the flow of poaching. This has also been done to great success when tourist revenues started going to the locals in places where rhino lived. Once the locals saw money flowing in, plus goverment development, they actually started looking out for the rhinos (and some poachers got a very bad welcoming party .....one that they did not exactly survive to talk about). Thus if it has worked elsewhere it should also work in India.
And then there is the tactic that the Indians themselves have used in the Gir forest. That is the only place where Indian/Asiatic lions live. The Indian (Gir) lion is a sub-species (some say seperate specis) from the African, and it only lives in the Gir forest in India. Due to their extremely small nnumbers the Indian goverment assigned rangers to basically guard the lions 24/7. At the beginning on the 20th century there were only 20 Asiatic lions left in the forest (and the world). However once the protection started the number soared to the (relatively large) number of 300. Three hundred lions is far better than twenty.
And this can be put in stark comparison to the situation in Indian 'Tiger project'parks, where there are generally around 35-40 tigers. Thus the Lion protection project worked so well that a person has a much better chance of seeing a lion in the wild in India than to see a tiger in the wild!
But probably the best stratagem would be to implement all of the above. Implement a scorched earth policy against the poachers, and at the same time link economic prosperity and tiger care in the local mindset, and furthermore make tiger protection more airtight. And every now and then the Indian military can go match their wits (and guns) with the poachers.
If they do not then the Bengal will be facing the same dire situation as the Sumatran tiger, and once the tigers are gone leopards will be next. If they don't watch out tigers will disappear, and leopards will only be found in (large populations) in Africa.
The question is not of which strategy is better. This is a political problem. One of neglect towards wildlife preservation. As with other things.. when the sh*t hits the fan , the politicians will take notice and some serious actions will be taken. Someone famous needs to uplift the cause and put pressure on the govt which is napping as usual.
I imagine that tigers, as large solitary predators, would present significant difficulties for any "rancher." An interesting idea though... Another problem is that I'm not sure there is a source population large enough now to breed a commercial stock sufficient to meet demand.
"I imagine that tigers, as large solitary predators, would present significant difficulties for any "rancher." An interesting idea though... Another problem is that I'm not sure there is a source population large enough now to breed a commercial stock sufficient to meet demand."
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That all depends on how ideal you want to get. Judging by the headlines in the NYPost you would think there are more tigers in Brooklyn apartments and Beverly Hills backyards than in all of India.
"Judging by the headlines in the NYPost ........"
Paper tigers?
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