TORONTO - Last year, WWF Russia CEO Igor Chestin wrote to Mr. Putin suggesting that he host the summit. It was a shrewd move. The President's interest in the tiger is well known. In 2008, he accompanied wildlife researchers to Russia's Ussuri Nature Reserve. At one point, a tigress slipped its harness and started toward a stunned television crew. Wearing camouflage and armed with a tranquilizer gun, Mr. Putin fired, immediately sedating the animal – although some observers later suggested the event had been staged to showcase the Russian leader's prowess. A satellite tracking device was placed around the animal's neck and, in the months afterward, visitors to Mr. Putin's website were able to monitor its progress through the Far East.
According to Barney Long, the WWF's tiger program manager, Mr. Putin “really is the champion of all this. He'd been a huge leader in this process.” There are thought to be about 400 Siberian tigers still roaming the forests of Russia, but like their cousins elsewhere on the continent, they are threatened by forest destruction and poachers. Siberian tigers are said to need a minimum roaming territory of 125 square miles.
To meet the goal of doubling tiger populations in the next decade, member nations would need to conserve 1.2 million square kilometres of forest habitat and 115 inviolable breeding areas, covering about 135,000 square kilometres.
But there's an implicit dilemma posed by these goals: The larger the habitat, the more difficult to deter poaching – the single greatest threat to the species.
With that in mind, the 115-year-old, New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society thinks the summit's goals are too broad.
Rather than aiming to save tigers everywhere, and addressing an entire spectrum of threats, domestic and trans-boundary, the WCS says a better strategy would be to focus on maintaining 42 principal sites harbouring 70 per cent of tigers still left in the wild. It calls this “the 6 per cent solution,” since it would effectively ignore 94 per cent of the territory that small numbers of other tigers currently inhabit.
That formula may ensure preservation of tigers, concede World Wildlife Fund officials. But it won't lead to population recovery in significant numbers unless roaming corridors are also expanded. But both sides agree that the sessions in St. Petersburg constitute, in Mr. Baltzer's words, “a watershed moment. If we can't lift the intensity and action with this summit, we never will.”
What’s a tiger worth?
On Asia’s thriving black market, a whole tiger is estimated to be worth about $50,000 (U.S.) – a staggering sum in poverty-gripped regions. With every kill, demand and value rise. Although the UN Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species formally bans commerce in parts and skins, illicit trade continues. Crushed tiger bones, steeped in vats of 38-per-cent-proof rice wine, are used in traditional Chinese medicines, allegedly curing arthritis, rheumatism and conferring sexual potency. In fact, although the World Federation of Chinese Medicine Societies has discouraged the practice, virtually every part of the tiger continues to be used and openly sold.
According to Barney Long, the WWF's tiger program manager, Mr. Putin “really is the champion of all this. He'd been a huge leader in this process.” There are thought to be about 400 Siberian tigers still roaming the forests of Russia, but like their cousins elsewhere on the continent, they are threatened by forest destruction and poachers. Siberian tigers are said to need a minimum roaming territory of 125 square miles.
To meet the goal of doubling tiger populations in the next decade, member nations would need to conserve 1.2 million square kilometres of forest habitat and 115 inviolable breeding areas, covering about 135,000 square kilometres.
But there's an implicit dilemma posed by these goals: The larger the habitat, the more difficult to deter poaching – the single greatest threat to the species.
With that in mind, the 115-year-old, New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society thinks the summit's goals are too broad.
Rather than aiming to save tigers everywhere, and addressing an entire spectrum of threats, domestic and trans-boundary, the WCS says a better strategy would be to focus on maintaining 42 principal sites harbouring 70 per cent of tigers still left in the wild. It calls this “the 6 per cent solution,” since it would effectively ignore 94 per cent of the territory that small numbers of other tigers currently inhabit.
That formula may ensure preservation of tigers, concede World Wildlife Fund officials. But it won't lead to population recovery in significant numbers unless roaming corridors are also expanded. But both sides agree that the sessions in St. Petersburg constitute, in Mr. Baltzer's words, “a watershed moment. If we can't lift the intensity and action with this summit, we never will.”
What’s a tiger worth?
On Asia’s thriving black market, a whole tiger is estimated to be worth about $50,000 (U.S.) – a staggering sum in poverty-gripped regions. With every kill, demand and value rise. Although the UN Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species formally bans commerce in parts and skins, illicit trade continues. Crushed tiger bones, steeped in vats of 38-per-cent-proof rice wine, are used in traditional Chinese medicines, allegedly curing arthritis, rheumatism and conferring sexual potency. In fact, although the World Federation of Chinese Medicine Societies has discouraged the practice, virtually every part of the tiger continues to be used and openly sold.
