The fate of tigers lies in the
hands of those attending the 2nd Stocktaking Conference of the Global
Tiger Recovery Programme in Dhaka, Bangladesh, from Sept 13, 2014 till
Tuesday. — Pic courtesy of www.worldwildlife.org
THE
fate of the world’s tiger population lies in the hands of those
attending a conference happening right now in Dhaka, Bangladesh.
Senior
government officials from the 13 tiger range countries — Bangladesh,
Bhutan, China, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar,
Nepal, Russia, Thailand, and Vietnam — are at the 2nd Stocktaking Conference of the Global Tiger Recovery Programme to review the progress towards their joint goal of doubling the number of wild tigers by 2022, known as Tx2.
The meeting,
which opened on Sept 13 and ends on Sept 16, is the next step in the
process which started with the landmark Tiger Summit in 2010, St
Petersburg, which detailed the actions required by governments to
achieve the goal. “We are nearly a third of the way towards Tx2,” says Mike Baltzer, leader, WWF Tigers Alive Initiative. There has been great progress, but many governments still need to do much more if we are going to achieve the goal by 2022.”
The conference is an opportunity for governments to critically examine the progress made to date. The recommendations from this meeting, to be announced on Tuesday, will set the pace for the remaining eight years of the goal. At the
conference, WWF is urging governments to commit to a scheduled
government-led process to maintain political momentum each year until at
least 2022; agree to provide an accurate census of their wild tiger
populations by 2016, the halfway point of the Tx2 goal; and take
immediate action to halt poaching, spearheaded by government support for
the planned Symposium: Towards Zero Poaching Asia.
The conference will see representatives from governments, institutions and non-governmental organisations. The agreed next steps from the conference will be known as the Dhaka Recommendations.
On Global Tiger
Day, earlier this year, WWF called on all countries to count their
tigers so the current estimate — as few as 3,200 — can be updated. Since the last
estimate was agreed in 2010, poaching has reached critical levels and is
the greatest threat to wild tigers today.
Statistics from
Traffic, the wildlife trade monitoring network, show that a minimum of
1,590 tigers were seized between January 2000 and April 2014 — that
represents an average of two per week.
To achieve the
Tx2 goal, governments must halt poaching by professionalising their
anti-poaching efforts and investment in rangers.
WWF and non-governmental organisation partners are preparing to launch a new anti-poaching era at the Symposium: Towards Zero Poaching Asia, to be held possibly as early as December this year.
The aim of the
symposium is to share anti-poaching best practices and discuss a Zero
Poaching plan, which will combat, intensify and accelerate action
against poaching across tiger range countries.
No comments:
Post a Comment