A UN body rejects China's proposal to lift a 14-year-old domestic ban to allow trade of tigers parts fearing it would lead to extinction of the big cats, reports Chetan Chauhan.
A United Nations body on Wednesday rejected China's proposal to lift a 14-year-old domestic ban to allow trade of tigers parts fearing it would lead to extinction of the big cats.
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"Tigers should not be bred for trade in their parts or derivates," said a document approved by the 171-nation UN Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) on Wednesday.
India was in the forefront opposing China's move and said it could lead to unintentional impetus to smuggling of tiger body parts.
Indian delegation led by the Minister of State for Environment and Forest Namo Narian Meena told CITES that India oppose any move to lift the ban on trade in tiger body parts. China had told CITES last week that it would allow trade in parts from captive-bred tigers after a scientific review approval, adding that it would reduce poaching and will improve stocks of wild tigers worldwide.
China has 5,000 tigers in farms and just about 30 in wild. Business houses run most of the tiger farms in China. Tiger body parts were used in traditional Chinese medicine before a ban was imposed in 1993.
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India's support — which has largest tiger population in the wild - is crucial for China to obtain approval for its proposal. "The minister will appeal to the international community to support the ban on trade of organs of tigers," said the environment ministry.
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India's support — which has largest tiger population in the wild - is crucial for China to obtain approval for its proposal. "The minister will appeal to the international community to support the ban on trade of organs of tigers," said the environment ministry.
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Indian government officials believe that lifting the ban for China will encourage smuggling of tiger body parts and will adversely impact tiger population in countries like India.
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.
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