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Tibet
and Tigers
When
the Indian government pioneered tiger conservation by
launching Project Tiger in 1973, no one could have dreamt
that the fate of India’s tigers was likely to rest in
Tibet. On the Roof of the World, Tibet had been a closed
country for centuries. Then, in the early 1950s the
Chinese Communist government sent troops to take over
Tibet; China had long claimed it was part of its territory,
despite its inability to rule it. Faced with Chinese
power the Tibetans were helpless, and the rest of the
world only expressed its concern.
Concern
was particularly strong in neighbouring India, which
had had ties with Tibet, and found it no longer had
a buffer against China. A diplomatic battle arose over
the validity of India’s frontier with Tibet, which stretches
3,000 km from Kashmir to the frontier with Myanmar.
It erupted into war in 1962, in which the Chinese army
quickly defeated the Indian forces. The dispute has
simmered ever since, despite diplomatic negotiations.
In
1959, the Dalai Lama, the revered spiritual leader of
Tibet, fled to exile in India, and thousands of Tibetans
followed him, settling in India and Nepal, close to
the frontier with Tibet. That rugged frontier through
the highest mountains in the world was impossible to
police effectively, and exiled Tibetans maintained contact
with those who had stayed. To the annoyance of the Chinese,
the Dalai Lama, living close to the frontier, retained
his authority over most Tibetans. That annoyance is
now threatening India’s tigers as the Chinese seek to
combat the Dalai Lama’s efforts to end the Tibetan trade.
In
the mid-1980s, suspicion arose that India’s tigers were
being poached to provide bones for traditional Chinese
medicine. Vivid proof came in 1993 when 400 kg of bones
were found in a part of Delhi where Tibetans had settled.
They were destined for China via Tibet. In following
years more seizures of bones occurred both in India
and Nepal. Curiously, skins, which had long been smuggled
out of India to many parts of the world, were often
discarded by the poachers when they collected the bones.
With
the turn of the century, however, seizures showed that
skins were once more in demand, although it was not
clear exactly where they were going. Leopards were now
also under pressure, with up to 10 skins being seized
for every tiger skin. Hundreds of otter skins were also
found. Truckloads of professionally-treated skins have
been found en route for Nepal and points near the Indian
frontier from which they were being shipped to Tibet.
Similar seizures by Chinese police occurred in Tibet
itself of shipments enroute to China. Signatures of
Tibetans known to be active in India, but evading arrest,
were on the skins.
In
2002 the British-based NGO Environmental Investigation
Agency (EIA) published a report which revealed the extent
of the trade (Cat News 41 p.21). But it was in 2005
that photographs of Tibetans draped in tiger and leopard
skins at horse fairs showed the full extent (Cat News
43, p.12), and that when India was already gripped in
a crisis over missing tigers.
The
Dalai Lama had several times deplored Tibetan involvement
in wildlife trade since the bone seizure in 1993, but
without much apparent effect. After the dramatic photos
he addressed a religious meeting in India, which was
attended by thousands of Tibetans, many from Tibet,
calling on them to “never use, sell, or buy wild animals,
their products or derivatives”. Tibetans started to
burn tiger and leopard skins. This alarmed the Chinese
authorities who saw the power the Dalai Lama still held
over his people in Tibet.
Although
the Chinese had announced collaboration with western
NGOS to publish posters condemning the illegal trade,
they sent troops in to stop the burning. Nevertheless,
reports indicate that skin burning still occurs.
And
now two Chinese government authorities, the Information
Centre and United Front Department, have ordered TV
presenters in Amdo, where skin burning started, to wear
animal skins when presenting the news, and provided
funds for them to buy skins. It appears to be an attempt
to combat the Dalai Lama’s influence.
China
has proclaimed that it is cracking down on illegal trade,
but now seems to be acting in a manner that could encourage
it for wider political reasons. This could turn tigers
and leopards into pawns, and threaten the majority of
the world’s last tigers, which are in the Indian subcontinent.
Peter
Jackson
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