IUCN / SSC Cat Specialist Group - Digital Cat Library |
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| t'Sas-Rolfes, M. | |
| Tigers, economics, and the regulation of trade | |
| 2010 Book Chapter | |
In July 2007 I attended, along with 70 other delegates, an international workshop convened by China's Department of Wildlife Conservation to discuss future tiger conservation strategies, with a specific focus on trade and farming issues. At this workshop Chinese officials, academics, and interest groups presented evidence to suggest that the tiger farming proposal requires serious consideration by conservationists. The workshop delegation included six economists, indicating China's recognition that conservation policy requires input outside of the biological sciences and traditional bureaucracy. Most Western conservationists still espouse conventional approaches toward tiger conservation and their attitudes are reflected in popular media coverage of debates on tiger farming. Such coverage typically favors arguments that oppose farming, but most of these are overly simplistic, misinformed, and ignorant of the exact nature of the threat posed by trade and how to address it. To date, economists have played a limited role in informing this debate. Coupled with careful consideration and analysis of all relevant facts, I believe that the discipline of economics has a lot more to contribute to understanding the plight of wild tigers, thereby indicating possible avenues to improve conservation efforts. In this chapter I therefore address tiger conservation as an economic problem, with a specific focus on the role of commercial trade in tiger products. |
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