Guest guest Posted September 8, 2002 Report Share Posted September 8, 2002 09/06/2002 Environment News Service © 2002 Environment News Service(ENS). All rights reserved. LONDON, UK, September 6, 2002 (ENS) - A special mission from the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) traveled to Thailand this week to examine the growing number wildlife criminals. Despite being a signatory to CITES which bans trade in tiger parts and derivatives, Thailand is still a haven for wildlife criminals. " Thailand's Tiger Economy, " a new report by the London based Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), reveals the extent to which enforcement authorities are turning a blind eye to illegal trade in tigers and tiger parts. " Our investigators were shocked to discover how easy it was to find tiger products being manufactured and sold in Bangkok, " said Debbie Banks of EIA. " We were also informed by a Thai tiger breeder that he believes between 100 to 200 live tiger cubs are smuggled from Thailand to China each year from the many illegal tiger breeding facilities operating throughout Thailand. If an NGO can get hold of that kind of information, it begs the question, what are the enforcement authorities doing? " The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), which administers CITES, held a special workshop for high level judges in late August, just before the World Summit on Sustainable Development, to increase awareness among the judiciary of the need to escalate the prosecution of environmental crime. " EIA welcomes the dispatch of the special CITES Mission to Thailand, " said Banks. " If the government there is truly committed to CITES and good environmental governance, we can look forward to some decisive action to strengthen legislation and ensure its effective enforcement. " The CITES Secretariat will prepare a report on trade and conservation of tigers, including an account of the Thai mission, as a submission to the 12th Conference of the Parties to CITES to be held in Chile this November. The world's tiger population has plummeted, during the last 100 years, down by 95 percent from an estimated 100,000 to fewer than 6,000 today. Tigers are threatened by illegal trade of their skins, bones and other body parts as luxury items and for use in Asian traditional medicines. The destruction of the forests that tigers depend upon is also a major threat, along with the decline in the tigers' natural prey species due to poaching and habitat loss. © Environment News Service (ENS) 2002. . http://ens-news.com Folder Name: Asia Conservation Tiger Relevance Score on Scale of 100: 99 ____________________ To review or revise your folder, visit http://www.djinteractive.com or contact Dow Jones Customer Service by e-mail at custom.news or by phone at 800-369-7466. (Outside the U.S. and Canada, call 609-452-1511 or contact your local sales representative.) ____________________ Copyright © 2002 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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