tiger trade

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From another list.

 

INTELLIGENCE PANEL: OK for tiger export deemed 'an offence'

 

Published on May 4, 2004

 

Plodprasop backed plan for financial gain, subcommittee alleges

 

A National Intelligence Agency (NIA) subcommittee has ruled

unanimously that Natural Resource and Environment Ministry permanent

secretary Plodprasop Suraswadi committed a serious offence by

approving the export of 100 tigers to China in 2002 for commercial

use, a source said yesterday.

 

The subcommittee headed by NIA chief Pol Lt-General Jumpol Manmai

reached the ruling last Thursday after gathering evidence from those

involved in the shipments of 100 tigers to China in December 2002.

 

The panel said that documents submitted by Sri Racha Tiger Zoo Co Ltd

failed to prove that they exported tigers for breeding purposes, with

no business gain involved.

 

In accordance to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered

Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), the committee said the

company must prove that it did not gain as a business from the export

of 100 Bengal tigers to Sanya Maitree Concept Co Ltd of China.

 

" The company's evidence was insufficient to prove that the export was

for breeding purposes. Thus government officials involved in approving

the tiger export are guilty of malfeasance for conspiring with the

company for wrongful approval [the export tiger],'' the source

alleged.

 

Apart from Plodprasop, Manop Lohprasert, the Forestry Department's

CITES office chief, and MR Bhadharajaya Rajani, deputy

director-general of the Royal Forestry Department, were also accused

of malfeasance for involvement in approving export of the tigers.

 

Plodprasop, then Forestry Department director-general, claimed that

section 26 of the Endangered Species Act of 1992, stipulates that it

is legitimate to export to public zoos wildlife for the purposes of

surveying, research, conservation and breeding.

 

He threatened to file a legal suit against those that accused him of

approving the transfer of tigers was for personal gain.

 

Deputy prime minister Suwit Khunkitti then appointed the NIA to

investigate the allegation after both the Senate and the Lower House

probed the tiger-purchase deal and concluded that Plodprasop had

violated the law in approving the tigers' export for non-research

purposes.

 

The House committee on wildlife protection in December last year

visited Hainan and found that Sanya Maitri Concept Co Ltd bought the

100 Bengal tigers from the privately run Sri Racha Tiger Zoo for

Bt100,000 each to keep and show in a zoo with admission fees.

 

Maitree Temsiriphong, chairman of Sri Racha Tiger Zoo Co Ltd had said

his company and the governor of Hainan in China jointly established

Sanya Maitree Concept Co Ltd hoping to build the world's biggest

tiger-breeding centre in Hainan.

 

Besides tigers from Thailand, he said tigers from Indonesia, Germany

and the United States were also sent to China for the same purpose.

http://nationmultimedia.com/page.news.php3?clid=3 & id=113054 & usrsess=1

 

Lynette Shanley

Animal Defenders

Primates for Primates

Wild Cats Plus