Yahoo – AFP,
14 Sep 2014
The wild
tiger population has declined to just 3,200 in 2010 from 100,000 a
century ago,
according to wildlife conservationists (AFP Photo)
|
Dhaka (AFP)
- Some 140 tiger experts and government officials from 20 countries met in the
Bangladeshi capital Dhaka on Sunday to review progress towards an ambitious
goal of doubling their number in the wild by 2022.
The
nations, including the 13 where tigers are still found in the wild, had vowed
at a landmark meeting in 2010 in the Russian city of St Petersburg to double
the population of critically endangered wild tigers.
Experts say
the number declined to as few as 3,200 in 2010 from 100,000 only a century ago.
But since then, poaching has reached critical levels and has emerged as the
greatest threat to wild tigers.
Bangladesh
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina
addresses the Global Tiger Recovery
Programme (GTRP) in Dhaka, on Sep 14,
2014 (AFP Photo)
|
Officials,
however, listed some progress in the four years since the St Petersburg summit,
including a rise in the wild tiger population in major "tiger range"
nations -- countries where the big cats are found in the wild.
"There
has been some increase in the number of tigers in significant countries such as
India, Nepal and Russia," said Andrey Kushlin, programme manager of the
Global Tiger Initiative.
Bangladesh
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina opened the conference, saying efforts to conserve
the wild cats have reached a "turning point".
But her own
government has been under fire from experts at home and abroad for setting up a
giant coal-fired power plant on the edge of the Sundarbans mangrove forests,
home to one of the largest tiger populations.
Local
experts fear the 1,320-megawatt power plant now being built will pollute the
water of the world's largest mangrove forest, jeopardising its delicate
biodiversity and threatening the tiger population.
Bangladesh
says some 440 Bengal tigers live in its part of the Sundarbans -- a figure
disputed by local experts who say the number will be less than 200.
Kushlin
said at the conference the 13 range nations are expected to agree by 2016 to
provide an accurate census of their wild tiger populations.
"We
need accurate figures so that we know where we stand," said Kushlin, who
also works for the World Bank.
The 13
tiger range countries are: Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, Cambodia, India,
Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Russia, Thailand and Vietnam.
The
International Union for the Conservation of Nature has listed the tiger as
critically endangered. Poaching, encroachment on its habitat and the illegal
wildlife trade are blamed for the declining number.
The
conference will end Tuesday with the adoption of a Dhaka Declaration, which
will set actions for the remaining eight years of the goal.
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