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SAVE WILD TIGERS MAKING A DIFFERENCE IN INDIA

Save Wild Tigers are proud to have supported the Satpuda landscape Tiger programme (SLTP) (one of the largest tiger conservation schemes in the world!), in central India over the past 5 years.

Around 400 Wild tigers roam across 7 interconnected Tiger reserves, including- Kanha, Melghat, Pench, Saptuda-Bori, Tadoba-Andhari and Navegaon-Nagzira. The Satpuda scheme is a critical and extremely effective conservation programme that we want to share some more facts about.

Established by Born Free & WildCru (Oxford university) 10 years ago, the programme is run by local independent NGO`s on the ground including- TRACT, CAT, Corbett foundation, Bombay Natural History society, Satpuda foundation and the NCSA. This has been a great example & model of how partners can work side by side to maximise the ultimate goal of ensuring the wild Tiger not only survives, but thrives.

Save Wild Tigers will be posting specific details of our involvement, results & plans for the future over the next few months-- so stay posted!!

Photo compliments of Roger Hooper- photographed in Pench Tiger reserve

“BE INSPIRED”

Save Wild Tigers announce the biggest tiger event in Europe this year; our exciting 2015 Gala dinner - to be held at the iconic SAVOY Hotel London on Friday 9^th October.

“This will be our most spectacular evening yet - a night not to be missed!” (Simon Clinton, Founder of SWT)

This event follows the hugely successful Save Wild Tigers Gala dinner in Malaysia last October with the Malaysian Royal Family, and our last London Gala event at the St Pancras Renaissance hotel in 2013.

Join us for this magnificent evening which includes a special drinks reception followed by a stunning dinner, inspiring entertainment, tiger themed art and a few surprises!

Tickets now on sale @£275 per ticket (tables of 10 available).

To reserve your tickets please email inspire@savewildtigers.org

For more details please give us a call on +44 (0) 1628 498492

All profits from this event will go to our Save Wild Tiger initiative projects run by the Environmental Investigation Agency and the Born Free Foundation.

LOAS SIN CITY IS AN ILLEGAL WILDLIFE TRADE SUPERMARKET FOR VISITING CHINESE TOURISTS

Save Wild Tigers are proud to be associated in part funding this great piece of work by Debbie and the EIA team.

In 'Sin City: Illegal Wildlife Trade in Laos’ Special Economic Zone', the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) documents how the Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone (GT SEZ) in Bokeo Province has effectively become a lawless playground.

The complex comprises a casino, hotel, shops, restaurants, a shooting range and massage parlours, and visitors can openly buy endangered species products including tigers, leopards, elephants, rhinos, pangolins, helmeted hornbills, snakes and bears – smuggled in from Asia and Africa.

Do try and read this - http://eia-international.org/reports/sin-city-illegal-wildlife-trade-in-laos-special-economic-zone - it once again reminds us why we must act.

CAN WE LEARN FROM HISTORY? WHY WE NEED CHINA TO SAVE THE DAY...

The poaching of tigers is unfortunately not a new or recent phenomenon, wild tigers have been targeted and hunted for prestige and trophies dating back as far as the 16th century.

Historically, tigers have been hunted on foot, elephant and horseback. In India, Mughal emperors had a passion for big game hunting, and royal hunting, or shikar, was carried out until the dynasty fell in 1857. Paintings also depict the Mongol, Turk, & Afghan nobility hunting tigers but the British Raj were perhaps the worst offenders with large numbers of colonial aristocrats using sophisticated firearms which, coupled with habitat loss, significantly reduced India’s tiger population. For example, King George V boasted killing 39 tigers in 10 days in Nepal after ascending the throne in 1911 and it’s estimated over 80,000 wild tigers were slaughtered in the 50 years between 1875 and 1925 alone.

So we have moved from around 150,000 wild tigers globally in 1900 to as few as 3,200 in the wild today. Now, poaching led by demand from China is today’s biggest driver of their current demise. However, unlike 200 years ago, this time there is no going back. Numbers are now at a critical level. So, after two million years with tigers roaming this planet, we are at the 11th hour. Critical countries like China have the chance to change the tiger’s current trajectory. Will they step up to the challenge? Let’s help everyone make the right decision.

SHUT IT DOWN - A note from Save Wild Tigers founder, Simon Clinton.

People often ask me what I believe the biggest threat to the world's remaining tigers is - my response - demand. Demand for tiger skin, bone and other body parts, fuels and finances organised poaching and trafficking, which has had a rapid effect on tiger sub-populations and has resulted in localised extinctions. This continued demand is putting the species under huge pressure and driving them closer and closer to extinction. Skins are seen as status symbols, used for home décor, whilst bones are used in tonics and medicines. Both are traded by illegal criminal syndicates for huge profits.

Debbie Banks, head of the EIA's tiger campaign that Save Wild Tigers supports, has the following message:
I have a simple message for the government delegates preparing for the Illegal Wildlife Trade Conference in Botswana scheduled for the end of March – please don’t forget about the tigers! With perhaps as few as 3,200 wild tigers remaining, every single tiger counts. Based on known incidents of poaching, trafficking and illegal sales, at least 1,500 tigers have ended up in trade since 2000. In numbers, that might not grab the same headlines as the tragedy unfolding for Africa’s elephants and rhinos but it is no less a crisis considering just how few wild tigers remain.
Poaching is driven by demand for tiger parts, primarily among the Chinese business, political and military elite. Tiger skin rugs are purchased for luxury home décor or bribes, tiger bone wine is considered a prestigious gift and meat served as a delicacy. Vietnamese consumers prefer their tiger bone in the form of a glue, pieces of which are mixed with wine to treat arthritis.
In the closing remarks of the Towards Zero Poaching symposium in Kathmandu last week, the Secretary General of the Global Tiger Forum, Dr Rajesh Gopal, called for zero demand to support zero poaching. Quite simply, wild tigers need every government to work towards ending all trade (international and domestic) in all tiger parts (skins, bones, meat, teeth, claws) from all sources (wild and captive-bred). That is the commitment we hope government delegates to the Illegal Wildlife Trade Conference will make at the end of March.

Image (C) Nick Garbutt