Indochina experts work together to save tiger

Indochina experts work together to save tiger

HANOI (Reuter): Experts from Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos have agreed to work together to save the Indochina tiger from extinction, international specialists said yesterday.

It was the second piece of potential good news for tigers after India, where most tigers live, and China, the main consumer of tiger products, agreed last week to put more controls in place to curb the illegal trade in tiger parts.

Experts from the three Indochina countries decided in Hanoi last week to step up joint conservation work, especially in the area where their borders join, the world conservation union IUCN said in a statement.

"Indochina has probably fewer than 500 tigers remaining in the wild," said Elizabeth Kemf, species conservation coordinator for the World Wildlife Fund for Nature. "They are poached today mainly for their bones and other parts that are used in traditional Chinese medicine."

Logging and clearing of jungle for farming also threatened their survival, Kemf said in a statement. The Indochina tiger probably numbered no more than 1,050 to 1,750 in the whole region, including Myanmar, Malaysia and Thailand, she said.

The experts drafted plans to improve knowledge of tiger numbers and distribution, step up measures against poaching, suppress the trade in tiger parts, train staff, educate the public, and "manage buffer zones around tiger areas in such a way as to reconcile the interests of tigers and people," the IUCN said.

It said estimates of tiger numbers in Vietnam ranged from 150 to 300, and there were fewer than 300 in Cambodia, with an unknown number in southern Laos.