Tiger Range Countries to Correct Cross-Border Conservation

Tiger

It has been recently reported that representatives from twelve out of the thirteen tiger range countries attended a meeting held in the city of Kunming last week, where they came to an agreement on taking measurements to correct managing of cross-border landscapes and on battling the illegal wildlife trade of tigers. This general agreement, known as the "Kunming Consensus", is targeted at improving earlier obligations made by tiger range countries and supported by heads of state through the St. Petersburg Declaration and the Thimphu Agenda. All are focused at accomplishing the countries' overall goal to increase the number of wild tigers to 6,000 animals by 2022. The blueprint to achieving this goal is the conservation of tiger habitats shared across national borders of such countries. It is said that there is more than three times as much promising tiger habitat in trans-boundary landscapes (920,000 square kilometers) than in any single country's landscape (270,000 square kilometers). Therefore, the consensus advised that the countries examine how best to guarantee management of their trans-boundary landscapes is effectual in the long-term. The consensus also made other recommendations for issues such as the illegal trade of tigers, which includes using innovational enforcement techniques, correcting enforcement capacity through training, and urgently, reconstructing sharing of information and international organization between enforcement and other bureaus. In addition, the consensus also made recommendations regarding efforts to minimize the demand for tiger body parts through figuring out the market for such items and building measures to discourage their consumption.

I'm very proud and grateful to see that majority of Asian countries that house the world's wild tiger populations have come to an agreement in helping one another in an effort to protect their tigers. This consensus outlines various steps these countries are expected to adhere by to ensure that the global tiger population would increase to 6,000 animals by 2022. Leading the way towards this goal is Nepal, which is reported to have its tiger numbers increased to 198 making it a 63 percent rise from the last survey in 2009. In addition, there was also some progress seen on the island of Sumatra in Indonesia. However, it is unclear what might be the situation in the remaining eleven tiger range countries. This is why I hope that these countries will take the initiative in further improving the measurements in managing cross-border landscapes and combating the illegal wildlife trade in an effort to save tigers and other wildlife.

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