China Tells Kathmandu It Supplies Other Countries with ‘Medicine’ Produced From Tiger Farms

The Chinese delegation attending the Kathmandu Global Tiger Workshop has reportedly claimed China’s tiger farms supply ‘medicine’ to 60 countries.

A shocking article from Nepal’s Republica says that the Chinese delegation attending the Kathmandu Global Tiger Workshop claims China “cannot put an end to its tiger farming as medicine produced from tiger parts is supplied to 60 countries”.

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Other workshop participants reportedly did not approve of China’s stance on tiger farming.

A workshop participant apparently shared this information with Republica on the condition of anonymity - and also said that the media was prohibited from attending.

Nepal, on the other hand, has vowed to support tiger conservation: Earlier this week at the Kathmandu Global Tiger Workshop, Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal announced a 900 sq km increase of Bardia National Park, expanding critical habitat for Nepal’s tigers, and the establishment of a Wildlife Crime Control Committee.

“Strategic industry”?

It is highly unlikely that China will cooperate in phasing out its tiger farms to comply with international law. According to Dr. Laurel Neme, in her new book Animal Investigators: How the World’s First Wildlife Forensics Lab is Solving Crimes and Saving Endangered Species, “traditional medicine” is big business in China.

… the Chinese government designated traditional medicine production as a strategic industry and announced in April 2007 a fifteen-year plan to dedicate almost $130 million, five times the previous year’s budget, to improve testing, expand clinical research, and develop globally recognized standards for treatments.

Currently, there is no scientific evidence to support the notion that tiger parts or derivatives are effective remedies or medicines - yet China’s obsession with tiger parts has created a thriving poaching network and decimated the wild tiger population to only just 4,000 today.

Tiger farms in China

Earlier this year, China attempted to get the ban on tiger farming lifted, but the World Bank denied the request, explaining that “commercial trading in tiger parts and its derivatives is not in the interest of wild tiger conservation.”

Dr. Susan Lieberman, director of the WWF species program confirmed that stimulating trade in tiger parts will drive wild tigers to extinction.

Stopping all trade in tiger parts, and phasing out these tiger farms, is of the utmost urgency if the tiger is to survive in the wild.

Watch a video about China’s tiger farms (warning - extremely disturbing images):

Image: Wikimedia Commons

Source: Republica

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