no barrier to tigers being domesticated for commercial trade

Dear ITC Members,

The wording of the draft St. Petersburg Declaration on Tiger Conservation from the Bali pre-summit seems carefully crafted to mention only “illegal” trade rather than legal trade, thereby exempting farmed products traded domestically if domestic trade bans are lifted and internationally if tiger farms are registered with CITES.  Basically, there is no barrier in the summit document to tigers being fully domesticated for commercial trade in their parts and derivatives on a global scale.  

One of the GTI core team wrote me to say that the document is “still subject to change based on further TRC review before the Summit.  Overall, given the various TRC interests and the fact that it had to be based on consensus, this draft is pretty good.”  Given the global-sized loophole for allowing a reopening of tiger trade from captive-breeding facilities, I find the document troubling and potentially very dangerous.  Have member of the GTI decided that trade in farmed tiger parts and products would not be a detriment to wild tiger populations?

We would all welcome more information from our colleagues who were in Bali.

Best,

Judy

Judy Mills
1-202-986-1882  Landline
1-202-674-4588 Mobile
judymills3@gmail.com