Word: tigers
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...issue will come to a head at this week's CITES meeting in Geneva, as delegates debate whether enough has been done in recent months to slow the tiger trade. Since cites has no enforcement powers of its own, only individual member nations can make the decision to impose trade sanctions. A key player to watch is the U.S., largely because of the strong stand taken by Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt. An ardent environmentalist, he attended the Brussels meeting in September and played a major role in the effort to put pressure on China and Taiwan...
...Taiwan to clean up their act or face sanctions, and a March deadline was set. On the eve of the Geneva sessions, Babbitt remained firm. "All the CITES members will be taking signals from this meeting," said the Interior Secretary. "There may not be another chance to save the tiger...
According to Administration sources, the U.S. will encourage delegates to renew their September call to action. This would provide President Clinton with the diplomatic cover for imposing sanctions. Before he takes that step, though, Clinton advisers expect to encounter opposition from within the Administration, as concern for the tiger collides with a host of other issues that entangle the U.S., China and Taiwan...
Environmentalists respond that if the U.S. fails to act, the tiger will almost surely disappear in the wild. Noting that Taiwan and China have "been tried and convicted by CITES and the U.S.," Earth Island's LaBudde says, "A judgment of guilty with no penalty imposed hardly represents any deterrent." Thornton of the EIA agrees: "It is time for us to make it plain that we are not going to stand by and watch the last tiger disappear...
...remedy is not that simple. Even if international pressure eliminated poaching, the tiger would still be in trouble. Its habitat is shrinking, and its food supply is dwindling as the territory claimed by humans inexorably expands. Can people be comfortable living in close proximity to hungry predators who on occasion eat humans? Says Geoffrey Ward, author of The Tiger- Wallahs: "Poaching is murder, but crowding is slow strangulation...