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Reports from within Tibet say that over the past two weeks the price of tiger skins and other furs has dropped drastically. "It's testimony to the extraordinary influence the Dalai Lama has on Tibetans in Tibet," says Kate Saunders of the International Campaign for Tibet. "It shows the importance of his direct communication for Tibetans." The growing controversy over the skins has provoked intense debate on the internet chatrooms that have become the main centres of discussion between Tibetans inside Tibet and those living in exile, cut off from each other by the political situation.
"It is utterly disgusting that Tibetans are involved in [this] heinous business," wrote one person on www.phayul.com. "Thanks to all Tibetans inside ... and outside Tibet who are working day in day out to increase the awareness on how sinful it is to use animal skins," wrote another.
The development has been welcomed by conservationists. Debbie Banks from the Environmental Investigation Agency, the international campaigning organisation that exposes environmental crime, said: "While it is really heartening to see former consumers cast off and burn their tiger and leopard skins, we also need to see the Chinese and Indian governments take action. They must invest in professional enforcement and co-operate with each other to crack down on the criminal networks controlling the trafficking of skins. This illegal trade is the biggest threat to the survival of India's wild tigers and if no action is taken, it will mark the end of the tiger."
Judy Mills of the Campaign against Tiger Trafficking called the effort "an organised response to an organised crime."
Undercover investigations by Belinda Wright of the Wildlife Protection Society of India (WSPI) revealed the extent of the tiger skin trade in Tibet and her photographs of Tibetans wearing tiger skins shocked many. "News of the disastrous consequences of the skin trade and His Holiness the Dalai Lama's condemnation of the use of skins appear to be spreading across the Tibetan region," she said.
Just 100 years ago, there were 100,000 tigers in the world. Today, the number left in the wild is between 5,000 and 7,000, but those figures were complied seven years ago from figures supplied by governments which have since been discredited. Wildlife organisations now fear the real number may be closer to 3,000.
India has the last sizeable population of tigers left in the wild, accounting for more than 60 per cent of the world's tigers. But the alarm was sounded after it emerged last year that tigers were disappearing from India's forest reserves at an alarming rate. At a wildlife reserve called Sariska the authorities were forced to admit that all the reserve's tigers had vanished.
In the controversy that followed, it became clear that tigers were missing from reserves all over India. In the latest development, it emerged only yesterday that Buxa tiger reserve can account for only four of the 27 tigers it is supposed to have.
One of India's most respected tiger experts has said that the country would be lucky to have 1,200 tigers left. In most cases, it is clear that the disappearance of the tigers is the direct result of highly organised poaching. The underfunded wildlife authority simply does not have the manpower or the finances to mount effective patrols. In some cases, there have been allegations the poachers may have bribed wardens to turn a blind eye.
The link between the market for tiger skins in Tibet and poaching in India first emerged in 2000, after Indian police seized a crate of skins as it was being smuggled out of the country. Inside, they found the skins had been identified with Tibetan markings.
What emerged from the investigation that followed is that the illegal trade in tiger skins is a highly sophisticated operation. Tibetan merchants travel to India to view the skins of tigers killed by the poachers. They choose the ones they want - but they do not take the risk of transporting them across the border themselves. The skins are marked to show which merchant they are headed for, and are then transported into Tibet via Nepal, where the lawlessness caused by the civil war makes it easy for them to slip through.
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