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http://www.lastampa.it/lazampa/girata.asp?ID_blog=164&ID_articolo=1563&ID_sezione=339&sezione=News
http://lescienze.espresso.repubblica.it / article / Tigri_selvatiche, _drammatico_rapporto_del_WWF/1304265
In the year of Tiger WWF launches an appeal to save the big cats:
BANGKOK
Two weeks before the start of the year of the Tiger in the Chinese calendar, the WWF (World Wildlife Fund ) has launched an appeal to prevent the extinction of the cat, whose population fell to 3,200 copies worldwide.
Illegal trafficking and segmentation natural habitat has caused a sharp decline in the number of tigers living in freedom, which were 20,000 in the 90s and even 100,000 a century ago.
WWF's call comes on the eve of an important meeting of 13 Asian environment ministers, starting tomorrow, for three days, will discuss in the town of Hua Hin, Thailand, the measures for the conservation of endangered species of extinction.
"We must act now if you do not want to get to a point of" no return, "said Nick Cox, program coordinator of WWF Tiger the Great Mekong.
The population of tigers in the wild in Vietnam, Laos, Thailand, Myianmar and Cambodia (the area where it passes the Mekong, the largest river in south-east Asia) has dropped from 1,200 units in 1998 to 350 today, and could disappear completely by 2022.
The projections are defined catastrophic further depletion unless action is taken in a drastic way with conservation policies.
The blame for the rapid decline of populations of these animals are suspected pharmaceutical remedies made from body parts of tigers, still in great demand in Asia, and trade in hides and skins, fragmentation and a steady decrease of the areas in which they live , due to exploitation of forest resources or agricultural.
The assessment of populations remaining specimens would amount to no more than 5000 individuals. This alarming figure comes from research done by Eric Dinerstein of the World Wildlife Fund and 15 coauthors, and served for projections on population trends of species, which could be catastrophic unless action is taken in a drastic way with conservation policies. Some of these have in fact registered positive results, says Dinerstein, as in the case of the reserves managed by the Terai Arc Landscape Project, in north-western regions of India and southern Nepal as well as in the far east of Russia. Other reserves, however, still in the Indian sub-continent have failed to effectively protect the tigers.
Posted by Tiziana Paghini on Feb, 2-2009
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