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  Yahoo News 19 Jun 07
China says ban on tiger trade 'not forever'

China will eventually lift a ban on the trade of tiger bones, state media reported Tuesday, a move that wildlife experts believe could wipe out the endangered species in the wild.

The UN body monitoring wildlife commerce rebuked China last week for its large-scale tiger farming programme and cautioned Beijing not to lift a domestic ban on the trade in products made from tiger parts.

But Wang Wei, deputy director of the department of wildlife conservation, told the China Daily the 1993 ban would now be reviewed and that the lobby pushing for trade in tiger parts needed to be taken into account.

"The ban won't be there forever, given the strong voices from tiger farmers, experts and society," Wang said. "It will be a waste if the resources of dead tigers are not used for traditional medicine."

China would now embark on a study of whether lifting the ban would reduce poaching and help conservation of the tigers globally, the report said.

A resolution passed by the 171-nation Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) last week said: "Tigers should not be bred for trade in their parts and derivatives." At the meeting, China threatened to lift the ban on domestic trade in tiger by-products, especially medicinal tonics, saying such a move would reduce the underground market.

At the conference, most conservationists said that re-opening the markets in tiger products would seal the animal's fate. "If China lifts the ban, it will be the end of tigers," said Sue Lieberman, head of the World Wildlife Fund's global species programme.

There are believed to be no more than a few dozen wild tigers left in China, and only a couple of thousand in their native habitat worldwide. China is the only country in the world to allow mass breeding of tigers, with 5,000 of the big cats housed in huge farms in the northeast and southwest. In Chinese medicine, tiger parts are used as cures for illnesses ranging from colds to rheumatism.
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