India to seek blanket ban on tiger products trade

By IANS

New Delhi : India will seek the support of the international community for wildlife conservation and a complete ban on the illegal trade in tiger products at a ministerial round table conference in the Netherlands.


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Minister for Environment and Forests Shri Namo Narain Meena is to participate in the ongoing Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) of Wild Fauna and Flora at the Hague. He left Tuesday for the conference.

The convention, to conclude June 15, would discuss several issues relating to conservation of endangered species including tiger, elephant, star tortoise, sharks, an environment ministry statement said Tuesday.

The CITES is an international agreement between governments with an aim to ensure that international trade in wild animals and plants does not threaten their survival. At present there are 171 member countries.

Recently India set up a National Wildlife Crime Control Bureau to control the illegal wildlife trade.

In its tiger report published last month, the Wildlife Institute of India (WII) recorded that there are only 490 tigers in the 16 reserves of Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Maharashtra and Chhattisgarh. The 2002 census had recorded 1,233 tigers in these states.

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