Reportage – 2005

Tibetan's hidden hands in vanishing Indian tigers

MCLEOD GANJ, India, 27 June 2005

It was in the afternoon of 6 April 2005 in Delhi that the Dalai Lama campaigned to end wildlife poaching and trade in animal body parts to satisfy human aggrandisement. A few hours later on the same day two Tibetans along with a Nepali were arrested in possession of skins of endangered animals at the Tibetan camp in Majnu Ka Tilla in Delhi.

The three men, Lobsang Phuntsok and Tashi (the Tibetans), and Jeet Bahadur Damang, (the Nepali), possessed 45 leopard and 14 otter skins, according to Timarpur police, who have jurisdiction for the Tibetan camp Majnu Ka Tilla in Delhi.

The Tibetan Welfare Officer of the Tibetan camp, Sonam Tsering, was mostly unaware of the arrests. He rather denied that any Tibetans were involved and claimed that the three men were Nepalese and two were of Mili origin.

In August 1993, when a consignment of six tiger skins, besides tiger bones, and leopard, chital, fox and otter skins were seized from Majnu Ka Tilla from two men, identified as Pema Thinley, a Tibetan exile, and Mohammed Yakub, a local resident, the fact that Tibetans smuggled in wildlife was established.

In October 2003, customs officers near Lhasa in Tibet captured a truck containing 32 tiger, 579 leopard and 665 otter skins. The seizure exposed the enormity of the Tibetan involvement in the illegal trade.

India with the largest population of tigers in the world is where most of the tigers are killed. China is the biggest retail market from where the tiger skins and parts are further supplied to Vietnam, Taiwan, West Asia, South Korea and Japan.

A tiger skin, used as a rug or for clothing, fetches $20,000 per skin and is particularly popular among Arab customers. The skull, used to mount as a trophy brings about $1,000.

Tiger bones are used in powder form for more than a hundred prescriptions of Chinese traditional medicines as well as wine sold at $6,000 per kg. The penis, used for virility pills, is priced at $27,000 for a 100g box. Teeth, made into jewellery or sold as amulets with supposedly special powers, can be as much as $900 each and the fat, used to treat rheumatism and muscular ailments goes for $100 a kg.

Investigations have tracked tiger skins in markets of Tibet, where they are used in traditional clothing. Though tiger bone is mentioned as an ingredient in Tibetan medicine in the Tibetan medical texts, it was never used according to doctor Tenzin Namdul at the research and development at the Tibetan Medical Institute in Dharamshala.

The Institute received clandestine visits by some staff from the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) for inspection in late 1980s after a Tibetan doctor was misquoted for the use of tiger bone in Tibetan medicine. WWF members had since paid several visits to the Institute for inspection but did not find anything of that sort. All animal products and many endangered plants that are mentioned as ingredients have never been used in Tibetan medicine in the history of Tibetan Medical Institute since its establishment in Tibet in 1916 by the late 13th Dalai Lama.

Just 100 years ago, there were about 100,000 tigers worldwide. Today experts believe that there could be only 3,000 around the world, and that number is falling.

India has the most Bengal Tigers accounting for 60 per cent of the world's tiger population. But recent figures of the animal sounded emergency alarm bells.

Sariska, one out of 28 tiger reserves in India, had all its tigers vanish in its 866 sq km of jungle. Conservationists in India believe that the real number of tigers in the country is more likely to be about 2,000 and could be as low as 1,800, although the government puts the figure around 3,500. About 150 tigers, the population of two national parks in India, are slaughtered every year.

Experts believe that Indian tigers may become extinct by 2020, if the current trend is not reversed.

The Sariska incident and the declining number of tigers, made Prime Minister Manmohan Singh put saving India's national animal his priority.

An alarming figure of only 30 to 35 Bengal Tigers are found in Tibet and China today. The figures of other wildlife facing threat prompted Tibetans to campaign for their own wildlife situation due to massive poaching by the Chinese after they occupied Tibet.

Some endangered species on the Tibetan plateau include Asiatic Black Bear, Tibetan Brown Bear, Giant Panda, Bengal Tiger, Snow Leopard, Eurasian Lynx, Otter, Wild Ass, Musk Deer, Blue Sheep, Goral, Tibetan Antelope, etc.

The Dalai Lama extended his support for conservationists by appealing to Tibetans to end illegal wildlife trafficking.

"Tibetans are basically Buddhists in the Mahayana tradition and we preach love and compassion towards all other living beings on Earth. So, it is our responsibility to realise the importance of wildlife conservation," said the Dalai Lama during a campaign for wildlife on 6 April in Delhi organised by Wildlife Trust of India and the UK-based Care for the Wild International.

The Prime Minister of the Tibetan government-in-exile, Samdhong Rinpoche, feels that there have been a few isolated cases of Tibetans being involved in the international trade in animals and animal parts as he is quoted in the book released by exiled government's Environment and Development Desk.

Samdhong Rinpoche also feels that the international trade in animal parts has grown alarmingly in recent decades. He has urged the Tibetans to refrain from engaging in activities that directly and indirectly lead to the killing of precious wildlife for short-term monetary gains.

"Such activities are not only totally against the laws of respective countries - they are morally wrong and against the basic teachings of the Buddha."

He further advised Tibetans to stop using clothes made from the pelts, skins, and other parts of these precious wild animals, who, unlike humans, cannot speak out in their own defence.

The Tibetan Welfare Officer in Majnu Ka Tilla complained of people's indifference to cooperate with information, whilst he himself has not laid out any plan to curb the menace. "I bring up the issue at public meetings but I do not have the power beyond that," he said. However, contradicting his initial statement of Tibetan’s non-involvement in the trade, he said that Tibetans were not directly involved in poaching the animals. "Tibetans operate only as middlemen in the trade."

The next time a Tibetan is arrested for smuggling in illegal animal trade, not only India, but also the international community might have reservations to extend their support for the Tibetan causes.

When a so-called Bhagat Singh Yuva Sena Samithi organisation in Mysore staged a demonstration asking the Tibetans to leave India and charged them as smugglers in May of this year, it was ignored as a small isolated group of people having negative attitude towards Tibetans.

The next time a Tibetan is reported for smuggling, it will only exacerbate the outrage of Indians towards Tibetans and might remove their sympathy and willing welcome to India, when the Indian national animal is on the verge of extinction.

Figures are taken from India Today magazine, BBC news, DIIR Publications and newspaper clippings.