Published on 11:00 PM, October 30, 2009

Call to stop infrastructural projects in tiger zone

Representatives from 13 tiger range countries yesterday called for a halt to infrastructure projects in core tiger breeding areas.
They also asked financial institutions to stop financing development projects that adversely affect critical tiger habitats.
The five-day Kathmandu Global Tiger Workshop also felt that empowering local communities that live in and around tiger landscapes with alternative livelihood is vital to stop human-tiger conflict. In Bangladesh, such conflict is the main reason for killing of tigers.
The recommendations of the workshop will be carried forward to the ministerial meeting on tigers to be held in Thailand in January where nations will commit to work for tiger conservation.
The workshop also stressed strict protection of wild tigers by stopping poaching and their core breeding areas.
World Wildlife Fund (WWF) in a statement welcomed the Kathmandu recommendations and said, “without immediate, urgent and transformative actions, wild tigers will disappear forever.”