Nepal to host Global Tiger Workshop

October 26th, 2009 • Related • Filed Under

From chinaview.cn

KATHMANDU, Oct. 26 (Xinhua) — With the view to developing a strategic action plan for the protection of tigers, the Nepali government is organizing a four-day global tiger workshop from Tuesday.

The Kathmandu Global Tiger Workshop 2009 will be attended by more than 200 participants, including policy-makers, scientists and conservationists from various countries, with a theme of “Saving tigers is our test; if we pass, we get to keep the planet, “the workshop will be inaugurated by Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal, English daily The Rising Nepal reported Monday.

“The workshop would introduce new ideas to start the process of creating a platform for sustained worldwide cooperation to save wild tigers,” the newspaper cited Deepak Bohara, Minister for Forest and Soil Conservation, as saying.

“Global experiences and the best practices regarding the protection of tigers will be shared among the participants from the tiger-range countries at the workshop,” Bohora said.

He hoped that the gathering will be of great help for formulating more effective policies and action plans to protect tigers.

He said the event would be followed by an Asian ministerial conference in Thailand in January 2010.

The key partners of the workshop include the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) Secretariat, Global Tiger Forum, Global Tiger Initiative, the World Bank, Save the Tiger Fund, National Trust for Nature Conservation (NTNC) and World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Nepal.

Gopal Prasad Upadhyaya, General Director of the Department of National Park and Wildlife Conservation (DNPWC), said there has been a growing concern regarding the protection of tigers.

Upadhyaya believed that the workshop would serve as a learning platform to share the relevant global experiences and to strengthen action plans and strategies of the tiger-range countries.

It is necessary to preserve wild tigers as they are among the iconic symbols of global environmental sustainability and cultural heritage for billions of people, he said.

Extensive discussions will be held on national input documents of each of tiger range countries, detecting and preventing poaching and illegal trade of tigers and landscape management, capacity development, among others.