NAGPUR: With China being the main consumer market for tiger parts and products, a group of leading wildlife conservationists from India and other tiger-bearing countries have moved US President Barack Obama to pursue Chinese President Xi Jinping, who is at present on a six-day visit of the US.

The signatories to the memorandum include Carole Baskin, Adam Roberts, Belinda Wright, Debi Goenka, Kedar Gore, Sally Case, David Shepherd, Debbie Banks, Iris Ho, Sean Carnell, Kishor Rithe, Simon Clinton, Harshwardhan Dhanwatey, Vicky Flynn, and Biswajit Mohanty. The conservationists have lauded Obama for his fight against poaching and trafficking crisis sweeping across Africa, threatening the survival of an estimated 4.20 lakh elephants and 25,000 rhinos.

Given that there are fewer than 3,200 wild tigers remaining across Asia, the conservationists have appealed to the US President that they too urgently receive the highest levels of political and financial investment to end the demand that is making them worth more dead than alive. One of the most critical threats to the survival of wild tigers is trade in their meat, skin and bones to satisfy demand driven by wealth, rather than health − for high-status food, drink, home decor and even investment assets, they pointed out.

"This demand is fuelled by a marked increase in tiger farms in China, Laos, Vietnam and Thailand, where tigers are intensively bred for trade in their parts and products. China alone claims to house more than 5,000 tigers on farms," they said.

China is the main consumer market for tiger parts and products and China's state forestry administration has grown demand by supporting the expansion of tiger farms, allowing legal trade in skins from farmed tigers and approving farm wineries that make tiger-bone wine.

Those actions have stimulated consumer interest in tiger products from all sources, undermining law enforcement, incentivizing poaching, and facilitating trafficking by organized criminal networks. Tiger-farm investors continue to push hard for full legalization of trade in tiger bones — the very trade China banned in 1993 because it threatened the survival of wild tigers.

"If trade were legalized, it would unleash a devastating demand that could quickly wipe out the last wild tigers, as the bones of wild tigers are far more valuable than those from captive tigers. In order to ensure that tiger conservation remains a priority for the international community and to end tiger farming and tiger trade, we appeal to you to raise these issues with President Xi," they wrote to Obama.