China’s Wandashan Mountains in Heilongjiang Province, and the
possibilities of a preserve are being explored there as well.
In 2008, Tatyana Aramileva, one of the most competent policy makers
in the region and well-versed in conservation issues, was put in charge of
Primorye’s Committee for Hunting Management. Her appointment
represents the potential for a sea change in wildlife protection across the
region. In June 2009, the Global Tiger Initiative, an international alliance
that includes the Smithsonian Institution, the World Bank, and the World
Wildlife Fund, among others, announced the creation of a generously
funded new program dedicated to training game wardens in the
interdiction of tiger traffickers. In the fall of 2009, China—for the first
time ever—actively solicited the advice and opinions of NGOs on matters
of tiger conservation, the tiger bone trade, and that country’s central role
in the rapid decline of tiger populations across Asia. In October 2009, at
the Khatmandu Global Tiger Workshop, Russia announced that it would
host an international conference on tiger conservation to be held in
Vladivostok in the fall of 2010. Because 2010 is the Chinese Year of the
Tiger, the conservation community has adopted it as a slogan and rallying
cry to draw attention to the critical state of the world’s wild tigers. The
commitments made and the actions taken in this pivotal year will likely
determine whether or not tigers remain viable in the wild.
What these agencies and the millions of private citizens who support
them are ultimately seeking is what Dale Miquelle calls “The
Coexistence Recipe,” an enlightened and multifaceted approach to
mediating the complex, and sometimes conflicting, needs of the humans
and tigers who share a common landscape. This recipe is elusive, costly,
and time-consuming to prepare, but one thing is clear: its active
ingredients are not grief or guilt, but vision and desire. John Goodrich,
the longtime field coordinator for the Siberian Tiger Project, said it best:
“For tigers to exist, we have to want them to exist.”^1
Now more than ever.
- The only other warm-blooded creature that rivals us in number is