survey by Tilson and Muntifering), Quan has
more recently relied on close ties with the
Director of the Wildlife Division in the SFA,
Wang Weisheng, to operationalise a bold,
and critics say rash, tiger “rewilding” and
reintroduction plan. The project was official-
ly launched in September 2003 following
formal protests to the SFA by the IUCN/SSC
CSG; and two captive tigers were taken to
an SCT-owned reserve in South Africa for
training. If all goes as planned, retrained
tigers will be flown back to China and
placed in a 180 square kilometre enclosure
in Zixi County, Jiangxi (Fig. 6), stocked with
ungulate prey and accessible to “eco-
tourists” in motorised vehicles; all this in
time for the 2008 Summer Olympics in
Beijing (for which Quan is lobbying to make
the “Chinese tiger” the official mascot). CSG
condemnation of the SCT programme is
based on five primary concerns, outlined in
a letter, dated April 29, 2003, and
addressed to Wang Weisheng from the
IUCN/SSC CSG: that South China tiger
recovery should be part of a national strate-
gy to protect all four races of tigers in China
(members of which still survive in the wild),
not just the one that is unique to China;
that no reintroduction programs should
begin until an up-to-date master plan for
management of the genetic diversity of the
captive population is developed and imple-
mented - removing individuals from the
breeding population could pose a significant
risk to an already inbred group; that a
Population and Habitat Viability Assessment
(PHVA) be conducted to insure sufficient
prey and habitat before reintroduction; that
tigers should not be taken to South Africa
since it is unnecessary, poses certain eco-
logical risks, and displaces native species.
The SFA never responded.
The Pangolin: Local Social
Processes and Environmental
Justice
While faults and merits of each side of the
highly complex tiger controversy cannot be
enumerated here, I would like to make note
of the distinct silence about certain people
in the discussions of tiger recovery.
Certainly “local people,” “peasants,” and “vil-
lagers,” are mentioned in all reports and
plans, but they tend to get flattened into
abstractions, they are cast as barriers to—or
even saboteurs of—a potentially ecotopian
landscape, unnatural inhabitants of the
wilderness to be. As the survey report for
the SCT plan states in regard to the 6,032
residents of the two places that top the list
of possible pilot reserves, “Action needs to
be taken on the ground to hasten emigra-
tion, build up prey levels and put into place
the necessary infrastructure to re-introduce
tigers and to minimise potential conflict with
surrounding rural communities” (Anderson
et al.2004; 6). The same text contains a
group of four photographs of abandoned
stores, homes, and shops, along with four
small children in the one
remaining classroom of a
dying school, and these
photos illustrate “natural
emigration from Zixi.” This
hopeful reference to
newly opened “wildland”
conveniently avoids the
social implications of
waves of rural-to-urban
migration - the tragic
corollary of rural impover-
ishment and dislocation
that marks the downside
of economic liberalisation
in China. And what of the
other 246 million citizens,
rural and urban, of the five provinces in
question? Can we assume that they are pre-
dominantly in favour of tiger reintroduction?
The fact is that there have been no scientif-
ic surveys of popular opinion regarding tiger
reintroduction in China; apparently the offi-
cial decisions about nature are best left to
those who have money and power. It
should be kept in mind however, that many
of the everyday decisions that shape theConservation aas ccultural aand ppolitical ppractice
“Certainly ““local ppeo-
ple,” ““peasants,” aand
“villagers,” aare mmen-
tioned iin aall rreports
and pplans, bbut tthey
tend tto gget fflattened
into aabstractions,
they aare ccast aas bbar-
riers tto— oor eeven
saboteurs oof— aa
potentially eecotopian
landscape, uunnatural
inhabitants oof tthe
wilderness tto bbe.”