Tiger-Skin Market in Tibet Flourishing

In this handout photo released Thursday, Sept 27, 2006 by the Wildlife Protection Society of India and Environmental Investigation Agency, a participant clad in tiger and leopard skins looks on with an enforcement officer at Litang Horse Festival in Chinese-controlled-Tibet, Aug. 2006. The tiger population of India will vanish within a handful of years, environmentalists warned Wednesday in a stinging indictment of the governments of India and China whom they hold responsible for the rapid decline in the big cat population. Markets for tiger skins and other pelts are flourishing in Chinese-controlled Tibet a year after they were first exposed, said representatives of two environmental agencies who secretly filmed the trade there. (AP Photo/ Wildlife Protection Society of India and Environmental Investigation Agency, HO) (AP)

NEW DELHI -- Environmentalists accused India and China in a stinging indictment Wednesday of doing almost nothing to stem the rapid decline of tigers in the wild, saying the big cats will likely vanish completely within a few years without government intervention.

Trade in poached Indian tigers is flourishing across the border in Chinese-controlled Tibet, where organized crime groups sell them for use in traditional medicines, ceremonial clothing and as souvenirs, according to two environmental agencies, which secretly photographed the trade.

Photos shown at a news conference Wednesday showed dozens of tiger and leopard skins openly on sale, while in others, Chinese police officers laughed and posed with people wearing clothing made of tiger skins.

The groups _ the Wildlife Protection Society of India and the Environmental Investigation Agency, a nonprofit British-based group _ accused the Indian and Chinese governments of failing to stop the trade.

"In China, the police have decided to turn a blind eye to the slaughter of tigers in India," despite tough laws against trading in endangered animals, said Belinda Wright, director of the Wildlife Protection Society of India.

She said India has not put together an effective force to combat poaching after 12 years of talking about it. "It is the politics in India that is killing the tiger, the petty agendas and personal rivalries," she said.

Kalpana Balkhiwala, a spokeswoman for the Indian Ministry of Environment and Forests, which is responsible for tiger conservation, said the ministry had no comment on the report. Chinese officials could not be immediately reached for comment.

Both governments have received copies of the report, Wright said.

Last year, Indian officials were forced to acknowledge that poachers had wiped out every tiger in one of India's premier reserves, and that Indian wildlife officials had long exaggerated the number of tigers across the country.

But despite a loud public and official outcry, Wright said tiger protection has not improved.

The U.S. National Fish and Wildlife Foundation's Save the Tiger Fund estimates there are 3,000 to 5,000 tigers currently left in the world, said Judy Mills, director of the fund's Campaign Against Tiger Trafficking.

However, conservationists believe official estimates of tigers in the wild are grossly exaggerated and that the true figure may be closer to 2,000 _ or as little as several hundred.