The road to the world’s first tiger summit in Vladivostok later this year will have to be paved with answers about the future of tiger farms in China and other East Asian countries, said conservationists.

Pressure to place such farms on the agenda at the September summit in the Russian city stems from the estimated 5,000 domesticated tigers in China’s tiger farms, which exceed the total number of tigers living in the wild – about 3,200 – in the forests of 13 Asian countries.

"The issue ...
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Already declared a Ramsar wetland site, the Bhitakanika National Park with its rich bio-diversity and a unique eco-system is set to receive an even more exalted position being shortlisted for a World Heritage site. The Bhitarkanika National Park has been shortlisted from among 27 additional sites by the UNESCO, official sources said.

The only World Heritage site in Orissa is the architectural wonder Konarak temple. P K Behera, divisional forest officer, Rajnagar mangrove & wildlife forest divi...
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India is the seventh largest country in the world and Asia's second largest nation with an area of 3,287,263 square km. The Indian mainland stretches from 8 4' to 37 6' N latitude and from 68 7' to 97 25' E longitude Figure 1. It has a land frontier of some 15,200 kilometers and a coastline of 7,516 km (Government of India, 1985). India's northern frontiers are with Xizang (Tibet) in the Peoples Republic of China, Nepal and Bhutan. In the north-west, India borders on Pakistan; in the north-ea...
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A great variety of endangered wildlife species end up feeding the illegal market for Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) thanks to poor enforcement in stopping the trade, say experts and activists.

"The Chinese market is like a 'black hole' sucking in wildlife products from neighbouring countries," said Peter Pueschel, head of global Wildlife Trade Programme at the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW), in an e-mail interview with IPS.

India, China's neighbour to the south, is most at r...
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