KATHMANDU: Despite objection from the Chinese delegate, the Global Tiger Workshop which concluded here today decided to celebrate 2010 as the year of tiger.

The delegates from 13 of the 14 tiger range countries came up with the idea to create global awareness on the plight facing the endangered jungle beasts.

"A landmark decision has been made in the history of tiger conservation. The delegates decided to give top priority to tiger conservation," said Shiva Raj Bhatta, spokesperson, Department of National Park and Wildlife Conservation.

“Despite the objection raised by China, all other tiger -range countries pledged to celebrate 2010 as the year of tiger,” he said.

China had argued that the global declaration to celebrate 2010 a tiger year would hit their cultural sensitivity. China had already declared 2010 as the year of the tiger in keeping with their calendar.

The workshop sans the declaration came up with a seventeen-point recommendation.

"We're short of declaration, which is done mainly at the political level. As a technical team in the workshop, we ought to come up with recommendation", said Shanta Raj Jnawali, Tiger expert. But critics maintain that the workshop could come up with the declaration, let alone recommendations.

Since most of the recommendations in past were either dumped or were kept in a very low priority, a declaration would have been more effective, they argued.

However, Jnawali said one good thing that came out in the workshop was that everybody realised that the past efforts were piecemeal and that a strong commitment was needed.

"Unless the communities feel that the conservation is for them, our lone efforts will not bear any fruit," said Prasanna Yonzon, a wildlife expert. Yonzon also sounded unhappy with donors dominating the conservation scenario.

"We need the support from

the world-class donors but it

should come in the form of

financial support, not interference on our conservation efforts," reiterated Yonzon.

Workshop success

• Anti poaching secretariat in Nepal

• Pledge to increase the coverage of Bardia National Park from 968 Sq. Km to 1,800 Sq. Km.

• Pledge to increase tiger

population from 121 to 240

by 2020.

• Successful in bringing tiger range countries in a common forum.

• Attracted global donors

Failure

• Could not come up with

concrete declaration

• Not able to convince China to ban tiger farming

• Global donors commitment for funding not gained

• Skipped issue of farmed tigers in non-tiger range countries