With an aim to strengthen the tiger conservation campaign the second global tiger conference is scheduled to be held in Dhaka on March 4-6 which is a follow-up of the first conference held in Saint Petersburg, Russia in 2010.
The Department of Forest along with Global Tiger Initiative, the Global Tiger Forum is jointly organising the Second Global Tiger Recovery Programme stocktaking conference among the tiger range countries.
“The conference will mainly focus on tiger conservation activities taken by the different tiger range countries and asses the advancement of the initiatives taken up in 2010,” said Yunus Ali, chief conservator of forest.
The global leaders of the tiger range countries had taken decision to double the number of tigers in the world by 2022 on the basis of the tiger population in 2010 when the number was approximately 3200.
The tiger range countries where tigers still roam freely are Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Russia, Thailand, Vietnam and North Korea.
As per the joint census of Bangladesh and India in 2004 around 440 Bengal tigers were found in the Bangladeshi part of the Sundarbans.
Towards achieving the target of increasing the number of tiger population by stopping wildlife crimes like poaching and illegal trafficking, the government of Bangladesh has taken a project named Strengthening Regional Cooperation for Wildlife Protection Project with the budget of $36m funded by the World Bank in 2012.
Monirul H Khan, associate professor of the department of Zoology at Jahangirnagar University, told the Dhaka Tribune that taking up the project is the only visible measures to achieve the target taken at the 1st global tiger conference.
Prior to the global conference, the forest department will also arrange a two-day-long meeting on March 02-03 with South Asia Wildlife Enforcement Network, World Bank and Interpol to find out a strategy to reduce the illegal trafficking of wildlife in the region.
