Environment     

Poaching threatens wild tigers in most protected areas: WWF report

Xinhua, May 12, 2012

• Although many countries have established legally protected areas for wild tigers, the endangered species is still being threatened by poaching, a report of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) showed on Friday.

  According to the report, which has studied 63 legally protected areas in seven tiger range countries, only 22 areas, or 35 percent of them, maintain WWF's minimum standards of protection.

  The report showed that staff and WWF field personnel from 41 of the 63 protected areas, or 65 percent, feel there are no enough staff to protect those areas and achieve zero poaching.

  The report also said that only 18, or 29 percent, of the protected areas surveyed are currently using computer-based, law enforcement monitoring systems to help them manage their sites more effectively, with most of them still relying on manual analysis.

  The areas set up to protect tigers and other threatened species are not necessarily the refuge they are designed to be, says WWF.

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