Vietnam stands ready to cooperate with foreign countries and international organizations in improving tiger conservation on its own soil and the region as whole.

Deputy Minister of Natural Resources and Environment Bui Cach Tuyen made this commitment at a historic tiger conservation forum held in Saint Petersburg, Russia, from November 21-24.

Tuyen also pledged to fulfil the target of the Global Tiger Initiative as a key element in the effort to protect biodiversity.

“Vietnam is committed to full involvement in and stronger support for relevant regional or global programmes,” said the Deputy Minister. He cited the ASEAN-Wildlife Enforcement Network (ASEAN-WEN) website, the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) and Interpol as evidence of this.

He also pledged full participation in other bilateral and multilateral frameworks on conservation of tigers in particular and biodiversity in general.

The summit, hosted by Russian Prime Minister V. Putin, was the first international forum on conservation of an endangered wildlife species.

The event was attended by high-profile representatives from 13 countries home to wild tigers, namely India, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Russia, Thailand, China and Vietnam. Also present were representatives of UN agencies and foreign non-governmental organisations engaged in biodiversity conservation.

At the summit, governments capped a year-long political process with about 127 million USD in new funding to support the plan known as the Global Tiger Recovery Programme. The funding will include a large loan package from the World Bank to some tiger range countries and millions in additional grants from the Global Environment Facility.

The World-Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) committed 50 million USD over the next five years on tiger conservation and set a goal of increasing that to 85 million USD.

The Global Tiger Initiative was raised by the WB President in 2008 with tiger range countries committed to doubling the current wild tiger population of close to 3,200 individuals by 2022./.