After my numerous posts on the first Tiger Summit (International Tiger Conservation Forum) in St. Petersburg it's about time we had an update as to what was achieved from this important meeting. I am pleased to report that World Leaders have backed a Global Tiger Recovery Programme in the hope of doubling tiger numbers by 2022 (which just happens to be the next Year of the Tiger) and agreed to provide funding to achieve this goal.
Governments have promised around 127 million dollars and the World Bank has offered a loan package worth $100 million to Bangladesh, Bhutan and Nepal to help support tiger conservation work. Also the Global Environment Facility has pledged $12 million to regional tiger projects. As well as this, actor Leonardo Dicaprio has offered a personal donation of $1 million to the WWF supporting their work with the tigers!
Overall WWF has committed $50 million over five years on tiger conservation and they hope to increase this to $85 million. Despite this excellent start to funding which will help get action underway more funding is still needed from the international community in the coming months.
During the next six months the 13 countries will meet again in the hope of securing more money and the long term financing of the plan will be finalised in July 2011. The countries will again reconvene in December 2011 to monitor how well the plan is working.
