
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, November 20, 1994                   TAG: 9411220051
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A18   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: THE NEW YORK TIMES
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                 LENGTH: Medium

TIGERS WIN, RHINOS LOSE AT CONSERVATION CONFERENCE

Tigers, elephants and sharks were the principal beneficiaries as partners in a treaty to control global trade in imperiled species concluded a meeting in Florida last week.

Ten Asian nations taking part in the biannual meeting of the treaty's signers reached a major accord to protect tigers, whose parts often are used in folk medicine and whose numbers are steadily dwindling despite the treaty's safeguards.

China, India, and eight other countries agreed to enact national laws banning such trade, to take control of stockpiled tiger parts and to preserve the tigers' habitat.

But delegates declined to take steps to protect broadleaf mahogany, a timber that is exported from Brazil and Bolivia. Environmental groups and the timber industry had battled bitterly over the proposal.

The delegates adopted new criteria on how to decide which species should be protected under the 19-year-old treaty and which are so threatened that their export should be outlawed.

In the past, such decisions have been made largely on the basis of politics and fervor. The new criteria are meant to bring more scientific information to the process rather than relying solely on numerical data, such as how many of a species remain.

The meeting refused to allow South Africa to export elephant hides and meat. But in a separate vote, South Africa received permission to export live rhinoceroses and to let sport hunters from other countries take out rhino trophies.

South Africa had sought permission to sell elephant hides and meat, but not ivory, and to export rhinos under controlled conditions. It said that this approach would reward the country for its costly conservation efforts and that the nation's population of elephants in Kruger National Park needs periodic culling.

Delegates said some other African countries were worried that any trade in elephants would encourage poaching throughout the continent. After the United States said it would abstain from voting on the elephant issue, South Africa withdrew its proposal.

On another issue, the United States won approval for a resolution beginning what could be a long process of gaining some protection for sharks, whose numbers may be dwindling because of the trade in shark products, especially fins.

by CNB