Since 2000 the UK has committed around £500,000 to tiger conservation. This is through our membership of the Global Tiger Forum, where we are the only non range state member, and through support to ‘21st Century Tiger’, which is a wild tiger conservation partnership between the Zoological Society of London and Global Tiger Patrol.
In addition, the Government funded and organised a wildlife crime workshop in India in 2006 in support of the UK-India Sustainable Development Dialogue. Law enforcement officers and conservationists from the UK and India identified poaching and illegal trade as a major cause of the sharp drop in tiger numbers. The workshop recommended that each state government draw up and implement an action plan to end poaching through better surveillance and imposition of tough penalties. To assist in this process the Government have provided financial assistance to the Wildlife Protection Society of India (WPSI) to conduct a series of training and capacity building sessions to officials from state forest departments, police and customs. Around 270 officials have been trained on issues in relation to trade in endangered species, such as the tiger.