At the turn of the 20^th Century there were around 100,000 tigers in the world. In this ‘year of the tiger’, WWF estimates that there are at most 3,000 tigers remaining. A key meeting in Bali later this month will bring together groups who believe serious action is required if we are going to avoid losing these animals altogether.

The Bali meeting hopes to unify the efforts of tiger states (countries in which the endangered tigers live) to protect the species as well as follow up ideas raised at similar meetings  held in Hua Hin in January and in Kathmandu last year.

Several environmental NGOs have named this year the Year of the Tiger, a reference to the critical state of the tiger rather than to the Chinese calendar.

The Bali meeting is expected to draw representatives from organizations from the World Bank and various environmental NGOs. The bringing together of these two often disparate groups in one place will hopefully enable them to forge new links that will enable real action to take place rather than just continued meetings and talking.

Nazir Foead, the director of governance, community and corporate engagement at WWF Indonesia said that tiger states were not the only ones to blame for the near extinction of the species of big cat. Many countries investing in tiger states, he continued, were also to blame for encouraging activities detrimental to the natural habitats of tigers.

But Nazi underlined the need for a unified programme for helping tiger number to recover from their current precarious position, “We are hoping that there can be a conservation program that will be carried out by 13 countries that are home to tigers.”

Nazir said that although the meeting’s main agenda would be tigers, side events would include discussions on debt swaps for environmental conservation projects. The unfortunate reality is that most of the world’s most endangered species live in some of the world’s poorest countries.

Without significant co-operation between organisations, governments and institutions like the World Bank, talks too often remain just talk with little actually being done.

You can help to ensure that we do not allow the extinction of the tiger to become a reality, and that the Year of the Tiger goes down in history as the year we save the species rather than that in which it was lost.

You can help to save the tiger yourself by adopting one today with WWF.

Or by joining the WWF you will be bringing a guarantee of crucial resources that are needed for their conservation work around the world.