Back in 1994, three little girls were upset by sight of a shop selling tigers' paws while traveling through China with their family. They wanted to do something about it. They sought the help of their father, Marco Ramero. The result: the Tiger Foundation, now a major player in wild tiger conservation.
Romero and his daughter Natasha visited Taipei last week to help launch a two-month fund-raising drive in cooperation with the 7-11 convenience store chain. For the Romeros, the Taiwan drive sets up a number of precedents that they hope will expand their effectiveness in funding valuable conservation and research work for wild tigers.
PHOTO: COURTESY OF THE TIGER FOUNDATION
"In the past, we targeted corporations or individuals," Romero said. "This is the first time we have had a retail-oriented drive. According to 7-11, two million people pass through their outlets every day, so this means that there will be two million people standing next to a donation box for the Tiger Foundation every day."
"This is the first time that 7-11 has participated in a fund-raiser for animals," said Julia Sun (
The current international exposure of the foundation is remarkable when its inception in an incident on a Romero family holiday is considered. At the same time, the Romeros' commitment to the foundation as a way of educating their children, gives the Tiger Foundation a different feel from most institutional charities.
"We had no idea what we were getting into," said Romero, throwing up his arms in mock despair. He now works full-time as the foundation's managing director. "I could never give up though," he added, saying that taking up a big thing then dropping it when things got tough was not an example he wanted to give his children.
The Tiger Foundation is still relatively small as international foundations go, but it makes up for this by getting the money to where it counts most. "We spend 97 percent of donations in the field," Romero said. "For the rest, we are totally operated by volunteers." Originally Romero had thought simply to donate money to tiger conservation, but "there were simply no organization for which we had a guarantee that the money we spent would go to actually protecting tigers, rather than the organization's overheads and such." So with C$80,000 of their own money, the Romeros established their own foundation.
The commitment to the tiger, while largely coincidental, allows the foundation to make use of the animal's potent symbolism. One of the reasons that the Romeros have taken time off to visit Taiwan is "because the tiger is such an important symbol in Chinese culture." On a more practical level, Romero said that the tiger is also an important marker of the health of an ecosystem. "The tiger is an apex predator, so to protect it means protecting whole environments."
According to Romero, 95 percent of the world's tiger population has been destroyed in the past century, and estimates now put this population at around 7,000. "This is absolutely nothing," he said. "A disease could easily wipe them out altogether. They are one of the most endangered species in the world."
Romero readily admits that his and his family's role as the creators of the tiger foundation is largely as a medium for publicity to bring the tiger's plight to a wider public. The scientific credibility of the organization is provided by people such as the organization's chairman, Ron Tilson, recognized as one of the world's foremost authorities on tigers. "We have some really good people out there," Romero said.
The fund-raising drive will run for two months. The National Geographic Channel will also be re-broadcasting some of its best tiger-related programs on Dec. 22 and Dec. 29.
More information about tigers can be found on their Web site at http://www.tigers.ca/
May 6 to May 12 Those who follow the Chinese-language news may have noticed the usage of the term zhuge (豬哥, literally ‘pig brother,’ a male pig raised for breeding purposes) in reports concerning the ongoing #Metoo scandal in the entertainment industry. The term’s modern connotations can range from womanizer or lecher to sexual predator, but it once referred to an important rural trade. Until the 1970s, it was a common sight to see a breeder herding a single “zhuge” down a rustic path with a bamboo whip, often traveling large distances over rugged terrain to service local families. Not only
Ahead of incoming president William Lai’s (賴清德) inauguration on May 20 there appear to be signs that he is signaling to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and that the Chinese side is also signaling to the Taiwan side. This raises a lot of questions, including what is the CCP up to, who are they signaling to, what are they signaling, how with the various actors in Taiwan respond and where this could ultimately go. In the last column, published on May 2, we examined the curious case of Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) heavyweight Tseng Wen-tsan (鄭文燦) — currently vice premier
The last time Mrs Hsieh came to Cihu Park in Taoyuan was almost 50 years ago, on a school trip to the grave of Taiwan’s recently deceased dictator. Busloads of children were brought in to pay their respects to Chiang Kai-shek (蔣中正), known as Generalissimo, who had died at 87, after decades ruling Taiwan under brutal martial law. “There were a lot of buses, and there was a long queue,” Hsieh recalled. “It was a school rule. We had to bow, and then we went home.” Chiang’s body is still there, under guard in a mausoleum at the end of a path
Last week the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) released a set of very strange numbers on Taiwan’s wealth distribution. Duly quoted in the Taipei Times, the report said that “The Gini coefficient for Taiwanese households… was 0.606 at the end of 2021, lower than Australia’s 0.611, the UK’s 0.620, Japan’s 0.678, France’s 0.676 and Germany’s 0.727, the agency said in a report.” The Gini coefficient is a measure of relative inequality, usually of wealth or income, though it can be used to evaluate other forms of inequality. However, for most nations it is a number from .25 to .50