AR-News: (NEW DELHI) Kashmir rethinks shahtoosh ban

[Animalara2003 at aol.com]

By Shaikh Azizur Rahman
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
 
NEW DELHI — In a controversial decision, the government of India-administered 
Kashmir state plans to challenge an international ban on weaving and trading 
in the world's most expensive fabric, shahtoosh, made from the fine fur 
undercoat of the endangered Tibetan antelope known as "chiru." 
    Defying conservationists, Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, chief minister of Jammu 
and Kashmir, says his government is set to ask India's highest court to end 
the 4-year-old ban. 
 
    "The ban has brought immense misery to the lives of half a million 
shahtoosh weavers, traders and their families in Kashmir. We shall do our best to 
get the ban removed to bring relief to this 600-year-old industry as soon as 
possible," said Mr. Sayeed. 
    Since 1979, the chiru has had legal protection under the Convention on 
International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES). Killing, harming or trading 
in the animal is illegal worldwide, and more than 160 countries are CITES 
signatories. 
    Before the ban, poachers killed the chiru for shahtoosh — a Persian word 
that means "king of wools" — in the animal's habitat on the Chang Tang Plateau 
in Tibet and in China's Xinjiang autonomous region and Qinghai province. 
During their annual migration in the Ladakh region of India's Jammu and Kashmir 
state, chiru were also killed by licensed hunters before the ban. 



full story:
http://washingtontimes.com/world/20040618-102454-3729r.htm 

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