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Thirty-five years of efforts to save tigers in the wild have "failed miserably" and the great cat is walking ever closer to extinction, the head of the UN's wildlife trade body warned on Monday.

"If we use tiger numbers as a performance indicator, then we must admit that we have failed miserably and that we are continuing to fail," said Willem Wijnstekers, secretary general of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES).

"2010 is the Chinese Year of the Tiger and the International Year of Biodiversity. This must be the year in which we reverse the trend. If we don't, it will be to our everlasting shame," he said.

Delegates from nearly 150 nations have gathered in Doha, capital of Qatar, to vote on more than 40 proposals on restricting or banning trade in endangered animals and plants.

Less than a century ago, more than 100,000 tigers roamed jungles and forests, from Turkey to China and from the Russian Far East to Indonesia.

A ban on tiger parts was implemented in 1975, marking one of the very first initiatives under CITES, which regulates cross-border commerce in imperilled species.

Today, though, less than 3,200 of the great cats remain in the wild. Their range has been reduced by 93 percent through habitat loss for farming and human habitation, and several population pockets are teetering on the brink of extinction.

The animals are still poached, primarily for their skins but also for their bones and organs, used to make traditional medicines and supposed longevity potions.

"These animals don't have much time left unless we really get our act together," said John Sellar, CITES's senior enforcement officer.

"There is a real underground market going on here," he told journalists. "People are willing to pay to get the genuine articles, and so there are still practicians that are buying tiger bones, tiger meat in order to supply their specialised clients."

Sellar added: "If we lose the tiger, that in many ways is an indicator of the health of our planet. That is a terrible indictment."

AFP