Distracted by tea, biscuits and rising paper prices, the Publishing Association were entirely unprepared for the tigress' attack...

Happy Easter, tiger lovers – and hoping all the Brits amongst you have had a lovely, sunny four-day holiday!

As those of you on the mailing list will know, it has been a difficult few weeks for us, as the two interested sponsors that we’ve been waiting to confirm with us for months and months and months have, very disappointingly, failed to come back to us with a final decision. With the printing deadlines we were working towards now becoming disconcertingly imminent and still no word from our would-be benefactors, we decided it was time to take matters into our own hands – and to find another way to gather up the necessary funds.

And so, at the beginning of this month, we headed down to the London Book Fair, the publishing world’s huge, sprawling yearly bunfight at Earls Court Exhibition Centre. And where, luckily enough, this year’s emphasis was on the burgeoning Russian and Chinese book markets.

Unfortunately, attempts to communicate with in-country representatives before the event had proved rather fruitless. My grasp of Russian pronunciation turned out to be so bad that simply repeating the name of the person I wanted to speak to 40,000 times over the telephone in my best Moscovite accent led to the unilateral response: “I’m sorry, I don’t speak English”. Mortifying, to say the least. As a result, rocking up on Day One of the Fair with just a well-annotated exhibitor list and a folder-full of TIGER book sample pages, I was more than a little apprehensive.

Things did not begin well.

The first person I spoke to was a friendly man from a Chinese publishing company, who ushered me enthusiastically to a chair as quickly as I could say “project for the Chinese market”. Feeling encouraged, I cheerfully spread our gorgeous tiger photos across the table and began to explain about the work we were doing on the campaign, the story of the book, and how important we feel it is to engage the public in China on issues surrounding tiger conservation. After about a minute, I realised he was staring at me with an utterly blank expression. Thinking perhaps that he hadn’t understood something, I paused to ask if I was going too fast.

“I don’t get it,” he said. “Is it a children’s book?”

“It could be,” I said “But most people buying the books have been adults”.

“But it’s just about tigers?”

“Yes. It’s about one tiger family, in the wild. As I was saying, it’s a very beautiful st-“

“There are lots of animals in China. Why would anyone care about tigers?”

This seemed rather a peculiar question.

“Well,” I said. “Apart from anything else, they are very seriously endangered”.

At this point, the man actually burst out laughing, right there in my face.

“Oh really?” He said, through giggles. “Are they now? And how exactly do you know this?”

I was astounded.

After a few more minutes of trying to explain that this is a very well-documented problem and that his own government had recently attended an emergency meeting to address the issue, during which he made sarcastic faces and behaved largely as if I were an escapee from a mental health institution, I gave up and dejectedly trundled off to find someone whose views were at least grounded in a semblance of reality.

Fortunately for the project and for my morale, half an hour later I was sitting with a very lovely woman from another Chinese publishing house, who was not only interested in building cultural crossovers between the UK and China but was gazing at a photograph of a month-old cub with a look of something very much like love.

By the third day of the Fair, I had built up firm interest in the book from a handful of Chinese publishers, a very enthusiastic Russian one (who, fortunately for all concerned, had a translator close at hand!), several Indian publishers and even a few from right here in Europe. A dozen phone calls and emails later and we have already got to the final stages of arranging a licensing deal with at least one of these, with several others around the world still in negotiations.

This is wonderful news for the campaign. Not only does it mean that the message is being spread around the world, helping to raise awareness in the countries we are most anxious to engage people in, but it will also provide the necessary funds for us to get on with printing our own run of books for all you lovely people who have already pre-ordered copies without waiting for sponsorship to come through.

And, of course, 30% of every penny that comes to the project will be donated to tiger conservation initiatives.

Altogether, this represents a major leap forward in helping us to meet our campaign objectives and we are very, very excited to see the results. After a slightly difficult start, it was an enormous relief (and encouragement!) to meet so many other publishers who were moved by the book, genuinely interested in the campaign – and who felt that their readers would be, too.

Please do keep your fingers crossed for us over the next few weeks… and, if you want to take advantage of the extended deadline and get yourself a first edition of the beautiful book, you can take this opportunity to pre-order copies of TIGERS for your family and friends!

Until next time,

Lindsey x

www.tigercampaign.com

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All proceeds go to dakini’s Tiger Campaign

The Stars & Stripes Team xxx

__________

THE STARS & STRIPES : THE RUNNING ORDER

Doors Open at 3pm

Afternoon Set

3:15

Urban Inversion

3.45

Daisy Tea

4.30

Kelly Paige

kellypaigemusic.com

5.30

The Robbie Boyd Band

robbie-boyd.com

Evening Set

7.00

Third Candidate
www.myspace.com/thirdcandidate

8.00

Simon Hardeman

simonhardeman.com/music

9.00

The Mourning Laughter

myspace.com/themourninglaughter

Late Set

10.25

Lizziness

lizziness.com

11.00

Anarchistwood
punkvert.tv/anarchistwood

12.00: Last Orders

__________

BUY TICKETS ONLINE through Paypal – just click the ‘donate’ button below to be taken through the secure payment site. We will send you your tickets by email.

All proceeds go to dakini’s Tiger Campaign

The Stars & Stripes Team xxx

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Because of this, I was particularly concerned by an SMS that came through from Robin in the early hours of Saturday morning, explaining that due to a few errant vodka-smugglers, the party had been forced to end an hour and a half early and to turn away a number of potential guests, thus missing out on much of the money that they had hoped to raise for the campaign. From the sounds of things, their ambitious fundraising plans had been largely dashed. What a shame, I thought. They’ve put in so much effort. I hope they’re not too disheartened.

By the time we had agreed to meet on Sunday, I had prepared myself to offer a few words of condolences and encouragement, to write off the fundraising and to start helping them plan the next event. I was rather intrigued, then, when upon their arrival, having apologies profusely (and unnecessarily) for the problems that had cropped up on the night, James and Robin presented me with two rather full-looking boxes containing the night’s takings.

“Oh right – thank you very much,” I said, pleasantly surprised. “How much did you manage to raise, all in all?”

“Oh… about £1250”.

I almost dropped the box on the floor.

My second fear was that the venue would be too put off by VodkaGate to let us put on any future Tiger events there, which would be a huge pain as it had been no easy task for the boys to find somewhere sufficiently teenage-friendly and non-extortionately priced. But, as it turned out, Robin and James had not just managed to raise a fantastic amount of money for the Tiger Campaign but had also forged an excellent relationship with the lovely owner. As a result, the management were perfectly happy to let RHN and the dakini team plan future events at The Old Crown, Archway and to work together to prevent against any future hiccups. So, good news for the Tiger Campaign and more points for James and Robin on the maturity and professionalism front.

It has been absolutely fantastic to see what these two boys have managed to achieve in such a short space of time – they are certainly topping the King of the Jungle league tables as a result! I hope now that RHN will help to inspire other young people to take on project like this, not to be daunted when things don’t go perfectly to plan and to understand how much potential they have to make a real difference to the issues they care about.

If all young people like James and Robin showed half as much dedication and determination to save the tiger, just think how much we could achieve.

If your school or organisation would like to take part in dakini’s King of the Jungle project, get in touch with lindsey [at] dakinimedia.com.

dakini x

Donate or find out more at http://www.tigercampaign.com/

Want to help but stuck for ideas? Watch our Top 5 Tips for Tiger Ambassadors:

Fateh Singh Ramesh

Tiger campaigners the world over have been grieving the loss of “Tiger Man” Fateh Singh Rathore, who died last week aged 72. The founder of Ranthambore Tiger Reserve, Rathore was one of India’s most dedicated, outspoken and indefatigable conservationists, tirelessly pushing for better protection measures for tigers– even after being attacked and nearly killed by disgruntled villagers in 1981.

Rathore is a great inspiration to us here at the Tiger Campaign, not only because of his determination to create a better future for India’s national animal, but because of his inclusive approach, and his humanity. Rathore understood that without changing public attitudes, no amount of legislation or even criminalisation would ever be enough to save the tiger from extinction. He worked tirelessly to educate people, especially children, living near tiger habitats about the need to protect the cats, striving to instil his love of tigers in the wider community – often, to great success.

It is precisely this approach that we at dakini most admire, consider most effective and which we have placed at the very heart of the Tiger Campaign. Our project is first and foremost about changing attitudes, and then about building on these changes through active conservation efforts and government support. Forcing laws upon an unsympathetic public is an expensive, exhausting battle. Although preventing poaching is an urgent task, we feel that it is a far better use of our energy to find ways to gather support for the cause by engaging people around the world emotionally and intellectually with the struggle to save tigers, and in doing so, to end the demand for tiger parts. If it just a question of getting caught, there will always be people desperate enough to try; far better to take away the impetus that fuels poaching than to find ways to demonize the middle men. We believe that, in the long term, cultivating loyalty is far more reliable than coercion.

Lindsey x

Donate to the campaign today at www.tigercampaign.com

I would, though, like to apologise for having let a few weeks pass by without giving you an update. I was actually laid up with flu for over a week and largely incapacitated. DBF, who claimed to have enjoyed uninterrupted perfect health since catching a cold in autumn 1988, was his typical unsympathetic self, dividing his attention between joking about funeral arrangements and complaining that my persistent coughing was distracting him from the football highlights. He did however change his tune on Friday morning, when he sneezed a few times, declared himself an invalid and curled up in a ball for three days, demanding Lemsip and whimpering from time to time.

But enough of that – I’ve now recovered, have returned to normality and to the Tiger Campaign and am very, very pleased to report that there have been extremely exciting developments since the last post! Lucky is currently in Sri Lanka meeting with high-profile potential sponsors for the Tiger Campaign (and investors for the green energy company, FutureEnergy, that she’s getting off the ground there at the moment). I won’t know the details until she gets back next week, but suffice to say that the campaign is attracting interest from high places. It’s fantastic to see how important an issue tigers are fast becoming to organisations with the means and influence to bring about rapid change. If they agree to underwrite the cost of making the book and running the awareness campaign, this will not only mean we’ll be able to spread the message far and wide but can put far more of the money donated to the campaign directly into conservation projects. Essentially this means that, if you have donated to the campaign or pre-ordered a book, the funding could potentially double – even triple – your contribution to on-the-ground tiger protection efforts. And of course, you would still have your beautiful book and/or your name printed in it. Quite a result, really. So keep your fingers crossed. Toes too, if you can.

As ever, the more support we have for the campaign, the more persuasive we will be and so, if you haven’t yet pre-ordered a book or donated, please do so here: www.tigercampaign.com. Despite still recovering from pneumonia*, Carol is making the final changes to the manuscript now, and her storytelling flair and the incredible research she did for the book is just breathtaking – an international team of eminent biologists and conservationists are on board to ensure that the story is as faithful as possible and this, together with the stunning photography that I’ve been shortlisting for the book, is shaping up to be something truly, truly special. The book will go to print this Spring, so please do make sure you don’t leave it too late and miss out. I’ve ordered mine. Even DBF was moved to make a donation, and that’s saying something.**

Tiger love,

Lindsey x

www.tigercampaign.com

*Yes, really. Now that’s dedication.

**Actually, that’s not quite fair. DBF, who is a 6’1 gym-obsessed ex-boxer type, is frequently known to get unashamedly warm and fuzzy when confronted with a photo of a tiger cub.

If we were on FourSquare she'd have found me by now!

Firstly, a big thank you to everyone who submitted lines to the Tiger Tale. The project is now completed and you can read the full story here: www.tigercampaign.com/tigertale. As a writing experiment, it was a lot of fun and there were some very impressive entries – who could have guessed what a creative bunch you all are?

You will almost certainly have noticed that I became particularly squeally and excited over the contribution of a line from award-winning novelist and personal hero Margaret Atwood. That we managed to get hold of Atwood through Twitter shows what a great equaliser social media can be; had I attempted to speak to her through an agent the process could have taken weeks. In this case, I could fire a message to a well-respected figure I have never met in a completely different time zone – and within seconds she not only knew about what we are doing but could decide there and then if she wanted to be involved. And, by doing so, she introduced the Tiger Campaign to thousands of her own fans and followers around the world.

We all know that the internet has revolutionised the way the world works, bringing us all closer together than we could ever have imagined. One of the things that is so exciting about this is that, as the Tiger Tale demonstrates, it is now possible to communicate with just about anyone – and to make the things you are passionate about visible to the entire planet. Just using Twitter, we were able to show the Tiger Campaign to a wide array of people and groups who we would, otherwise, never have been able to speak to – and who can, if they choose to, bring the Campaign to their own extensive networks.

Now, we can’t force these people to care, or to act. For every person who listens there will be dozens who don’t. But the point is that, more than any other time in history, sites like Twitter allow you to try. 25 years ago, it would have seemed absurd that one day you would be able to look up an influential celebrity, ping them a message and know that, within a fraction of a second, your message would flash up in front of them on their computer screen or mobile phone. 25 years ago, very few people would even have heard of a mobile phone. These days, the potential for raising awareness is just phenomenal.

So, in the activist spirit of the Tiger Campaign New Year’s Resolutions, this week’s resolution is: Tell A Celebrity.

If you’re a Tweep, this one is gloriously straightforward. Pick the best (and most sympathetic!) of the slebs you follow, tell them about the campaign (@dakiniTigers on Twitter) and ask them to retweet the message to their followers. Let’s get an army of tiger tweeters spreading the campaign to the most prolific and most-followed figures we can.

Over the past week, we’ve already had individuals, famous writers, writers’ networks and Arts magazines such as MsLexia and Creative Review tweeting info about the Campaign. If we all focus hard on this task over the coming weeks, just think how much good we can do to raise awareness for the Campaign, and for the plight of tigers in the wild.

Have a lovely weekend – and happy Tweeting!

Lindsey x

A little nap always seemed like the best way to cure writer's block...

“In a jungle in central India, a Bengal tigress hears a familiar sound and raises her head.

Black stripes weave through her burnt orange coat, distinguishing her from all other tigers. Her tapestry of fur is nature’s art, as individual as a human fingerprint, and it distinguishes her from all other tigers. White fluff surrounds the dark rims of her eyes, making them seem even more luminous than they are. The shining, citrine-colored centers focus on the source of the sound…”

So begins dakini’s breathtaking book TIGERS, written by acclaimed writer and big cat enthusiast Carol Kaufmann. As you all know, the book will be printed in the Spring and the pre-orders have been flooding in at www.tigercampaign.com.

But, in the meantime, we want to give you the chance to take part in a whole new tiger story… this time, written by YOU. On Monday, we’ll provide you with the first line of a tiger story. Then, we’ll ask you to come up with the next line, and the next, and the next, until we have a complete Tiger Tale created as the collective effort of dozens – potentially hundreds – of budding tiger writers.

The experiment will be run entirely through Twitter.  We’ve set up a Tiger Tale twitter account, @dakiniTigerTale, where you’ll be able to watch the story develop and see each new line as it appears. To suggest the next line, simply tweet your idea starting with #tigertale. We’ll then retweet our favourites to form the story.

You’ll be able to browse all the suggestions at any time by searching #tigertale. If you see one you love and you want to ‘nominate’ it as the next line, retweet it – we can’t promise we’ll decide to use it but it will bring it to our attention!

The project will kick off at 12.30 GMT on Monday 17^th January – follow @dakiniTigerTale to be kept in the loop. The Tiger Campaign is all about building a future for tigers by encouraging people to understand, empathise and fight for their protection; we’ll be looking for contributions that are not only make for a great story but also show an understanding of and appreciation for these magnificent animals in the wild. We want a story that really does show the world through the Eye of the Tiger.

Good luck and happy writing!

Lindsey x

www.tigercampaign.com

Welcome to the dakini Tiger Tale!

The Tiger Tale is a collaborative writing experiment, run entirely through Twitter. We’ll provide the first line of the story, to get the ball rolling. But then we’ll ask you to come up with the next line, and the next, and the next, until we have a complete Tiger Tale created as the collective effort of dozens – potentially hundreds – of different writers.

To submit a line, simply read the story so far (below) and then tweet your idea for the next line starting with #tigertale. We’ll then retweet our favourites and these will form the story.

The Tiger Campaign aims to help build a future for tigers by encouraging people to understand and empathise with these animals and to fight for their protection. With the Tiger Tale, we’ll be looking for contributions that are not only make for a great story but also show an understanding of and appreciation for these magnificent cats in the wild.

For updates or to see the story forming in real time, follow us on Twitter: @dakiniTigerTale.

You can also browse all suggestions at any time by searching #tigertale in Twitter. If you see one you love and you want to ‘nominate’ it as the next line, retweet it – we can’t promise we’ll decide to use it but it will bring it to our attention!

Read the full story below (launches on Monday 17th Jan @ 12:30 GMT)

To view contributors, visit @dakinitigertale on Twitter

A TIGER TALE

Crouching low and poised for the kill, the tigress hears a rustle in the long grass behind her. She listens,straining to make sense of this new movement. Her prey approaches. The noise is louder, almost clear. She must act.

The wind catches her scent, her prey stops dead, the tiger bolts from the undergrowth scattering the herd across the tundra. Then she spots a tourist with a camera. Distracted, she sniffs the air. It’s Old Spice cologne. Not her favourite. She casts the tourist a look of abject distrust, then leaps,bounding over the ground to find her attentive cubs.

As she approaches the den, anxiety sets in. Smudged into the rain-soaked ground is another feline footprint. She sniffs. Leopard.

The sight of 13ft of tiger in the thicket cause the monkeys to scamper on into the friscalating dusklight. The setting sun casts a deep orange glow over the long grass. She pauses, takes in the sky, inhales slowly and continues walking.

There, peering into the den where she left her small cubs, the unmistakable silhouette of a big cat looms in the dying light. Claws drawn, roaring with a force and rage that sends animals scampering for miles, the tigress leaps at the startled intruder. Her claws pierce the soft fur, they tumble to the ground as her cubs cower and watch from the shadows. The leopard twists away and bolts- wounded, bloody. The tigress lets her go, satisfied that her cubs are safe. She won’t be back.

As their mother enters the den, the cubs become excitable. They clamber over her, practicing their growls and pouncing technique. In the back of the mother’s mind still sits the thought of another attack, another chance to lose the cubs she loves so dearly.This time her strength and passion were enough. But she knows there are fresh challenges ahead, and more determined foe.

Year by year, the jungle is getting smaller. Her once vast empire has shrunk to a playground, little more than a cage of trees. Just metres from the den, invisible in the dying light, a slender, razor sharp length of wire stretches across the undergrowth. It is a cowardly trap – a sign of an encroaching species that cares only for what it can take from the world. A trap that may not even meant for her but which, if she is caught by it, spells death both for her and her cubs.

The human scent lingers. She must move her cubs on, to safety. But there are only so many places to go.

And first, she must hunt.

Thanks to @petejbaxter @vickyann_smith @MargaretAtwood @nickwoneill, @PookieBooBonbon @Sarah_Woolley, @tommcevoy, @Kristen_de_Luca, @cathsimpson2011, @MarkLees75, @OK_Fred, @NoHaggisForMeTa for contributing the selected lines!

I hope you’ve all had a lovely relaxing Christmas and are feeling enthusiastic, invigorated and ready to embark on a fantastic and proactive year of saving the tiger… because we’re about to seriously step up our campaign. And for this, we’re going to need your help.

The last year has gone very, very well. The press are at last starting to pay some attention to the issue of tiger conservation. Major world leaders have, for the first time, been cajoled into sitting down in a room together and discussing what needs to be done to save tigers. Hollywood and Bollywood stars have lent their support to the cause, helping to get the message out to a potentially enormous mainstream audience. $100 million has been pledged to the cause by the World Bank. We couldn’t have hoped for a better foundation, a better starting point, for the cause and, of course, for our campaign.

Because that’s what this is – it’s a starting point. It’s an opportunity to address the dangers facing tigers in the long term. What we can’t do is rest on our laurels, let the world forget and the promises dry up. What we need to do now is to act: to keep pushing to ensure that the grand ambitions of the Summit are fully realised. We might never get such a golden opportunity again, and we absolutely cannot afford to waste it.

So, what we’re asking is that, instead of (or as well as) morning runs and punishing diet plans, you make these five your New Year’s Resolutions:

1. To tell at least one person every day about the Tiger Campaign.

2. To add your name to the supporter list by pre-ordering a copy of the book/ebook or donating to the project.

3. To join the Facebook Cause, and help us double the numbers by the end of the month.

4. To mention the Tiger Campaign in your blog, your Facebook profile, your Tweets, your MySpace page… anywhere that will help get the message out to a wider audience.

5. To ask your workplace, school, university or organisation to make the Tiger Campaign their chosen charity, or to join the King of the Jungle project.

If everyone who has already pledged support or who follows the campaign takes up these five simple resolutions, just imagine how much we can achieve in just one year. The Year of the Tiger ends in February. Together, let’s make sure that there are many, many more years of the tiger to come.

Lindsey x

www.tigercampaign.com

Image used courtesy of JDP.

Last Tuesday, I went to Asia House in New Cavendish Street, to hear Ruth Padel speak about tracking tigers in the wild and her wonderful book, Tigers in Red Weather.  At university I had read a little of Padel’s poetry and several of her books on Greek theatre – but I had no idea she was involved in tiger conservation.

In fact, Padel is something of a tiger conservation expert and speaks very compellingly and beautifully on the subject. She explained the concept of ‘trophic cascade’, the disastrous effect of removing a key animal or plant, especially a top predator, from the intricately interwoven network of living things in any ecosystem. By taking something out of the cycle too abruptly, the precarious balance between all other creatures can be completely disrupted – leading to a catastrophic population decline throughout the entire system. Padel explained this by taking an example of eight living things co-existing in the same forest: a wild pig, a mango tree, a leafcutter ant, a monkey, an owl, a lizard, a mosquito and a frog.

Essentially (this is a little abridged) after millenia of gradual adaptation, the eight living things are neatly balanced in their shared environment: the wild pigs scratch the earth on the river bank for food, leaving water-filled holes in the mud that make perfect places for frogs and mosquitoes to lay eggs. Some of the mosquito larvae is eaten by tadpoles. The frogs provide food for the owls that make their nests in the mango trees. Monkeys also live in the trees, where they collect and eat the mangoes, spread the seeds as they go and in doing so help new trees to grow. Leafcutter ants collect the fallen leaves to eat and to ’feed’ the fungus they use to incubate their larvae. Lizards rely on the leafcutter ants for food.

Then humans come to the forest and hunt all the wild pigs. Suddenly, there are no muddy holes in the bank for the frogs to lay their eggs. This suits the mosquitoes – they can lay their larvae anywhere damp and, now that none of this is being eaten by tadpoles, they grow in number. The frogs must either die out or leave to find somewhere to lay their eggs, and the owls leave, too, to find other food sources. There are now so many mosquitoes that they are plaguing the monkeys, so the monkeys move on. With the monkeys gone, there is nothing to spread the mango seeds and over time, the mango trees die. Without the leaves from the mango trees, the leafcutter ants can’t eat or breed, and they also leave or die. The lizards have no ants to eat and so they move on, too. Eventually there is nothing left but mosquitoes.

The same principle is true of any ecosystem, and certainly applies to tigers. Tigers are often seen as indicators of a healthy, functioning forest and throughout Asia have been depicted as powerful guardians - of the jungle and of the spirit. Asia House’s Tigers in Asian Art exhibition, which I was lucky enough to take a look around after the talk, vividly displays this clear common theme. One of my personal favourite pieces is a painted Begali story scroll, depicting a series of scenes of a solitary woman who has to give birth whilst journeying through the jungle. She is shown at first heavily pregnant and then nursing a baby boy, watched over throughout by the eyes of a protective tiger.

Another of the exhibition’s striking artefacts was a solid gold tiger head, decorated with emerald eyes and a ruby collar, which once formed part of  Tipu Sultan’s throne in the late 18th century. Dubbed “The Tiger of Mysore,” Tipu Sultan was by all accounts a fearsome warrior, famous for his assertion that ”it is better to live for one day as a tiger than a thousand years as a sheep” and for posing a particular problem for the invading British forces, by whom he was eventually killed in battle in 1799. He was also famous for ‘Tipu’s Tiger’, a huge, rather sardonic music-box style creation which depicts a tiger mauling a British colonial soldier to death; as you turn the handle on the box, the tiger growls and mauls, and the soldier moans in his death-throes. It’s absolutely brilliant.

During the evening, I also got talking to the exhibition’s curators, including Betty Yao, who has invited me to the Tiger Forum being held at Asia House on 7th December. This will be the only event of its kind in London, reporting on the outcome of the International Tiger Summit and discussing how we can, and must, progress in order to give tigers a fighting chance for survival. It was heartening to meet others striving for the same goal – especially as Asia House represents an important cultural link between the UK and countries across Asia. Here’s hoping that this is indicative of a shift in attitudes towards saving tigers, especially in China and its surrounding nations.

Something that Ruth Padel pointed out, which I found fascinating, is that to make a symbol of something is both a benefit and a curse. Many of the key reasons that tigers inspire beautiful artworks and passionate responses – their awe-inspiring beauty and power, their fierceness and independent spirit – are precisely the same reasons that they have been hunted, made into trophies, eaten and drunk by people who come to see them purely as symbols that can be attained and absorbed into oneself. It is crucial to understand that tigers are magnificent, but they are only so when respected in their own field, understood not simply as an image of strength but as a living thing with an intrinsic right to existence. Their magnificence cannot be owned, only admired.

Whilst putting together our book, we have tried to remain mindful of this. We have wanted to avoid simply pulling together images of tigers as lovely to look at and symbols of strength, but to go a step further and to really explore the life of the tiger, its needs and development – to follow the cubs as they grow up and learn from their mother what it is to be a tiger. We have endeavoured at all times to show these animals as rooted firmly in the context of their environment and as belonging exclusively to this. In short, we have sought to celebrate the tiger without making it into a symbol. When we come to take our book and its content to the media around the world and especially in Asia, it is precisely this message which we hope will, ultimately, save the tiger from becoming an historical artefact and instead be seen for what it is: a key element of a vibrant landscape, which we cannot allow to disappear.

Lindsey x

www.tigercampaign.com

Tigers in Asian Art is on until 12 Feb 2011, at Asia House, 63 New Cavendish Street, London W1G 7LP.