Participants were told that fewer than 4,000 tigers remain in the wild, with an estimated population of only about 50 individuals in Vietnam.

According to the Global Tiger Initiative (GTI), the number of tigers worldwide dropped from 100,000 to 3,500 over the last century.

Although Vietnam has banned all domestic trade of tigers, the trade in tigers continues for the use of their bones in traditional medicines, the consumption of their meat as a health tonic and as a status symbol, and the use of their skin for trophy and decorative purposes.

The workshop was jointly held by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment and the World Bank, as part of a series of activities in the run-up to a summit on tiger protection in Russia next September.