FACT: Tiger population estimates for Thailand’s Western Forest Complex are up from 40 in 2007 to a range of 189-223 this year.

THE NUMBERS: World wild tiger population estimates –

2024:	5,574
2022:	4,500
2010:	3,200
1980:	~35,000?
1900:	~100,000?

WHAT THEY MEAN:

From Thai newspaper Khao Sod last week:

“The Department of National Parks, Wildlife, and Plant Conservation released on December 19 the first photos of two tiger cubs and their mother in Slap Phra Wildlife Sanctuary, Kanchanaburi Province. … Over 420 automatic camera traps have been installed in 7 protected areas of the southern part of the Western Forest Complex to record the population of tigers and other wild cat species, including predators, from early 2023 to date. The area is a large wildlife corridor in a dry evergreen forest and is located near a large river. Analysis of the data from the automatic camera traps revealed that 3 tigers were photographed, an adult female listed in the tiger database under the code TWT128F, which is the mother tiger, and two cubs (with the codes SLT_Unknown003 and SLT_Unknown004).”

Is this an everyday event? A significant sighting? Probably the latter, and a very hopeful one.

Background: A 2018 National Academies of Science study guessed that, excluding fish, all the world’s vertebrates together weighed (in “dry carbon”) about 170 million tons. Humans and farm animals make up about 160 million tons of this. Vertebrate wildlife — that is, all the eagles, cobras, elephants, condors, whales, jaguars, deer, sea turtles, mice, frogs, bison, etc. — comes to a bare 10 million tons. From another perspective, Our World in Data summarizes three research papers and concludes that wild mammals weighed about 10 million tons (again in dry carbon) in 1900, and were down to 3 million tons by 2015.

Tigers’ sad modern history is part of this larger decline in wildlife and biodiversity. Zoologists guess that, when wildlife weighed 10 million tons in 1900, about 100,000 tigers patrolled a roughly triangular forest-mountain-steppe range with Korea at the top right, Indonesia at the bottom, and Iran at the top left. By 1980 the population was down to 35,000; by 2010 tigers were gone from Central Asia, Korea, Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, and three of the nine “subspecies” (the Caspian, Javanese, and Bali tigers) were declared extinct. The remaining 3,200 included a large group of about 2,000 Bengal tigers in India, 450 Amur tigers in Siberia, 400 Sumatrans in Indonesia, 200 Indochinese and South China tigers in Thailand, and smaller refuges of 100 to 200 in Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, China, and Malaysia. The roughly 14,000 zoo and farm tigers distributed around Asia, Europe, and the United States likely outnumbered wild tigers by four or five to one.

The principal issue, for tigers as for other large wild animals, is a massive loss of habitat through conversion of wild areas to agriculture, pasture, and urban land; logging and road- and town-building, with attendant chopping up of forests into “fragments” and “islands”; and most recently climate change. As the pre-1900 tiger range contracted by about 95%, and the number of tigers shrank with it. Trade and economic factors, though a secondary concern, mean that as with elephants, rhinoceros, and Caspian sturgeon, tigers have declined faster than less “charismatic” wildlife: hunting for sport and pelts in the 20th century, more recent collection of cubs for exotic pets and tiger farming, and sale of tiger bones, blood, and organs for ill-founded medicinal purposes throughout.

Against this unhappy background, last week’s “Global Tiger Day” assessment provides, cautiously and tentatively, some reason for optimism. Since the 2010 low, wild tiger populations appear to have been growing, with surveys reporting worldwide populations of about 4,500 in 2022 and 5,574 this year. This isn’t because the estimates of the 2010s were too pessimistic or missed populations, but because of confirmation that tiger populations in several countries are beginning to rise.

Khao Sod’s report on the newly photographed cubs is an example of this. Thailand’s Western Forest Complex, a group of 12 national parks and seven wildlife sanctuaries, was thought home to around 40 tigers in 2007. By 2022 the population, tracked by the Forestry Department’s batteries of cameras, had grown to a range of “148 to 189,” and in 2024 it is “179 to 223.” Reasons: habitat has improved as government programs release prey species such as sambar deer into the sanctuaries; protection against poachers; and a program of joining disconnected sanctuaries and parks through protected “tiger corridors” – like the riverbank evergreen forest in which the mother and cubs turned up — which at least partially reverse past fragmentation of habitat into areas too small to support significant populations. Outside, meanwhile, the international environmental agreement CITES (“Convention on Trade in Endangered Species”), amplified over the past 20 years to ban domestic trade of wild tigers for pets, farming, pelts, and medicines as well as international trade — which has been banned since 1973 — may also be helping. Nor is Thailand uniquely successful: Nepal’s tiger count has risen from 121 to 355, and India’s from 2,967 in 2018 to 3,682 this year.

These are, of course, still small numbers — dozens and hundreds rather than the thousands necessary for a durable recovery. If threats of habitat loss and poaching are receding at least in some countries, climate-change concerns continue to grow. But for the first time in quite a while the trends have turned up, suggesting that tigers’ future may still be in forests rather than zoos. Perhaps, though later than you think, it’s still probably not too late.

FURTHER READING

Rebound:

… Khao Sod reports, with Western Forest Complex photos.

… Enthusiastic comment from the Thai government.

… The BBC looks at Nepal’s modestly recovering tiger population.

…The Hindu on rising tiger counts in India.

… And India’s National Tiger Conservation Authority.

Outside the forests:

How reliable are “zoo and farm tiger” estimates? Since the early 2000s, press and NGO reports have frequently used a figure of 5,000 in the United States, and sometimes suggested higher estimates of 7,000 or 10,000. A conservation group, the Feline Conservation Foundation, attempted a direct count in 2021. They identified 4,103 “big cats” including 1,538 tigers, 862 lions, 487 cougars, and 425 cheetahs. This doesn’t disprove hypotheses of the larger zoo and farm populations, but does put some question marks around very high numbers.

Policy:

… The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service explains CITES.

… Immigration and Customs Enforcement estimates ~$7.8 billion to $10 billion in annual illicit wildlife trade, along with $7 billion in illegal timber trade and $4.2 billion to $9.5 billion in illegal/unreported/unregulated fishery trade.

… CITES next steps.

… And the World Wildlife Fund on tigers and climate change.

Two gloomy wildlife reports:

… Our World in Data summarizes trends in land mammal biomass.

… And PNAS looks at the big picture. Excluding nematodes and microorganisms, all world animal life weighs about 2.2 billion tons (in terms of “dry carbon.”) Bugs of various sorts — more technically, “arthropods” including insects, crustaceans, arachnids, mites, and so on — make up a bit less than half of this total. Fish at 700 million tons make up most of the rest. Humans and farm animals (including ducks and chickens) nearly equal worms, and there isn’t much space for vertebrate wildlife:

All animals	2,200 megatons
Insects, spiders, crustaceans	1,000 megatons
Fish	700 megatons
Worms	200 megatons
Farm animals	100 megatons
Jellyfish, coral, & spongse	100 megatons
Humans	60 megatons
Mollusks	20 megatons
All wild mammals, birds, & reptiles	10 megatons

 

PNAS’ study.

And two more modestly hopeful big-cat stories:

Asiatic lions remained at large in the wild from Iraq to India as recently as the 1940s, but are extinct outside western India. They also seem to be rebounding — though the numbers are nearly an order of magnitude smaller than those for tigers — with about 700, up from 400 20 years ago, in Gir Forest.

Closer to home, a wildlife biologist shot the last known U.S. jaguar in 1964. The jaguar population is much bigger than the tiger and lion groups, with about 175,000 of them living from Brazil and Peru to Mexico. Ten Mexican jaguars have been photographed exploring Arizona and New Mexico in this decade, so maybe there’s a return in prospect.  NGO Panthera explains.

ABOUT ED

Ed Gresser is Vice President and Director for Trade and Global Markets at PPI.

Ed returns to PPI after working for the think tank from 2001-2011. He most recently served as the Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Trade Policy and Economics at the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR). In this position, he led USTR’s economic research unit from 2015-2021, and chaired the 21-agency Trade Policy Staff Committee.

Ed began his career on Capitol Hill before serving USTR as Policy Advisor to USTR Charlene Barshefsky from 1998 to 2001. He then led PPI’s Trade and Global Markets Project from 2001 to 2011. After PPI, he co-founded and directed the independent think tank ProgressiveEconomy until rejoining USTR in 2015. In 2013, the Washington International Trade Association presented him with its Lighthouse Award, awarded annually to an individual or group for significant contributions to trade policy.

Ed is the author of Freedom from Want: American Liberalism and the Global Economy (2007). He has published in a variety of journals and newspapers, and his research has been cited by leading academics and international organizations including the WTO, World Bank, and International Monetary Fund. He is a graduate of Stanford University and holds a Master’s Degree in International Affairs from Columbia Universities and a certificate from the Averell Harriman Institute for Advanced Study of the Soviet Union.

Read the full email and sign up for the Trade Fact of the Week.

FACT: U.S. public debt 99% of GDP and rising above 166% by the time November’s 18-year-old voters turn 50.

THE NUMBERS: U.S. debt/GDP ratio –  

2024:	99%
2054 (baseline):	166%
2054 (PPI “Paying for Progress” budget blueprint):	48%

 

WHAT THEY MEAN:

PPI’s 160-page budget blueprint, out last week and entitled Paying for Progress, assesses the next 30 years’ fiscal choices — taxes of all kinds, debt buildup and interest payments, health and retirement programs, national defense and “America in the world,” bridge repair and fiber-optic cable deployment, “discretionary” spending on everything from housing and science to pre-kindergarten and apprenticeship — proposes lots of ideas, and opens with a warning about the future of American government:

“Every election, we choose leaders who are supposed to levy taxes and use the revenues they collect to fund programs that benefit society as a whole. The principle that our leaders allocate public resources consistent with the values of the people who elect them is often known as “fiscal democracy.” Regrettably, in the United States today, fiscal democracy has deeply eroded.”

Authors Ben Ritz and Laura Duffy give us a way to measure this, by tracing the share of budgets that are mandatory and automatic — that is, interest payments and entitlement programs — and the share that’s ‘discretionary’ over time.  A generation ago in 1994, the ratio was 63% mandatory to 37% discretionary.  Now it is 73% mandatory, and 27% discretionary. And assuming no change, according to the August Congressional Budget Office, by 2054 it will be 82% to 18%. CBO also believes that in this “no-change” scenario, we will be spending 6.3% of annual national income — more than goes to Social Security, Medicare, or any other budget “line” — simply to pay down the national debt.

In more human terms, this November’s 18-year-old first-time voters will be middle-aged parents and homeowners in 2054.  The 82%-to-18% ratio means their taxes will overwhelmingly go to their parents’ retirement costs and interest payments, with a bit for national defense. Their ability to make other choices — tax rates, road-building, new telecom technologies to replace today’s fiber-optic cables and satellites, help for the poor, arts and environmental quality, international programs from PEPFAR to Peace Corps and embassy security, scientific research, workforce development — will be small and cramped.  One likely consequence is to further inflame the already great temptation to shift the electoral debate away from practical choices and into emotional culture wars. Another, again per the Congressional Budget Office, is that the 166% debt-to-GDP ratio in 2054 implies a fall of $5,400 in our 18-year-old’s income (in today’s dollars, using CBO’s per capita income projection) relative to the level it would reach were the current 99% ratio simply stable for 30 years.

PPI’s budget shows the way to do better, by (i) shifting taxation from work and investment towards consumption and unearned income; (ii) controlling “mandatory” spending by reversing debt buildup and saving costs on retirement; and while doing these things (iii) restoring the ability for a disciplined government to be an activist government. One among seven center-right-to-left think-tank blueprints* commissioned by the Peterson Foundation last fall, PPI’s plan is distinctive for three big results:

Fiscal democracy restored: Mixing savings in some areas, process and enforcement reforms in others, and thorough revision of the tax system, PPI’s plan by 2054 places the mandatory/discretionary spending ratio at 62%/38%, more or less the level of the mid-1990s and the most balanced ratio among the seven plans. The result puts discretionary spending at 6.5% of GDP, the highest among the seven plans, and sufficient to give the Americans of 2054 the chance to choose both an activist government and a low-debt government.

Interest burden reduced: Through tax reforms, savings in spending, and efficiency and process reforms, PPI’s plan brings the debt/GDP ratio down from today’s 99% to 48% in 2054. This debt level, last seen in 2009, is about the same as that achieved during the 1990s boom. The 48% ratio is easily the lowest among the seven plans; those in the other six range from 59% to 118%. The lower debt burden under PPI’s plan reduces interest payments by almost 75% (relative to CBO’s “baseline” projection), freeing up resources for other public purposes.

Tax policy made fairer, cleaner, and more pro-growth: To pay for the restored fiscal democracy lower debt/GDP ratio, and the reduced interest burden, PPI proposes a thorough revision of tax policy, fundamentally based on reducing taxation of work, shifting taxation towards consumption and pollution, and encouraging progressivity. This includes canceling the payroll tax and replacing it with a value-added tax and a carbon tax; replacing the antiquated estate and gift tax with a progressive inheritance tax; and replacing several regressive and inefficient tax expenditures, such as the state and local tax and college savings deductions, with better-targeted grant programs. Alone among the seven plans, PPI’s blueprint also looks hard at the tariff system, reducing hourly-wage families’ cost of living and stopping selective taxation of goods-using industries — e.g. manufacturing, retail, construction, farming — by cutting away most Trump-era tariffs and pre-Trump tariffs on industrial inputs and consumer goods not made in the United States.

In sum, a very ambitious plan with a lot of ideas: a restoration of eroded fiscal democracy; a shift in taxation from work to consumption and unearned income; a vote for disciplined but activist government; and a hope to lighten the burdens now accumulating upon hourly-wage families and this year’s young voters.

* In alphabetical though not ideological order, the American Action Forum, the American Enterprise Institute, the Bipartisan Policy Center, the Center for American Progress, the Economic Policy Institute, and the Manhattan Institute.

FURTHER READING

PPI’s Budget Blueprint.

… From the New Liberal podcast, budget authors Ben Ritz and Laura Duffy explain.

… Ritz in Forbes.

… and the Peterson Foundation compares and contrasts PPI’s approach with 6 other plans.

And for those wanting a bit more tariff background:

Ed Gresser on inclusivity, regressivity, and bias in tariff policy.

Elaine Wei explains how, uniquely in the world, U.S. clothing tariffs tax women’s clothes higher than directly analogous men’s clothes.

Reps. Lizzie Fletcher (D-TX and New Democrat Coalition Trade Task Force Chair) and Brittany Pettersen (D-CO) introduce the Pink Tariffs Study Act, directing the Treasury Department to review the tariff system for gender bias and regressivity.

And the Trump campaign’s Depression-like tariff proposal.

Read the full email and sign up for the Trade Fact of the Week.