Animals Asia’s Vietnam Bear Rescue Centre faces eviction and relocation

Press Release
9 October 2012

Animals Asia’s Vietnam Bear Rescue Centre faces eviction and relocation following an aggressive campaign against it by the director of Tam Dao National Park, Do Dinh Tien. On Friday 5 October, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) informed Animals Asia that the Ministry of Defence has issued an order to evict the sanctuary operation and its 104 rescued bears.

Animals Asia is a charity that is devoted to ending the barbaric practice of bear bile farming and improving the welfare of animals in China and Vietnam.

This follows Mr Tien lobbying the Ministry of Defence to declare the sanctuary to be an area of “national defence significance”. The park director has been pressuring Animals Asia to relinquish 6 hectares of land since April 2011. It is believed that he intends to hand the land over to the Truong Giang Tam Dao Joint Stock Company, in which his daughter has an investment. The company has submitted an application for development of an “eco-tourism park” and hotels.

The closure would see 104 bears that have been rescued from the bile industry evicted, 77 local Vietnamese staff made unemployed, and financial losses to Animals Asia of more than US $2 million. The local economy that depends on the centre would be severely impacted, and the Vietnamese government’s commitment to ending bear bile farming would be called into question.

The eviction is in direct violation of the Vietnam government’s 2005 agreement with Animals Asia to fund and develop a facility on 12 hectares of the park that would permanently rehabilitate and house 200 endangered bears rescued from the illegal bear bile industry...

Source: Animals Asia’s Vietnam Bear Rescue Centre faces eviction and relocation
Author: Animals Asia

Link: Medicine practitioners urged to help reduce bear bile demand
Link: Stop the eviction!