Letter from the Chair

Abstract

First of all, I would like to mention that our group is growing fast in terms of the number of members and also improving in terms of tapir range country representation. We now have 96 members from or working in 25 different countries (Argentina, Australia, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Denmark, Ecuador, Germany, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mexico, Panama, Peru, Portugal, Taiwan, Thailand, The Netherlands, United Kingdom, United States, and Venezuela), and we continue to receive lots of e-mail messages every day from people willing to join our efforts and contribute to tapir conservation.I would also like to inform you that the TSG Plans for Action 2004-2005, our ambitious list of 27 priority goals and 55 actions to be put into practice by the Third International Tapir Symposium in January 2006, is well on the way to being achieved. So far, approximately 45% of the actions have been taken care of! Our TSG officers, as well as the coordinators and members of all TSG committees, are working really hard to put those actions into practise and reach those goals. Regarding our top priority of developing National Action Plans for Tapir Conservation and Management in all range countries in Central and South America and Southeast Asia, we are happy to announce that an impressive number of countries have already started the process of putting together their Regional Action Planning Committees and are actively working on the first steps of action plan production. We have been able to identify and appoint TSG Country Coordinators for most tapir range countries but, unfortunately, we are still lacking coordinators for French Guiana, Guyana, Malaysia, Nicaragua, Paraguay and Suriname. Therefore, if you have any contacts in these countries or if you know of any professionals or organisations who would be willing to help us with the development of these action plans, we would appreciate it if you could please let us know as soon as you can.