So began an ambitious plan which enters its next stage today, when a female South China tiger cub, Cathay, and a male, Hope, arrive at their new home on the grounds of South Africa's Pretoria Zoo. Ms Li and her husband plan to teach Cathay, Hope and up to eight other cubs how to hunt in the wilds of South Africa before returning them to a reserve in China. If all goes to plan, the returned tigers will mate with their zoo-bred cousins and revive the species. The reintroduction of the first rehabilitated tigers is also scheduled to coincide with the start of the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.

Questions about whether the project will work, mostly from environmentalists, have dogged the project from the outset. But the scepticism is now being stoked by the couple's high-profile dispute with their one-time South African partners. Ms Li's first step in implementing the project was the purchase of 35,000 hectares of land in rural Philippolis, South Africa, for the exclusive use of cubs reared in Chinese zoos. She chose to take them abroad because of a perceived lack of big cat experts and cheap land on the mainland.

Last month Save China's Tigers, Ms Li's charity, moved Cathay and Hope to South Africa to begin their acclimatisa- tion at temporary quarters. At least 634 television networks carried the story, Ms Li claims, hailing the cubs as the world's most famous. Both are said to be thriving. Admittedly, during the first week they hissed and spat at everyone. Worse, they contracted ringworm which is affecting the weaker tiger, Hope, quite badly - he has a weepy eye and has lost fur from his front paw, leg and stomach. But the disease is being treated and the cubs are growing in confidence, watched by their Chinese keeper, Tan Jun, whom Ms Li poached from Chongqing Wildlife Park in August. London-based Ms Li has high hopes for the cubs. Over the next four years, the original pair will be joined by between three and eight cubs. But none, it transpires, will spend any time in Philippolis, thanks to the battle between Ms Li and her South African partners.

In 2002, Ms Li and Mr Bray met with South African tiger conservationists John and Dave Varty at Londolozi, the Vartys' game lodge near Kruger National Park in South Africa's northeast. The four agreed to go into partnership and Bray gave the Vartys US$4 million to expand their tiger sanctuaries in the Free State and Northern Cape, according to Ms Li. The Vartys, brothers who are well-known in international conservation circles, told South Africa's Sunday Times that John Varty and his partner Gillian van Houten were to receive Hope and Cathay at the Philippolis sanctuary. Instead, they say they were forced in March to flee in terror from a team of four 'security consultants' sent by Ms Li and Mr Bray. The consultants told Varty and his staff they were taking over management of the sanctuary, the newspaper claimed. The security consultants, however, had to leave the farm four days later after the Vartys won an urgent High Court application. The court also ordered Ms Li, Mr Bray, and their hired guards to stop harassing John Varty, his family and the sanctuary staff. Dave Varty was quoted by the Sunday Times as saying van Houten and the children were 'traumatised' and his brother was 'terrified'.

The root of the dispute was the alleged embezzlement of the money that Ms Li and Mr Bray invested between February and April last year. In a letter from Mr Bray's South African lawyer, delivered to Dave Varty in January, Mr Bray accused the Vartys of having 'misappropriated and mismanaged funds' meant for the tigers and organised financial benefits for themselves instead of the trust, the newspaper reported.

Now planning to sue the Vartys over this point, Ms Li is furious. When asked about the matter, she launched into a tirade. On the question of whether she behaved heavy handedly towards the Vartys, Ms Li claimed she actually under did it, adding that the Vartys returned to their farm 'a few days' after fleeing. She then resumed her diatribe and later sent an e-mail message saying she had just spoken to her lawyer David Leibowitz, who wanted much of what she had said kept off the record.

Dave Varty said that although Ms Li, Mr Quan and Mr Bray 'have used colourful phrases to allege wrongdoing on our part, they are essentially objecting to the way in which we managed and allocated the funds Bray provided to us with an open mandate'. Mr Varty claimed Mr Bray received regular financial reports and did not lodge any complaints 'until he lost interest in the project earlier this year'.

Mr Varty said 'we have accounted for every cent of Bray's money'. However, according to Mr Varty, Mr Bray had become 'extraordinarily vindictive and refuses to co-operate'.

As a result of the demise of the relationship, Ms Li and Mr Bray have now decided to dispatch the cubs to a 500-hectare wilderness training area leased from the national zoo in Mokopani near Pretoria in Northern Province. When the cubs arrive today, the mayor of Mokopani the Honourable Bob Mmola, will host the traditional welcome ceremony. The ultimate ambition is to restore the South China tiger to its original habitat and protect the whole ecological chain by 'using the Chinese tiger as the flagship', according to a Save China's Tigers press release. The vision has won the endorsement of a slew of luminaries such as Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon star Michelle Yeoh Choo Kheng, businessman David Tang Wing-cheung, film director Chen Kaige and explorer Colonel John Blashford Snell.

Many scientists, however, question the viability of Ms Li's idea. Enter Louis Dorfman, an animal behaviourist at the International Exotic Feline Sanctuary in Boyd, Texas. 'The [idea] of sending a couple of tigers to Africa to be trained for reintroduction into China seems to be ill conceived and perhaps suffers from a lack of expert planning and fundamental conception,' he said.

He argued that tigers are as individual as humans and cannot automatically be expected to take to a new country. He also cast doubt on the value of the hunting training they are set to receive.

He pointed out that learning to hunt an African antelope would not prepare a tiger for the prey it would find in China. Finally, he asked what qualifies the Mokopani team to attempt to 'rewild' Cathay and Hope.

Ms Li conceded that she cannot guarantee all the tigers will adapt successfully, but suggested at least some inevitably would. She also emphasised the pedigree of her tiger strategist, Gus van Dyk, the carnivore manager at Pilanesberg National Park near Sun City in South Africa's North West Province, whom she recruited in May this year. She described him as 'the most respected carnivore manager in South Africa, and therefore probably the top one in the world'.

Victor Watkins, the wildlife director of the World Society for the Protection of Animals, is critical of Ms Li's efforts.

'There is no sensible reason why tigers should be taken half way around the world and put into a foreign habitat in order to 'train' them for a life in the wild back in China,' he said.

He argued a proper reintroduction programme should be carried out in situ - in the animals' natural environment in China. He concluded that the project is costing sums which would be better spent trying to protect the dwindling habitat they are associated with and wonders whether the scheme is little more than a publicity stunt for the 2008 Olympic Games.

This seems unlikely given the source of the money is not the Chinese government but Mr Bray, who pays 650,000 rand (HK$729,100) a year to the national zoo for leasing the 500 hectares from their game breeding centre in Mokopani. Ms Li, whose credentials include an MBA from Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business and the experience of running worldwide licensing at Gucci in Florence between 1995 and 1997, has asked critics to give her the benefit of the doubt. Explaining what motivates her now, she said: 'The tiger represents the most important symbol in Chinese culture. If the tiger becomes extinct, the cultural values that embrace this icon [the belief that the animal wards off household enemies] will also be lost for future generations.'

Ms Li said she would do whatever is best to protect the South China tiger and ridiculed the idea that it should be reared exclusively in its native habitat. 'There are already other tigers in Africa in parks and zoos ... what is wrong with taking another sub species of tiger to Africa for a short period of time?'