WHEN QUAN LI resigned from her position as the head of Gucci's trademark licensing department in 1997, she thought she'd sailed through the most treacherous waters in her career.
Concluding eight years as a jet-setting executive and moving to London to become a full-time housewife, she thought the world of wheeling and dealing was behind her. Never did she think that backbiting and intrigue would catch up with her years later - not because she went back into business, but because of her new calling as a wildlife conservationist.
Since starting the Save China's Tigers fund five years ago Quan, 42, has been subjected to scathing criticism from all quarters. The fund aims to rescue the endangered South China tiger, whose numbers stand at about 30 in the wild and 60 in captivity, according to the latest research in 2001. The main debate revolves around the campaign's centrepiece: an ambitious plan to reintroduce the captive tigers to nature through a 're-wilding' training programme in a specially constructed reserve in South Africa, with the view of eventually easing them back into the Chinese countryside.
Biological experts denounce Quan's plan as futile and putting the tigers and the eco-system of the site in South Africa at risk, with Judy Mills of Conservation International describing it as a 'circus sideshow dressed up as eco-tourism' in which 'a wealthy dilettante feels as if she has done something'.
'The tiger's the most political of all animals,' says Quan, who quotes Mills' criticism in interviews and also on the Save China's Tigers website. 'People fight for territory and funding - I understood why they didn't welcome the Chinese tiger to go on the world stage. For this I got lambasted and maliciously attacked.
'I am considered a threat. In the very beginning, for example, one of the representatives in China for WCS [the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society] was trying to help and he said, 'As long as you stayed off other tigers you will be fine.' I never really understood what he meant until later, when it became clear that the Chinese tiger, [our] charity and [our] project were here to stay. Then, I became a threat even when I didn't get myself involved in other tigers.'
