With a view to countering rising incidence of poaching and illegal trade and wide-ranging threats detrimental to tiger habitats in major tiger range countries of Nepal, Bhutan, India, Bangladesh and Thailand, the World Wide Fund(WWF) for Nature has announced an international action plan and declared 1998 as the year for the tiger.The plan - which was announced on the eve of celebrating the Chinese Year of the Tiger beginning on January 28 - gives priority to setting up an emergency rapid response fund for tiger conservation.