Sumatran Tiger Conservation Team

Four high-priority needs define the mission of The Tiger Foundation's work in Indonesia:

• the need to identify the distribution and status of each of the many fragmented tiger populations, the need to understand the quality of their habitat, and the threats facing each population;
• the need to implement improved protection and monitoring systems that will prevent poaching and disturbance of the tiger's habitat and its prey base;
• the need to resolve conflicts between tigers and adjacent forest-edge communities, and;
• the need to instill a sense of awareness and urgency regarding the conservation of the tiger in the wider Indonesian public.

To save the tiger we must first understand it. All the evidence points towards the conclusion that the Sumatran tiger will be gone too, unless we can quickly learn from the hard realities of previous experience. Poaching is ongoing and uncontrolled, and forest disturbance is continuing to divide these populations into even smaller populations. The smaller each population is, the greater its vulnerability to poaching and severe environmental catastrophes such as the El Niño fires of 1997. Conflicts between people and tigers only intensify as economic factors and population growth exert their influence. Because of this, time is of the essence; the tiger populations in Sumatra are reaching a critical threshold that once crossed, will be impossible to revisit. If we can mobilize resources now, coming together in a true spirit of cooperation and collaboration with the Indonesian public and their leaders, most of whom are extremely interested in saving their wild tigers, then there is still a chance. If we cannot, then the wild tiger will be gone forever. So far, our principal limiting factor has been our financial resources. The Tiger Foundation seeks funding to create and support one new tiger conservation team operating in southern and central Sumatra.

(Sustaining annual budget: US$75,000)

The Tiger Foundation

The Tiger Foundation identified two primary sites in Sumatra where we now concentrate our efforts. One, Bukit Tigapuluh National Park in central Sumatra, is a recent but very valuable addition to Indonesia's protected area portfolio. Despite the great potential of the park as a reserve for Sumatran tigers and for other rare biodiversity, the development of the park is still at an early stage. Working hand-in-hand with the park officials, several immediate needs were identified. The most important is to react immediately to the threat to the park's tiger population from poachers and tiger trappers. Tiger poaching in the park must be prevented immediately in order to ensure that tigers can continue to exist. Without anti-poaching and intelligence operations the park's tiger population will decline, even if other park improvements are quickly implemented.

A tiger population secure from poaching is the highest priority for Bukit Tigapuluh National Park. Because the Sumatran tiger can be considered an umbrella species - all the other wildlife sharing the tiger's range will benefit from this intensive protection and monitoring. We intend to achieve this total protection by inserting well-trained Tiger Protection Units (TPU) similar to the model developed for rhinos in other parks of Sumatra and Java. These teams will be made up from forest rangers and carefully recruited and intensively trained local people. In our experience, teams such as these have proven very successful at combating the threat from poachers, particularly in Way Kambas.
Between 1995 and 2000 The Tiger Foundation focused considerable efforts on Way Kambas National Park in southern Sumatra. We have succeeded in mobilizing and training PHKA forest rangers to be active and efficient custodians of the park, its habitat, the tiger population and the other important wildlife. Remote camera monitoring techniques (above example) developed there have revolutionized the way in which tigers can be observed in the field. Anti-poaching operations in cooperation with the PHKA and RPU's (Rhino Protection Units) of the Rhino Conservation Program have had a dramatic effect on the level of illegal activity and poaching within the park. The crucial base line ecological information regarding tigers, their habitat, their prey and the threats to which they are subject are now well understood for this particular lowland forest habitat type. The Tiger Foundation wants to continue to support the safe-keeping of the tigers there and along the way, continue to monitor the resident tigers through time, so that we can have snap shots of tiger family life, from birth to death. From five years of experience we know the annual costs for supporting anti-poaching patrols and long-term monitoring average about US$ 50,000.