Our plan is to reduce tiger poaching pressure by providing legal and law enforcement support. Our goal is to create a powerful disincentive to tiger hunting by helping bring poachers to justice and making sure that the judicial system works well.

The following problems have been targeted by the Tiger Conservation Awards Program:

1. Law enforcement officers are insufficiently trained and lack adequate financial resources to conduct adequate investigations and to take witnesses and criminal evidence through a Byzantine legal system.

2. Public prosecutors lack the training, resources and staying power to follow cases through the tortuous and time-consuming legal process and to tackle rampant corruption. Many poachers are acquitted on the basis of technicalities, even when faced with incontrovertible evidence of guilt. Many never even see a courtroom.

3. Lack of a readily available legal case reference library and an information registry of known and suspected poachers and gangs to assist in case preparation.

4. Inadequate prosecution and administrative procedures by forest department and other government agencies often result in harmful delays and errors that can often jeopardize cases - poor handling of charge sheets, filing fees, procedures for summoning or maintaining the cooperation of witnesses, and inability to locate witnesses or physical evidence after lengthy delays, etc…

5. Administrative delays often result in liberation of accused on bail and allows them the freedom to interfere with the legal process, to tamper with evidence, to intimidate witnesses, or worse.

6. Lack of cooperation and communication between forestry and police agencies.

7. Prosecutors are overloaded with criminal cases and can not handle their work loads - wildlife crimes often take a back seat to more "serious" crimes.

8. Local residents, many of whom care enormously about their neighboring environment, are not involved in wildlife crime investigations or in crime prevention activities.

9. Lack of ongoing law enforcement training and legal education of conservation officers.

10. Lack of incentives and poor motivation among conservation and law enforcement officers.

11. Victimization of honest and dedicated officers affects morale of entire conservation and law enforcement agencies.