Sumatran Tiger Conservation

Tigers were once distributed widely across forests and grasslands from Turkey to Siberia in the northeast and the Indonesia island of Java in the southeast. This vast historical range was reduced greatly in the last 200 years through habitat loss, depletion of tiger prey by growing human populations, and tiger eradication campaigns. In Indonesia, the Javan tiger and Bali tiger were driven to extinction in the last 60 years. Only the Sumatra tiger remains, with viable populations restricted to just a few protected areas on the island. A failure to carry out vigorous conservation campaigns to protect remaining tigers will mean the loss of one of one of the world’s most ecologically important top predators, and one of our most charismatic flagship species for biodiversity protection. WCS Indonesia has been working to protect Sumatran tigers in Bukit Barisan Selatan National Park (BBSNP) since 1998.

The Human Aspect
BBSNP, which stretches 150 km along the Barisan Mountain Range in southern Sumatra, is ringed by human settlements. In fact, Lampung Province, in which most of the park lies, is the most densely populated province on Sumatra. As such, every day local people and tigers interact indirectly—and sometimes directly—in and around the park. In effect, tigers and people in the BBSNP area compete for resources, such as lowland rainforest and game.

Threats
Habitat loss, prey loss, and poaching are major threats to tigers in BBSNP. The first is of great concern, as it affects not only tigers, but all lowland-dwelling species in the park. One-fifth of the park’s total forest cover has been lost to encroachments, and the destruction continues at an average rate of 4.85 km2 per month. The second, the decline in sambar deer and wild pig populations, is the result of heavy hunting in and around the park. Shrinking prey populations have been cited as a major cause of tiger declines in many Asian countries. The third, poaching of tigers, is actually a composite of many kinds of killing: hunting to satisfy a local and international demand for traditional Chinese medicines; trophy hunting; and retaliatory acts in response to killing of livestock or humans by tigers. BBSNP’s tiger population is only about 40-43 animals; every tiger that is killed or dies of starvation counts.

WCS Activities
Our current approach to tiger conservation in and around BBSNP has four components, as follows.

• Ecological research and monitoring: Since 1998, we have conducted camera trap monitoring of tigers and their prey. Our work has been the first to demonstrate that camera trap data are a good measure of the relative abundance of tigers and prey. This work helps us to gauge the health of these populations.
• Habitat protection: WCS is coordinating a multi-year project called CANOPI that brings together park authorities, local governments, local NGOs, and community groups to protect tigers, elephants, rhinoceros, and other key wildlife and their habitats in the broader Bukit Barisan Selatan landscape. A major focus of the program is to develop and promote sustainable livelihoods that will alleviate deforestation and unsustainable agricultural practices in the area. In addition, our Landscape Ecology project uses a combination of remote sensing and ground surveys to monitor deforestation, identify its major components, and provide detailed reports to the national park authority to help fight encroachment.
• Conflict awareness and education: Our tiger team is working with communities around the park to collect information on conflict between humans and tigers. The team is working side by side with local people to develop solutions to the problem, including innovative “tiger-safe” approaches to maintaining livestock.
• Collaborative law enforcement: WCS operates a Wildlife Crimes Unit in southern Sumatra to monitor and investigate trade in Sumatran tigers and other protected species in the area, to provide legal support in the prosecution of wildlife law offenders, and to promote awareness of prohibitions against tiger trade.

.

Important Next Steps
• Build a national Wildlife Crimes network: This will include (1) mounting a national lobby and media campaign to raise awareness of wildlife laws and to increase the harshness of sentences against offenders, (2) increasing coordination to fight wildlife crimes at the national and regional level through building capacity in the Department of Forestry, and (3) reducing national demand for illegal wildlife.
• Promote tiger conservation through partnership: We are bringing together partners in Sumatran tiger conservation, including the Indonesian Department of Forestry and other local and international organizations working on Sumatra. Through pooling knowledge and resources, this partnership network will strengthen existing work to conserve Sumatran tigers and will enable the expansion of efforts to monitor tigers and decrease human-tiger conflict throughout southern Sumatra.