The Future of Tiger Conservation

Photo Credit: Stephenekka, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

What if tiger conservation was turned into a challenge? After 12 years, countries that have completed the challenge would have doubled their tiger populations. This was what the leaders of the Global Tiger Initiative and Global Tiger Forum were thinking when they created Tigers Times 2, commonly referred to as Tx2, back in 2010. These organizations encouraged the thirteen tiger range countries to double tiger populations by the next year of the tiger: 2022. The idea of this goal was that having a set goal, and minor competition between countries, would motivate tiger range countries to implement tiger conservation strategies. The original conference was held in St. Petersburg, Russia, and representatives from the 13 tiger range countries attended the conference to represent programs their countries were going to implement. The goal was to meet back in Russia for the next conference in 2022. But did the conference actually happen?

An Uncertain Year

There is generally a void of information about what happened with the 2022 conference available online, the latest information was a report from 2021 created by a coalition of Fauna and Flora International, IUCN, Panthera, TRAFFIC, WCS, and WWF: Tiger Vision 2021. This report was generally divided into 6 sections. The first section highlighted some of the good news from the last eleven years at that point. Namely, in 2016 the global tiger decline stopped and population numbers increased to around 4,500.

The next section of this report highlights the goals for tiger conservation for the next twelve years to the next year of the tiger, 2034. The overall umbrella category for these goals is to, of course, increase tiger population across all 13 tiger range countries. Many countries did not achieve the goal set at the 2010 conference, which was to double tiger populations. Therefore, this goal is being expanded to be achieved within the next 12 years. A large factor in increasing population is also expanding tiger habitat. Without making a goal to increase tiger habitat range, the goal of increasing tiger population can not be successfully achieved. Increasing tiger population without correspondingly increasing habitat range means that the potential for human-tiger conflict increases, as tigers move into human-developed areas looking for more habitat and food, resulting from an inadequate habitat range. In fact, due to inadequate habitat, the tiger population’s current range has decreased significantly over years of human development. The ideal solution would be to simply reintroduce tigers into new habitat that is where their old range once existed. However, as much of this land is developed, forming new tiger conservation areas is a challenge that needs to be discussed by the governments of tiger range countries. After tiger conservation areas are established comes the next goal: restoring ecological diversity. Tigers do not just exist in isolation and need a fully balanced ecosystem in order to thrive, being apex predators. In a practical application, conservationists would need to reestablish populations of the prey, such as sambar deer, that tigers rely on, and then also the foliage or other animals that the tiger’s prey relies on.

Next, the report highlights a few international goals that guide the direction of national and site goals; to eliminate poaching for tiger parts and to establish a Southeast Asia Tiger Recovery Action Plan. Poaching for tiger parts is a large cause of global tiger population decline due to the growing black market trade. Tiger pelts are highly valued by those who poach tigers and can sell for 5,000 to 10,000 US dollars. Others may also poach for tiger bone, which is used in traditional Chinese medicine. The driving force behind a lot of poaching is often because families can not earn enough money to sustain themselves and thus look to black market trade and poaching. Thus, when addressing this issue, societal factors must also be addressed to help families find ways to sustain themselves without needing to poach tigers or other animals. Reducing poaching may be a goal that would be helpful to include in a Southeast Asia Tiger Recovery Action Plan. Tiger decline in Southeast Asia has become increasingly drastic over the years and actions need to be taken to protect tigers in the seven tiger range countries in Southeast Asia. Forming a Southeast Asia Tiger Recovery Action Plan would help stop the decline in tiger population by forming goals surrounding stopping the leading causes of tiger decline and then creating a framework for countries to achieve these goals.

Additionally, national goals were recommended to encourage countries to take responsibility for the conservation of their tiger populations. In order to incorporate tiger conservation into government, high-level tiger committees should be formed. These committees would allow conservationists to have more of a voice in government so that conservation goals can be met more effectively with government support. Currently, only a few countries have high-level tiger committees, one being India. The National Tiger Conservation Authority of India has achieved much success with previous goals surrounding tiger conservation (they succeeded in doubling their tiger population from 2010 to 2022) and has implemented many successful strategies for protecting tigers and establishing tiger reserves in India. The National Tiger Conservation Authority of India also uses technology such as camera traps to evaluate tiger populations to come up with conservation strategies based on tiger populations and target areas with declining tiger populations. The Tiger Vision 2021 report suggests that this should be another national goal: to evaluate the tiger populations of each country and have each country set a population goal for 2034. After tiger populations have been evaluated, priority sites for tiger conservation can be found and efforts can be focused in these areas.

After these priority sites are identified, Tiger Vision 2021 suggests two specific goals relating to increasing tiger population in each site. The first is for establishing a framework that will allow for conservation to be monitored and thus effective in the long term: monitoring and tracking progress in priority sites for future conservation efforts. Additionally, as many priority sites are not isolated from human interaction: supporting human-wildlife coexistence. This often takes the form of educational programs that inform local residents of the value of wildlife biodiversity or reimbursement programs that provide money for coexistence as a form of income instead of poaching.

A Successful Plan?

This framework of goals provides much guidance to conservationists working to protect global tiger populations as well as countries with what steps need to be taken in order for tigers to rebound fully. However, success truly comes down to how effectively these goals come out of the page and get incorporated into national and global conservation organizations and efforts.

Sources:

Panthera.Org. Securing a viable future for the tiger. 2023. https://panthera.org/sites/default/files/2022-01/TigerVision_2021.pdf.

Accessed 20 Aug 2023.