Protecting the Tiger

Tiger numbers are at record lows and continue to decline. A recent position paper, written by conservationists affiliated with the Wildlife Conservation Society and other organisations, makes the case for continued intensive protection programmes, targeted at the key 'source sites' which make up only a small fraction (6%) of the tiger's geographic range, but which contain the majority of the world's tigers. They note that tiger parts remain a valuable commodity; their scarcity simply drives up prices, which further increases incentives for poaching. This is no mere theory - declines in populations have been dramatic at reserves where enforcement has been allowed to lapse.

It really is a sobering time for tiger conservation. I remember watching a documentary some years back that was very critical of India's Project Tiger. That drove home for me in very concrete terms how official optimism and pronouncements rarely reflect reality, especially when a conservation is politically sensitive, like the case of the tiger. It is good that this new paper's proposal emphasises how its plan is "financially attainable". That, more than any argument from intrinsic worth, will probably be what catches the eye of policy-makers. I know some conservationists who object in principle to the idea of 'bartering nature', but it seems a foregone conclusion that environmentalism must speak the language of economics ('investments', 'tradeoff', etc.) to remain at the forefront of the public and policy-making consciousness.

More information:
Wildlife Conservation Society press release 
World Wildlife Fund news webpage on the Tiger Summit

Conservation as disequilibrium

After attending a talk by Alan Rabinowitz on how the Hukawng Valley Tiger Reserve, the largest tiger reserve in the world, was set up, one thing he said sticks in my mind. Conservation is a 'dynamic disequilibrium', and the work of tending to it will never come to an end.

Too many people in conservation or interested in the environment think that there will be a stage when we can finish the job and take our hands off and see everything run smoothly, but 'if we don't think the same way about crime and police, why do we think this way about conservation?'

Perhaps conservationists are predisposed to think this way because the idea of conservation is to restore environments and landscapes to a supposed original or pristine state. Whether or not there ever was an original state that would have lasted forever if undisturbed is debatable.

But whatever the case, this does highlight how much work is needed to manage landscapes and the people who have to live in them. The old model of simply setting land aside to lock animals in and peoples out is fundamentally flawed.

Danwei: Rare South China tiger photo a hoax?

A peasant from Shaanxi claims to have taken a photo of the South China Tiger (Panthera tigris amoyensis), thought to be extinct in the wild. [See "Fake tiger, real news?" By Jeremy Goldkorn. Danwei, 19 Oct 2007



Photo from Danwei.

Netizens believed that this photo was PS-ed (photoshoped) and the controversy is generating even more news. This is partly related to fake news scandals (like the fake bun story) that struck China in recent months, courtesy of state-owned news agency Xinhua.

A healthy dose of skepticism is always a good thing!

Update: 1. now a Chinese botantist wades in with evidence from the size of the leaves in the tiger photo.
2. China Daily editorial

Update 3: Eye of the Tiger

Update 4: and the saga continues, now the tiger story even made it to Science magazine.