Saving wild tigers: A case study in biodiversity loss and challenges to be met for recovery beyond 2010

Transcription

1 Integrative Zoology 2010; 5: was declared endangered in 1969, yet in this Year of the Tiger: , it is distressing to witness that wild tigers are still being annihilated. The decline of wild tigers and their habitats (Fig. 2) exemplifies the broader crisis of biodiversity loss. There were 3.4 billion people living in the tiger s geographical range in Asia in 2008, approximately twice the number of people that were living there 40 years ago when the tiger was first declared endangered (United Nations 2008). Tigers now live in only 13 countries (tiger range countries [TRCs]: Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Lao, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Russia, Thaidoi: /j x REVIEW Saving wild tigers: A case study in biodiversity loss and challenges to be met for recovery beyond 2010 John SEIDENSTICKER Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, National Zoological Park, Washington, DC, USA Abstract Wild tigers are being annihilated. Tiger range countries and their partners met at the 1st Asian Ministerial Conference on Tiger Conservation in January 2010 to mandate the creation of the Global Tiger Recovery Program to double the number of tigers by Only wild adult tigers remain, approximately half of the population estimated a decade ago. Tigers now live in only 13 countries, all of which are experiencing severe environmental challenges and degradation from the effects of human population growth, brisk economic expansion, rapid urbanization, massive infrastructure development and climate change. The overarching challenge of tiger conservation, and the conservation of biodiversity generally, is that there is insufficient demand for the survival of wild tigers living in natural landscapes. This allows the criminal activities of poaching wild tigers and their prey and trafficking in tiger derivatives to flourish and tiger landscapes to be diminished. The Global Tiger Recovery Program will support scaling up of practices already proven effective in one or more tiger range countries that need wider policy support, usually resources, and new transnational actions that enhance the effectiveness of individual country actions. The program is built on robust National Tiger Recovery Priorities that are grouped into themes: (i) strengthening policies that protect tigers; (ii) protecting tiger conservation landscapes; (iii) scientific management and monitoring; (iv) engaging communities; (v) cooperative management of international tiger landscapes; (vi) eliminating transnational illegal wildlife trade; (vii) persuading people to stop consuming tiger; (viii) enhancing professional capacity of policy-makers and practitioners; and (ix) developing sustainable, long-term financing mechanisms for tiger and biodiversity conservation. Key words: Asia, biodiversity, Global Tiger Recovery Program, Panthera tigris, Tiger Conservation Landscape. INTRODUCTION The tiger (Panthera tigris Linnaeus, 1758) is a member of that small group of animals that have nearly universal instant recognition and enormous public appeal and empathy, the charismatic megafauna (Fig. 1). The tiger Correspondence: John Seidensticker, Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, National Zoological Park, PO Box 37012, MRC 5503, Washington, DC , USA. seidenstickerj@si.edu 285

2 J. Seidensticker land and Vietnam), all of which are experiencing profound economic growth. Average per-capita GDP doubled between 1999 and 2006, with expanding markets fueled by increasingly wealthy consumers (United Nations 2007). The effects of rapid urbanization, environmental degradation, increasing demand for natural resources, massive infrastructure expansion and climate change have placed unprecedented pressure on remaining tiger habitats and biodiversity (McNeely 1997; Sodhi et al. 2004; Shahabuddin 2010). Nevertheless, the TRCs have committed to stabilizing and recovering their wild tigers. The overarching goal of the 1st Asian Ministerial Conference on Tiger Conservation (AMCTC) held in Thailand in January 2010 was to: Save wild tigers and their principal habitats across Asia and secure the tiger s future (AMCTC 2010). During this conference, senior officials and environmental ministers of the TRCs pledged to make commitments and to carry out management interventions to double the number of wild tigers (TX2) over the next 12 years (AMCTC 2010). The challenges are daunting, but can be overcome. In this review, I will sketch the forces that are overwhelming wild tigers, outline challenges and best practices to increase the demand for live wild tigers and to reduce the demand for dead tigers, summarize our understanding of tiger ecology and the conditions needed to sustain and recovery tiger population and detail the basic program elements of the Global Tiger Recovery Program (GRTP) that has been developed under a mandate from the AMCTC. TIGERS OVERWHELMED Over the past 200 years, wild tiger populations have declined by more than 98% in the Indian Subcontinent (Mondol et al. 2009) and probably by the same percentage through the rest of the tiger s range. Wild tiger populations have declined by at least half over the last decade alone, with the current number estimated to be approximately (cubs not included) (GTRP 2010). We are witness to the tiger s geographic range collapse. The edge populations (subspecies) were the first to be extirpated: the Bali tiger (P. tigris balica) in the 1940s, the Caspian tiger (P. tigris virgata) in the 1960s, the Javan tiger (P. tigris sondaica) in the 1970s and the South China tiger (P. tigris amoyensis) probably during the 1990s. Dinerstein et al. (2007) estimate that tigers occupied only 7% of their historical range by 2006, based on the tiger s historical range constructed by Nowell and Jackson (1996); in the decade from 1996 to 2006 alone, the estimated area of tiger range occupancy had declined by 41%. Based on the most recent estimates from TRCs (GTRP 2010), approximately 2000 of the remaining tigers are Bengal tigers (P. tigris tigris) living in the Indian subcontinent. Fewer that 400 of the last island-living tigers (P. tigris sumatrae) survive on Sumatra. Peninsular Malaysia is home to approximately 500 Malayan tigers (P. tigris jacksoni). Approximately 300 Indochinese tigers (P. tigris corbetti) live in Cambodia, China, Lao, Myanmar and Thailand. No more than 400 adult Amur tigers (P. tigris altaica) inhabit North East China and the Russian Far East, with 95 percent of those living in Russia. Sanderson et al. (2010), in the most comprehensive analysis ever attempted of the present range occupancy of a large, cryptic, terrestrial mammal living at low density, identified km² of occupied and potential tiger habitat remaining in This had been fractured into 76 units that these scientists called Tiger Conservation Landscapes (TCLs) (Fig. 2). TCLs were defined as areas where: (i) there is sufficient habitat for a least 5 tigers; and (ii) tigers have been confirmed to occur in the past 10 years. A TCL is a contained tiger metapopulation; there is little to no potential for dispersal of tigers between TCLs without habitat recovery. A metapopulation is a collection of populations that is discontinuous in distribution in partially isolated habitat patches where movement of individuals between patches is restricted (Frankham et al. 2010). Roughly half of all TCLs are large enough to support 100 or more tigers, with the 7 largest TCLs offering the potential to support 500 or more tigers. The tiger occupancy data used in the Sanderson et al. (2010) analysis was supplied by on-the-ground observers, gathered over the previous decade, and coupled with re- Figure 1 Adult female tiger (Panthera tigris) in the tropical dry forest habitat in the Panna Tiger Reserve, India, in 2004, before tigers were extirpated from the reserve by poachers. 286

3 Saving wild tigers cent land-cover data. Sanderson et al. also report that poaching pressure on both tigers and prey had depressed tiger populations in most of these landscapes, even in the most protected areas, to far below carrying capacity when compared to historical information. Much of the analysis in Sanderson et al. was undertaken in , and further observations and consultation with tiger range country experts have led to the horrific realization that there might be no remaining ecologically functioning tiger populations (a population so reduced that it no longer plays a significant role in ecosystem function or the population is no longer viable without direct management interventions) in Cambodia and Vietnam. Furthermore, more than 33% of the TCLs identified in 2006 might have lost their tigers completely, or tiger numbers have been depressed to the point where the populations are probably no longer ecologically functional (GTRP 2010). However, the considerable land cover that remains in some of these landscapes might still support tiger population recoveries if there is good protection of tigers, prey and habitat. Other TCLs will require more intense interventions, such as tiger translocations from areas where there are sustainable tiger populations to areas where tigers have been extirpated but still have adequate prey, or prey numbers can Figure 2 Historic and present distribution tiger conservation landscapes. Approximately 2000 adult tigers remain in the Indian subcontinent; fewer than 400 in Sumatra; approximately 500 in Peninsular Malaysia; approximately 300 Indochinese tigers remain in Cambodia, China, Lao, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam; and no more than 400 Amur tigers remain in North East China and the Russian Far East, with 95% living in Russia. Figure courtesy of the WWF-US, the Wildlife Conservation Society and the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute. 287

4 J. Seidensticker Figure 3 Of the 1.2 million km² of potential tiger habitat in Tiger Conservation Landscapes, 62 core protected tiger breeding areas and 115 adjacent protected areas totaling km² will need to be secured, restored and managed to support approximately 4700 tigers. Reaching the target of 7000 adult tigers will require that additional areas be secured. Figure courtesy of the WWF-US. be recovered. In another recent analysis, Walston et al. (2010) estimate there are 2200 tigers residing in 42 source sites (core protected tiger breeding areas) with a total area of km². These scientists also recognize that the number of tigers in many of these source sites is depressed well below the potential capacity of those sites to support tiger prey and tigers. If the source sites are effectively protected, they estimate that there is the potential to double the number of tigers living in them, to A second analysis by Dinerstein (2009) identifies km² in 62 core protected tiger breeding areas in 16 TLCs, which, if fully protected and if habitat and prey are fully recovered, could support 3200 tigers. By adding adjacent protected areas to the analysis, protected areas between which tigers could move, the total number of protected areas increased to 115 in km² that could be secured, restored and managed to support approximately 4700 tigers (Fig. 3). Without full protection of core breeding sites, there can be no tiger recovery. However, an essential finding from both of the above analyses is that, even with complete protection, core breeding sites/source sites alone cannot reach the goal of doubling the number of tigers. Doubling the number of tigers will require expanding effective protection to entire landscapes where tigers have been greatly reduced in numbers. According to the analysis by Sanderson et al. (2010), there were 36 Class I TCLs defined as having a known tiger breeding population, sufficient prey base, sufficient habitat area to support 100+ tigers, threat levels lower than 50% compared to other TCLs and higher conservation effectiveness compared to other TCLs. A scenario projection by Wikramanayake et al. (2010) of the impacts of continued habitat loss, degradation and fragmentation at the 2006 rate in TCLs illustrates that the number of Class I TCLs will decrease from 16 to only 6 over the next decade, with a 43% reduction in habitat area, confining 288

5 Saving wild tigers wild tigers to only 3% of their historic range. However, if connectivity between core areas is improved in these TCLs, there is potential to link core areas within TCLs and also to link adjacent TCLs to create larger landscapes. Across the tiger range, these restored TCLs represent >1. 5 million km 2 of tiger habitat, increasing the range to 10% of the historic range. Although this is a broad-brush analysis, there is potential for improving and restoring habitat connectivity across the tiger s range with judicious and strategic habitat restoration, protection, zoning and land management. CHRONOLOGY OF THE CONSERVATION RESPONSE A summary of the best conservation practices and the challenges to be met to increase the demand for live wild tigers and to reduce the demand for dead tigers is presented in Table 1. Mounting threats and challenges to tiger conservation The tiger was declared endangered at the 1969 International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources meeting in New Delhi, although the critically endangered status of the tiger had been recognized in the Russian Far East dating back to the 1940s (Miquelle et al. 2010a). Today, tigers live in human-dominated landscapes and our conservation prescriptions and actions have to adjust to these conditions (Seidensticker et al. 1999). There is no wild frontier left in Asia where ti- Table 1 Best practices and conservation challenges to increase demand for live wild tigers while reducing demand for dead tigers, summarized from the Global Tiger Recovery Program (GTRP 2010) to be continued 289

6 J. Seidensticker continued gers can roam unaffected by human influences (Sanderson et al. 2010). Throughout the 1970s, most TRC worked through established administrative services (e.g. forestry 290 departments) to initiate programs that included all or part of the following conservation remedies (summarized from Seidensticker 1986, 1997): (i) enforcing moratoriums on sport hunting for tigers; (ii) implementing national policy

7 Saving wild tigers declarations and laws protecting tigers; (iii) upgrading and expanding existing protected areas; (iv) establishing new protected areas; (v) strengthening administrative support through increased staff allocations, staff training, equipment, and facilities; (vi) putting into effect outreach projects to inform other administrative services, politicians and the public of the plight of wildlife, and the tiger specifically; (vii) carrying out surveys to determine tiger distributions and abundance; and (viii) undertaking basic research projects on tiger habitats, prey needs, and population structure and dynamics. Many TRCs became parties to the new Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora when it came online in the mid-1970s. All have done so today. No wildlife conservation program in Asia has been comparable to the extent and magnitude of the effort devoted to saving the tiger. By the late 1980s, many new challenges, not addressed initially by authorities engaged in saving the tiger, were emerging to confound tiger conservation efforts. The overarching challenge of tiger conservation and the conservation of biodiversity generally, is that there this is insufficient demand for the survival of wild tigers living in natural landscapes. This allows the criminal activities of poaching wild tigers and trafficking in their derivatives to flourish and tiger landscapes to be diminished. Therefore, to save the tiger, wild tigers must be turned from an economic liability into a living asset. The underlying complexities obstructing tiger conservation, and the conservation of Asian biodiversity in general, have been sketched out by McNeely (1997), Damania et al. (2008) and Kawanishi and Seidensticker (2010): once highly centralized, political power was being more broadly shared with regions and provinces within nations. This confounded top-down programs directed by central governments, such as those instituted in 1973 in India through Project Tiger, with the enthusiastic support of Prime Minister Indira Ghandi as its very powerful patron (Task Force, Indian Board for Wildlife 1972). In addition to increasing demand for tiger parts and products, there was a surge in demand for timber and plantation agricultural products, such as palm oil, leading to the wide-scale conversion of forests (Sohngen et al. 1999). These new global demands were added to local demands for land and resources from tiger forests. These expanded economic priorities lowered governmental priorities for conservation, including saving the tiger. The institutions supporting tiger conservation were also weak and weighed down with inadequately trained manpower and insufficient resources, and were ill-prepared to take on wildlife and forest protection and the mentoring responsibility for creating sustainable livelihoods for local people who were displaced by some tiger conservation programs (Barrett et al. 2001). Most protected areas designated for tigers still had (and still have) substantial numbers of people living in them engaged in unsustainable activities (Narain et al. 2005). The widespread decimation of tiger prey in many tiger forests, and in protected areas themselves, became apparent (Redford 1992; Robinson & Bodmer 1999). Tiger poaching was being driven by demand for tiger parts and products from far beyond the boundaries of tiger reserves, or even TRCs themselves, but by newly wealthy markets in Asia, and globally (Mills & Jackson 1994; TRAFFIC 2008). Controlling these global markets was not possible through local law enforcement acting alone; a global response was required. Findings from the newly-founded academic discipline of conservation biology have shown that long-term persistence of extinction-prone species, such as tigers, requires areas that are much larger than most of those initially demarcated as protected areas in the TRCs (Seidensticker 1986, 1987; Dinerstein & Wikramanayake 1993; Soule & Terborgh 1999). As Damania et al. (2008, 9) have stressed: With large and permeable boundaries, an exclusive reliance on punitive approaches and planning will not suffice. The evidence suggests that a conservation model that resists development and growth will be overwhelmed and undermined by the forces it opposes. A new paradigm for conservation must recognize that those who live with the tiger determine its fate. Learning how this can be achieved remains a formidable challenge. By the mid-1990s, the tiger had been declared doomed by many in the international media because of a major surge in poaching that was detected when individually recognizable tigers disappeared from supposedly well-protected areas like Chitwan National Park in Nepal and Ranthambhore Tiger Reserve in India (Kenney et al. 1995). We were into the throes of this so-called second tiger crisis in February 1997 when the Tigers: 2000 symposium was held at the Zoological Society of London (Seidensticker et al. 1999). At this meeting, it was reaffirmed that: (i) persistent hunting of tigers and their prey, and the trade in tiger parts and products required ongoing and greatly enhanced individual, institutional and organizational commitments along the whole demand chain from source site, to consumer, to reducing demand driven by cultural traditions, and that meeting this challenge required a local and an international response; and (ii) reserved 291

8 J. Seidensticker Table 2 Summary of tiger ecology and conservation needs 292

9 Saving wild tigers lands, such as tiger reserves and national parks, are essential to protect tiger breeding populations. Without this core stabilizing force, we would be building tiger conservation efforts on quicksand. However, we appear to have reached a threshold in the effective performance of the protected area conservation systems, because some protection systems have reached the financial and human resource limits that TRCs are willing to provide (Holloway 1978). A landscape conservation paradigm for tigers The new conservation paradigm, highlighted at the symposium, was that for tiger conservation be successful in the long term it had to be approached from the broader landscape perspective (see Sanderson et al. 2002). Populations of tigers and their prey must be managed at a landscape scale that includes core areas of protection, buffer zones, dispersal corridors, sustainable management and protection of selectively logged forests (Linkie et al. 2008; Rayan & Mohamad 2010), and the restoration of degraded lands, coupled with initiatives through which the conservation of tigers directly or indirectly meets the needs of local people. This ecological approach to conserving tigers recognizes not only their genetic distinctiveness across their range but also behavioral, demographic and ecological distinctiveness. It recognizes the value of tigers as top predators in ecosystems and their role as umbrella species for conservation of other species and ecological processes. It recognizes the need to provide incentives to local people who live near tigers to protect tigers and tiger prey. In retrospect, I believe that there was no first or second tiger crisis. We have witnessed the unfolding catastrophe of a magnificent predator s steady slide to extinction. Tiger conservation actions to date might have slowed the tiger s downward slide, but it continues. WHAT TIGERS NEED We need a clear understanding of what tigers need to persist and recover for us to be able to identify and prioritize our response to the conservation challenges that keep emerging. The first scientific study of wild tigers was not published until George Schaller, the author of that work, noted that, until then the natural history of the tiger has been studied predominately along the sights of a rifle (Schaller 1967, 221). Since then, our knowledge of tiger life history, ecology, behavior and population dynamics has continued to expand. The basics of the tiger s ecology and conservation needs are summarized in Table 2. In what follows, I highlight the factors controlling tiger density and population resilience. What controls tiger numbers? Monitoring data have established that tiger densities vary naturally in response to differing prey densities by a factor of approximately 40, from fewer than 0.5 per 100 km² (tigers 1 year of age or older) in the temperate forest of the Russian Far East and some tropical rain forests to more than 20 per 100 km² in the prey-rich floodplain savannahs and riverine forests of Nepal and India (Carbone et al. 2001; Karanth et al. 2004; Karanth et al. 2006; Barlow et al. 2009; Miquelle et al. 2010b). In the absence of tiger poaching, prey abundance determines tiger numbers (Karanth et al. 2004). The conservation implications of these ecological differences in the capacity of different biomes and the productivity of various habitats within biomes to support tiger prey are immense, as Miquelle et al. (2010b) point out. For example, the largest strictly protected area in the Russian Far East is 4000 km², yet it supports fewer than 30 tigers, half of which regularly use areas outside the boundaries of the reserve (Miquelle et al. 2010b). A similar-sized reserve in prey-rich Indian floodplains or moist tropical forest would support 800 tigers in an ideal setting. These ecological statistics indicate that tiger recovery in the Russian Far East will require very large landscapes with strict protection of prey and tigers beyond the protected areas themselves. The numbers also indicate that viable tiger populations could be conserved in core areas in prey-rich habitat in the Indian subcontinent. Unfortunately, most are <1000 km², and fewer yet contain a majority of the optimal habitat needed to support a large number of breeding female tigers (Ranganathan et al. 2008). The Indian subcontinent is packed with people and Indian tiger reserves have thousands of people living inside them (Narain et al. 2005). This reality necessitates a landscape approach to connect smaller core protected areas nested within larger landscapes (Gopal et al. 2010). Therefore, the natural ecological parameters and the impacts of human-dominated landuses have combined, conspired and pushed us to pursue a landscape approach to conserving tigers. What controls the probability of tiger population persistence? The eventual fate of tiger populations depends on the extent and character of the environments in which they live and the human social and political structure in which they are embedded (Walker & Salt 2006). Resilience is the ability of a particular animal population or ecological 293

10 J. Seidensticker system to absorb stress or changes, such as poaching pressure, habitat quality deterioration and fragmentation, and still retain its basic function and structure and persist. For example, if tigers occurred as a single population, or better, as 3 large populations for redundancy, that totaled 3600 adult tigers, we would be less concerned because larger populations are more resilient, both genetically and demographically, than small, fragmented populations. However, fragmentation is the norm for the remaining wild tigers, with the fragments now dispersed throughout their once-vast range (Sanderson et al. 2010). Small populations are highly vulnerable to ecological and anthropogenic stressors of habitat loss and degradation, and poaching (Soule & Terborgh 1999). Poaching can decimate or eliminate a tiger population, despite high prey densities (Gopal et al. 2010). Population modeling by Chaperon et al. (2008) illustrates that while high prey numbers are essential to sustain tiger populations, prey recovery efforts will not be sufficient if tiger mortality rates reach or exceed 15%. Even a population with 15% mortality among the breeding females requires more than 80 breeding females to remain viable. However, if the survivorship of the breeding females approaches 100%, tiger populations can grow at an annual rate of approximately 20%. This dynamic has been well exemplified in the population extirpations in many parts of the tiger range, including from protected areas in Bali and Java, Indonesia (Seidensticker 1987) and, more recently, in Cambodia, Lao, Thailand and Vietnam, and from some of India s premier, but small tiger reserves (Gopal et al. 2010; GTRP 2010). When the network of protected areas was developed in tiger habitat over the last half century, most of the protected areas were nestled in landscape matrices that included suitable tiger dispersal routes to other sites. Today, many of these same protected areas have been isolated as islands in a sea of land-use areas and infrastructure that stop or greatly restrict tiger dispersal. This has enormous negative implications for the tiger s long-term persistence, not only in tiger landscapes, but even within protected areas themselves (Sanderson et al. 2010; Seidensticker et al. 2010). Dispersal in the Nepal tiger population has been studied in detail by Smith (1993). Dispersal is the movement of a tiger from where it was born to its first or subsequent breeding site. Dispersal plays a critical role in tiger population dynamics because recruitment into a local population is strongly supported by immigration from adjacent populations, while many of the population s own offspring emigrate to other areas. In the terminology of metapopulation dynamics, source tiger populations are those in which the number of young produced exceeds mortality. Population sink areas are those in which mortality exceeds reproductive output; they are not self-sustaining and rely on immigration from source populations to persist. However, these population sink areas can also serve as dispersal corridors for tigers, usually young adults, as they move between source populations. Sink areas are also important in allowing sub-adults and other non-territory holding adults in source populations to disperse, and minimize intra-sexual conflict that can disrupt the social structure. Infanticide is a significant disruptive factor when adult males are unable to disperse out of small, isolated source sites and have to fight for limited territorial spaces. These dynamics are summarized in Table 2. RECOVERING TIGER POPULATIONS To address the looming biodiversity crisis and to make tigers the face of biodiversity, the World Bank, the Global Environmental Facility, the Smithsonian Institution and other partners launched the Global Tiger Initiative (GTI 2009) in June Since then, the GTI has become an alliance of governments, including all 13 TRCs, international organizations and civil society, coordinated by a small GTI Secretariat hosted by the World Bank. The alliance was deepened at a global workshop in Nepal in October 2009, at which the partners shared best practices and developed the Kathmandu Recommendations for scaling up those best practices to achieve real conservation progress on the ground (GTI 2009). This led to the AMCTC in Thailand in January 2010, where the Hua Hin Declaration committed TRCs to accelerating priority national actions and charged the international community with undertaking efforts to support the TRCs where issues transcend national boundaries, with an emphasis on stopping the illegal wildlife trade (AMCTC 2010). The Hua Hin Declaration required commitments to: (i) policy changes and other activities to make critical habitats and core areas that support tiger source populations inviolate with no economic development permitted; (ii) identify buffer zones and corridors for tiger conservation and ensure their integrity through assessment of proposed infrastructure and other land-altering economic development and appropriate mitigations (such as Smart Green Infrastructure, Quintero et al. 2009); (iii) mainstream tiger concerns through sectoral integration; and (iv) foster trans-boundary TCL management to benefit tigers. The Hua Hin Declaration also set the global goal of doubling the number of wild tigers by 2022, and endorsed the plan for a Tiger Summit to be held in Russia. 294

11 Saving wild tigers After a series of National Consultations during which TRCs developed their National Tiger Recovery Priorities, the partners met in Bali in July 2010 to endorse the concept of the GTRP, which is built on the National Tiger Recovery Priorities and associated Global Support Programs. The GTRP will be launched at an unprecedented Heads of Governments Tiger Summit in November 2010, hosted by Russian Prime Minister Putin in Saint Petersburg with the strong support of World Bank President Robert Zoellick. These milestones, and the GTRP (2010), are a result of all 13 TRCs and the international community working together for the first time on a cooperative platform, sharing knowledge and experience and developing a collaborative program to achieve a global goal. There has never been a comparable comprehensive, costed-out, rangecountry-driven effort to save a species and the valuable ecosystems in which it lives for the benefit of current and future generations of people. The GTRP will support scaling up practices already proven effective in one or more TRC that need wider policy support, usually resources, and new transnational actions that enhance the effectiveness of individual TRC actions. The GTRP is built on the foundation of robust National Tiger Recovery Priorities developed by each TRC that are grouped into 10 themes: strengthen policies that protect tigers, landscape protection, scientific management and monitoring, community engagement, cooperative management of international tiger landscapes, help TRCs eliminate the huge transnational illegal wildlife trade, persuade people to stop consuming tigers, enhance professional capacity of policy-makers and practitioners, and develop sustainable long-term financing mechanisms for conservation. The broad outline of the GTRP (2010) is as follows: 1. The unrelenting poaching pressure to supply the increasing demand for tiger parts and products, driven by increased wealth in the global tiger-consuming sector (Gratwicke et al. 2008; TRAFFIC 2008), requires full attention by all TRCs and globally to enforce existing laws and to create effective demand-reduction mechanisms. Attempts at demand reduction have only been partially effective to date. This goes concurrently with providing effective protection to tigers by increasing management effectiveness in protected core areas, increasing the extent of protected core tiger habitats, such as has recently been done for the Hukaung Valley Tiger Sanctuary in Myanmar (Wildlife Conservation Society 2010) and the Banke National Park in Nepal (DNPWC 2010), and linking protected core tiger habitats with corridors that enable tigers to move between the core habitats. 2. Pockets of poverty surround and are embedded in TCLs. Programs are required to address the economic needs of communities living around wild tiger populations and to gain local support for conservation through participatory engagement in sustaining natural resources as well as development of sustainable alternative livelihoods. 3. Tiger range countries own economic development goals, which might entail achieving 10% per annum, are driving landscape transformations, and are overwhelming the institutional architecture (protected area systems, governance and resourcing) established in the 1970s to protect tigers. The old conservation architecture requires remodeling, and the old strategies need a paradigm shift to meet the current and emerging challenges. This necessitates capacity building, new knowledge-sharing platforms and improved governance. 4. The challenge of managing core protected areas is in restricting uses inside the areas and stabilizing threats outside the areas that spill in. However, even within protected areas, conflict with humans is a significant cause of tiger and human mortality (Gurung et al. 2008). Significant mortality occurs when tigers range beyond the borders of core protected areas, and this requires mitigating carnivore persecution on the edges of protected core areas and in buffer zones (Woodroffe & Ginsberg 1998; Miquelle et al. 2010b). 5. Although the goal in tiger conservation is to create core protected areas that are buffered and linked to other core protected areas, in fact, many people live within their borders and these people rely on resources from these areas for their livelihood. Most Indian tiger reserves and protected area systems in Bhutan, Indonesia and Malaysia are examples. The conservation challenge is to reduce the human footprint in the protected core breeding areas. This is fully recognized by the TRC in the GTRP (2010). Some countries have proposed a process of voluntary resettlement where the social context will allow it to occur or, alternatively, more refined zoning to shield breeding female tigers from human intrusions. 6. The landscape conservation strategy allows tigers to exist as a collection of ecologically and genetically linked sub-populations or a metapopulation that confers more robustness and resilience to withstand threats and stressors generated by people. However, many tiger core breeding populations are for the most part no 295

12 J. Seidensticker longer embedded in a larger landscape of tiger-friendly habitat. Instead, they are usually isolated or tenuously connected to other habitat. Therefore, the new GTRP strategy emphasizes securing, and restoring where necessary, the habitat corridors that help to connect the core breeding populations. The basic premise of landscape conservation and metapopulation management is to increase the ecologically and genetically functional size of tiger populations. It is recognized that failure to do so now will result in further isolation of the core breeding populations contained within and between TCLs because of the rapid rate at which habitat is being converted, degraded and fragmented in fastdeveloping Asia. Deferring action for another decade, or even 5 years, is not an option anymore. The AMCTC recognized that all of the above requires sustainable financing beyond existing country and international investments, without which wild tigers will not be saved (GTRP 2010). Conservation of endangered species vulnerable to poaching is an especially costly exercise (Damania et al. 2008). The funds needed above what the TRCs are already expending total approximately $50 million per year over for the next 5 years. The incremental funds needed for tiger recovery vary between 40 and 60%, with the exception that India has determined it does not require additional financing beyond what is now being allocated (GTRP 2010). To overcome this resource deficit, the battle to save tigers requires forming new alliances. Although funds to specifically manage and conserve tiger landscapes are few, many donors invest large sums in improving the livelihoods of local community through sustainable management of forests and natural resources. The foundation of sustainability of natural resources and forests is healthy ecosystems. Tigers are a barometer of ecosystem health. Tigers are the face of biodiversity conservation in general. TRCs, conservation organizations and global partners can form alliances and partnerships to leverage and strategically channel funds invested by these donors for better landscape management that benefits people and tigers. CLOSING COMMENTS All of the best efforts of the past are not working to save tigers. At best, they have only slowed the rate of their decline. The GTRP (2010) recognized that recovering wild tigers requires a multifaceted approach that includes: (i) changing the conversation about tiger conservation, and bring many more voices into the discussion on saving wild tigers; (ii) confronting and overcoming the enormous asymmetry between the resources fueling economic and infrastructure development and poaching, on the one hand, and the limited resources that conservationists can muster on the other; (iii) boosting our human capacity to address the host of problems that must be solved to save wild tigers; (iv) creating the political influence and social clout to effect changes in perceptions and policies to make live wild tigers living in the wild worth more than dead tigers; and (v) generating sustained financing to support biodiversity conservation. Achieving the vision to double tiger numbers in the next 12 years requires concomitant management interventions at the source sites and in the surrounding landscapes. The battle to save tigers is at a stage where it has to be fought at multiple fronts. For tigers to survive in the long term, tigers and their prey must be protected and managed at a landscape scale that includes protection of source sites, buffer zones, dispersal corridors and the restoration of degraded lands, coupled with initiatives through which the conservation of tigers directly and indirectly meets the needs of local people. Concurrently, this strategy requires the suppression of the demand that drives tiger poaching. In addition, it requires a sustained political will to support these conservation efforts. As we lose tigers from ecosystems, it means the conditions in those ecosystems are eroding. The ecosystems themselves lose their resilience to natural and humancaused change. The ecosystem services that tiger forests provide to people are compromised. Lacking the tiger s umbrella, other biodiversity will be at great risk and erode too. We will have failed to leave the legacy of magnificent wild tigers to our children. Who among us wants to be remembered for that? ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I thank the anonymous reviewers who provided very helpful input and comments on the manuscript. I have been engaged in tiger conservation efforts since 1972 and have benefited from many discussions with colleagues over those years. The Smithsonian has provided a platform of support during this time and I have been constantly encouraged to continue this work. Recently, the insights from the experts and senior officials from TRC have been invaluable in defining and refining a collective response to the tiger crisis and linking this to biodiversity conservation generally. My colleagues at the Global Tiger Initiative Secretariat in the World Bank, and our senior advisers, have been in constant discussion regarding how to save tiger from their multiple perspectives. Wild tiger will be lost if we maintain the status quo. Moving beyond the status quo requires bold new thinking and actions. I 296

13 Saving wild tigers admire their bold thinking and the professional risks my colleagues take on behalf of wild tigers and biodiversity conservation. I thank Susan Lumpkin, my partner and colleague of 30 years, for our daily conversation on saving wild tiger and for her unwavering support. RERERENCES AMCTC (Asia Ministerial Conference on Tiger Conservation) (2010). 1st Asia Ministerial Conference on Tiger Conservation. [Cited 15 Aug 2010.] Available from URL: /05/12/hua-hin-1st-asia-ministerial/ Barlow A, McDougal C, Smith JLD et al. (2009). Temporal variation in tiger (Panthera tigris) populations and its implication for monitoring. Journal of Mammalogy 90, Barrett CB, Brandon K, Gibson C, Gjertsen H (2001). Conserving tropical biodiversity amid weak institutions. BioScience 51, Carbone C, Christie S, Conforti K et al. (2001). The use of photographic rates to estimate densities of tigers and other cryptic mammals. Animal Conservation 4, Chapron G, Miquelle DG, Lambert A, Goodrich JM, Legendre S, Colbert J (2008). The impact on tiger of poaching versus prey depletion. Journal of Applied Ecology 45, Damania R, Seidensticker J, Whitten A, Sethi G, MacKinnon K, Kiss A, Kushlin A (2008). A Future for Wild Tigers. The World Bank, Washington, DC. DNPWC (Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation Nepal) (2010). Declaration of Banke National Park. [Cited 9 Sept 2010.] Available from URL: newsid= Dinerstein E (2009). How many tigers can we save in core areas? [Cited 15 Aug 2010.] Available from URL: / Dinerstein E, Loucks C, Wikramanayake E et al. (2007). The fate of wild tigers. BioScience 57, Dinerstein E, Wikramanayake E (1993). Beyond hotspots : How to prioritize investment to conserve biodiversity in the Indo-Pacific Region. Conservation Biology 7, Frankham R, Ballou JD, Briscoe DE (2010). Introduction to Conservation Genetics, 2nd edn. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Goodrich JM, Miquelle DG, Smirnov EN, Kerley LL, Quigley HB, Hornocker MG (2010). Spatial structure of Amur (Siberian) tigers (Panthera tigris altaica) on the Sikhote-Alin Biosphere Zapovednik, Russia. Journal of Mammalogy 91, Gratwicke B, Mills J, Dutton A et al. (2008). Attitudes towards consumption and conservation of tigers in China. PLoS One 3: e2544. doi: /journal.pone info%3adoi%2f %2fjournal.pone GTI (Global Tiger Initiative) (2009). Global Tiger Initiative. [Cited 15 Aug 2010.] Available from URL: GTRP (Global Tiger Recovery Program) (2010). Global Tiger Recovery Program. [Cited 15 Aug 2010.] Available from URL: Gopal R, Qureshi Q, Bhardwaj M, Singh RJK, Jhala YV (2010). Evaluating the status of the endangered tiger Panthera tigris and its prey in Panna Tiger Reserve. Oryx 44, Gurung B, Smith JLD, McDonald C, Karki JB (2008). Factors associated with human-killing tigers in Chitwan National Park, Nepal. Biological Conservation 141, Holloway CW (1978). Promotion of national conservation measures and support for the restoration of endangered species of mammals. In: International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources, ed. Threatened Deer. International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources, Morge, Switzerland, pp Jhala YV, Gopal R, Qureshi Q, eds. (2008). Status of Tigers, Co-predators and Prey in India. National Tiger Conservation Authority and Wildlife Institute of India, New Delhi and Dehradun, India. Karanth KU, Nichols JD, Kumar NS, Link WA, Hines JE (2004). Tigers and their prey: Predicting carnivore density from prey abundance. PNAS 101, Karanth KU, Nichols JD, Kumar NS, Hines JE (2006). Assessing tiger population dynamics using photographic capture-recapture sampling. Ecology 87, Kawanishi K, Seidensticker J (2010). Collaborations and partnerships are essential to sustain wild tiger populations. In: Tilson R, Nyhus PJ, eds. Tigers of the World: The Science, Politics, and Conservation of Panthera tigris, 2nd edn. Elsevier/Academic Press, New York, pp Kenney JS, Smith JLD, Starfield AM, McDougal C (1995). 297

14 J. Seidensticker The long-term effects of tiger poaching on population viability. Conservation Biology 9, Linkie M, Haidir IA, Nugroho, Dinata Y (2008). Conserving tigers Panthera tigris in selectively logged Sumatran forests. Biological Conservation 141, Mazak V (1981). Panthera tigris. Mammalian Species 152, 1 8. McNeely JA (1997). Conservation and the Future: Trends and Options towards the Year IUCN, Gland. Mills JA, Jackson P (1994). Killed for a Cure: A Review of the Worldwide Trade in Tiger Bone. Traffic International, Cambridge. Miquelle DG, Goodrich JM, Kerley LL et al. (2010a). Science-based conservation of Amur tigers in the Russian Far East and Northeast China. In: Tilson R, Nyhus PJ, eds. Tigers of the World: The Science, Politics, and Conservation of Panthera tigris, 2nd edn. Elsevier/Academic Press, New York, pp Miquelle DG, Goodrich JM, Simirov EV et al. (2010b). Amur tigers: a case study of tigers living on the edge. In: Macdonald DW, Loveridge AJ, eds. Biology and Conservation of Wild Felids. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp Mondol S, Karanth KU, Ramakrishnan U (2009). Why the Indian subcontinent holds the key to global tiger recovery. PLoS Genetics 5, e doi: /journal.pgen info%3adoi%2f %2fjournal.pgen Narain S, Panwar HS, Gadgil M, Thapar V, Singh S (2005). Joining the Dots: The Report of the Tiger Task Force. Project Tiger, Union Ministry of Environment and Forests, New Delhi. Nowell K, Jackson P (1996). Wild Cats: Status Survey and Conservation Action Plan. IUCN, Gland. Quintero J, Morgan A, Roca R, Mathur A (2009). Smart Green Infrastructure in Tiger Range Countries: A Multi- Level Approach. [Cited 15 Aug 2010.] Available from URL: the-kathmandu-files/ Ranganathan J, Chan MA, Karanth KU, Smith JLD (2008). Where can tigers persist in the future? A landscapescale, density-based population model for the Indian subcontinent. Biological Conservation 114, Rayan DM, Mohamad SW (2009). The importance of selectively logged forests for tiger Panthera tigris conservation: a population density estimate in Peninsular Malaysia. Oryx 43, Redford KH (1992). The empty forest. BioScience 42, Robinson JR, Bodmer RE (1999). Towards wildlife management in tropical forests. Journal of Wildlife Management 63, Sanderson EW, Redford KH, Vedder A, Coppolillo PB, Ward SE (2002). A conceptual model for conservation planning based on landscape species requirement. Landscape and Urban Planning 58, Sanderson EW, Forrest J, Loucks C et al. (2010). Setting priorities for tiger conservation: In: Tilson R, Nyhus PJ, eds. Tigers of the World: The Science, Politics, and Conservation of Panthera tigris, 2nd edn. Elsevier/Academic Press, New York, pp Schaller GB (1967). The Deer and the Tiger: A Study of Wildlife in India. University of Chicago Press, Chicago. Seidensticker J (1976). On the ecological separation between tigers and leopards. Biotropica 8, Seidensticker J (1986). Large carnivores and the consequences of habitat insularization: Ecology and conservation of tigers in Indonesia and Bangladesh. In: Miller SD, Everett DD, eds. Cats of the World: Biology, Conservation, and Management. National Wildlife Federation, Washington, DC, pp Seidensticker J (1987). Bearing witness: observations on the extinction of Panthera tigris balica and P. t. sondaica. In: Tilson R, Seal US, eds. Tigers of the World: The Biology, Biopolitics, Management, and Conservation of an Endangered Species. Noyes Publications, Park Ridge, NJ, pp Seidensticker, J (1997). Saving the tiger. Wildlife Society Bulletin 25, Seidensticker J, McDougal C (1993). Tiger predatory behaviour, ecology and conservation. Zoological Society of London Symposia 65, Seidensticker J, Christie S, Jackson P, eds. (1999). Riding the Tiger: Tiger Conservation in Human-Dominated Landscapes. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Seidensticker J, Dinerstein, E, Goyal SP et al. (2010). Tiger range collapse and recovery at the base of the Himalayas In: Macdonald DW, Loveridge AJ, eds. Biology and Conservation of Wild Felids. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp Shahabuddin G (2010). Conservation at the Crossroads: Science, Society and the Future of India s Wildlife. Permanent Black & New India Foundation, New Delhi. Smith JLD (1993). The role of dispersal in structuring the Chitwan tiger population. Behaviour 124,

15 Saving wild tigers Smith JLD, McDougal CW, Sunquist ME (1987). Female land tenure system in tigers. In: Tilson R, Seal US, eds. Tigers of the World: The Biology, Biopolitics, Management, and Conservation of an Endangered Species. Noyes Publications, Park Ridge, NJ, pp Sodhi N, Koh L, Brook B, Ng P (2004). Southeast Asian biodiversity: An impending disaster. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 19, Sohngen B, Mendelsohn R, Sedjo R (1999). Forest management, conservation, and global timber markets. American Journal of Agricultural Economics 81, Soule ME, Terborgh J (1999). Continental Conservation: Scientific Foundations of Regional Reserve Networks. Island Press, Washington, DC. Sunquist ME (1981). The social organization of tigers (Panthera tigris) in Royal Chitawan National Park, Nepal. Smithsonian Contributions to Zoology 336, Sunquist M, Sunquist F (2002). Wild Cats of the World. University of Chicago Press, Chicago. Task Force, Indian Board for Wildlife (1972). Project Tiger. Indian Board for Wildlife, New Delhi. Sunquist ME, Karanth KU, Sunquist F (1999). Ecology, behavior and resilience of the tiger and its conservation needs. In: Seidensticker J, Christie S, Jackson P, eds. Riding the Tiger: Tiger Conservation in Human- Dominated Landscapes. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp United Nations (2007). National Accounts Main Aggregate Database. United Nations Statistical Division website. [Cited 15 Aug 2010.] Available from URL: http//unstats.un.org/unsd/snaama/dnllist.asp/ United Nations (2008). World population prospectus: The 2008 revisions population database. Population Division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations Secretariat, World Population website. [Cited 15 Aug 2010.] Available from URL: TRAFFIC (2008). What s Driving the Wildlife Trade? A Review of Expert Opinion on Economic and Social Drivers of the Wildlife Trade and Trade Control Efforts in Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, and Vietnam. East Asia and Pacific Region, Sustainable Development Department, World Bank, Washington, DC. Walker B, Salt D (2006). Resilience Thinking: Sustaining Ecosystems and People in a Changing World. Island Press, Washington, DC. Walston J, Karanth U, Stokes E (2010). Avoiding the Unthinkable: What Will it Cost to Prevent Tigers Becoming Extinct in the Wild? Wildlife Conservation Society, New York. Wildlife Conservation Society (2010). A valley of tigers. [Cited 9 Sept 2010.] Available from URL: wcs.org/where-we-work/asia/myanmar.aspx Wikramanayake E, Dinerstein E, Forrest J et al. (2010). Road to recovery or catastrophic loss: How will the next decade end for wild tigers? In: Tilson R, Nyhus P, eds. Tigers of the World: The Science, Politics, and Conservation of Panthera tigris, 2nd edn. Elsevier/Academic Press, New York, pp Woodroffe R, Ginsberg JR (1998). Edge effects and the extinction of populations inside protected areas. Science 288,