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MYCAT TRACKS 10TH ANNIVERSARY ISSUE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF MALAYSIAN CONSERVATION Kae Kawanishi ALLIANCE FOR TIGERS (MYCAT) EDITORIAL ASSISTANT Unit 3, Ground Floor, Wong Pui May Jalan SS 23/11, Taman SEA, 47400 Petaling Jaya, Selangor, HONORARY Malaysia CONSULTING EDITOR Muna Noor T: +6.03.7880.3940 F: +6.03.7882.0171 HONORARY COPY EDITOR E: [email protected] Barbara de Waard W: www.malayantiger.net www.citizenactionfortigers.my LAYOUT & DESIGN FB: www.facebook.com/ Stephanie Goh themalayantiger www.facebook.com/ COVER IMAGE DESIGN wildlifecrimehotline Rionna Muniandy Table of Contents 836 6 LIVELIHOOD 30 SUSTAINABILITY 20 Voices from the forest Wild tigers and the tiger economy: an intimate tango for life 8 FEATURE Ten and still fi ghting 32 BUSINESS The business of conservation: 18 KNOWLEDGE good deeds with dirty hands? What we know and don’t know about the Malayan tiger 34 EXTINCTION Extinction of the majestic 20 THREAT stripes Fighting the real beast: illegal trade 36 MENTALITY Roaring for tigers, but is 22 PROTECTION anyone listening? Needing a perfect “10”: impressions from the last 10 30 39 TAKE ACTION! 25 CAT WALK A walk on wild’s side 41 MYCAT IN NUMBERS 26 FORESTRY When the going gets rough 42 THANK YOU 28 POLICY Harmonising the management of protected areas by Federal and State Governments * Opinions expressed in MYCAT Tracks are those of the author and not necessarily of MYCAT or the organisationMYCAT the author TRACKS represents. VOL. 5 2014 1 After one million years of reigning over Asia’s forests, tigers everywhere are in trouble. The unimaginable – a world FOREWORD without wild tigers – is quickly becoming reality. Forest by forest, country by country, tigers are killed and sold to satiate greed, by Kae Kawanishi ignorance and the traditional belief that General Manager, MYCAT consuming tigers will make people as strong as the animals. By the turn of this century, I don’t know a life without purpose. the world had lost 97% of its wild tigers. As Malaysia’s tiger population too had declined Isn’t purpose what makes us human? from 3,000 to 500 individuals, the nation needed a strategy to save it from imminent he world is full of things to fi ght for Conservation Alliance for Tigers (MYCAT) extinction. and Malaysia’s wildlife is the pick of was born in 2003. During the past decade, this tiger Tour lives. By the time I was 10 years For those with big dreams, the gap conservation strategy was conceived, old, I knew my contribution to the world between goal and reality can be a torment. endorsed and implemented, albeit would be to study and protect wildlife. It was When I feel that I can’t go on, I think about unsatisfactorily. Over the same decade, most no coincidence that I came to Malaysia to the solidarity of my colleagues and friends, countries in Indochina lost their tigers to study tigers in 1997 and met a group of people fi ghting alongside. They are the stars that poachers despite all eff orts. In Malaysia, who shared the same purpose. The spirit of have guided MYCAT. Without these lights, though diminished, the currently estimated working together to save the tiger brought the challenges would have been too daunting 300 wild tigers survived one of the toughest us together; consequently the Malaysian and bleak to face. times in modern human history for all wildlife. Their continued existence was a * Photo credits to friends and supporters of MYCAT. 2 MYCATMYCATTRACKSVOL5 TRACKS VOL. 5 2014 2014 result of a series of conscious conservation eff orts by many quarters. I declare a small commemorates the 10-year journey that I wish to acknowledge the work done by win. MYCAT members have jointly taken towards wildlife rangers. I had the privilege of Fieldwork I conducted between 2009 saving the Malayan tiger. I have asked my spending some years in Taman Negara and 2011 to monitor a tiger population in colleagues to each write an opinion piece on alongside some of the best rangers from the central Malaysia broke my spirit – the tigers their respective areas of expertise: looking now defunct Tiger Unit in Pahang. Among were gone. Visions of dead wildlife and back – what happened in the recent past; other great things they taught me about carved-up forests deepened my sense of looking forward – what is likely to happen in Malaysia, they taught me the way of tigers and helplessness and have kept me awake many the next decade; and fi nally, what needs to the jungle. They worked to save not only nights. A massacre of forests and wildlife was happen so that the Malayan tiger will recover wildlife but also my life without expecting wrought in a place I had always considered and survive into the future. Controversial, appreciation. Subsequently during my tenure home. I was smothered with anguish at the disturbing, impolite it may be – I have asked in the Wildlife Department, I came to know countless moments of their deaths. It is a the writers to be honest. members of Tiger Units from other states. grief that I wish I could forget. A few years One day, hopefully in the distant future, Without these tiger rangers, I would later, becoming aware of the reason why the tiger will go extinct, most likely before not have become the tiger expert that I I had to experience the painful reality of the human will. The day could be sooner if am today. Without them, Malaysia would what was happening to wildlife and forests the current trajectory continues without have already lost its tigers. Though little everywhere helped me out of my depression. major changes. Their fate is in the hands recognition, resources and reward were With the privilege of knowledge, I had of mankind. When the Malayan tiger goes given to these heroes, their purpose inherited a duty to act. extinct and MYCAT’s fellowship becomes a remained pure and their ways humble. Dr. George Schaller, whose seminal footnote of history, these are the tracks that Across gender, racial, religious, cultural and research on tigers in the 1960s inspired me I want to leave behind for future generations. national diff erences, the tiger brought us to become a carnivore ecologist during my When someone asks what people did when together. We shared a common value. More undergraduate years, says that conservation wild Malayan tigers were eliminated, this than being great wildlife rangers, they are has no victories and is a never-ending process. publication will provide some answers. great human beings. That is what tigers In the face of such odds, I could not have picked Yet, some of the hardest battles are fought need. Their spirit lives in me. So the fi ght better teammates to fi ght this battle. The by people not featured in this publication. must go on. fi ght for the Malayan tiger isn’t over yet. Like peace, conservation successes can be achieved at specifi c points in space and time and so we must soldier on. And we will do better with more funds and people on our side. This special issue of MYCAT TRACKS MYCAT TRACKS VOL. 5 2014 3 ASHLEIGH SEOW is interested in Former award-winning GOPALASAMY REUBEN indigenous peoples, their customs, environmental journalist, CLEMENTS’ career in tiger and cosmology. As a Malaysian ELIZABETH JOHN directs all conservation began in 2007 when he Nature Society nature guide, he media and communication work was appointed Species Conservation volunteered for Citizen Action for TRAFFIC in Southeast Asia, Manager of WWF-Malaysia’s for Tigers (CAT) Walk in 2010, reaching out to the region’s millions Malayan tiger conservation and joined MYCAT in 2012 as a about wildlife trade and the crises project. In 2010, he co-founded the Citizen Conservation Specialist caused by poaching and traffi cking. research group Rimba and became to include the indigenous Batek She shapes the messaging on the the Principal Investigator of the in tiger conservation and to help organisation’s work and eff orts to Kenyir Wildlife Corridor Project, them preserve their traditional change attitudes towards wildlife which aimed to develop measures skills and knowledge at Sungai Yu use, and designs outreach projects to mitigate the impacts of roads on Tiger Corridor. He also conducts the from awareness raising in schools tigers and other mammals in Kenyir, Forest Safety and Confi dence course to wildlife crime reporting for Terengganu. After receiving his for CAT Walk leaders. Prior to journalists. Elizabeth has long been PhD from James Cook University joining MYCAT, Ashleigh delivered a noisy and persistent advocate for in 2014, he became the Principal organisational development better policy and protection for Investigator of Project Harimau workshops for the banking and tigers, and kick-ass prosecution Selamanya, a 10-year project that energy sectors and negotiation skills of poachers, and believes lasting focuses on the protection and training for companies affl icted by solutions to the problems facing the monitoring of tigers in a core area in poor communication and troubled Malayan tiger can be found. Kenyir Wildlife Corridor and Taman working relationships with their Negara. stakeholders. He also taught political economy at Murdoch University. With support from the Malaysian Armed with her determination to LAVANIADEVI government, KAE KAWANISHI make the world a better place for GOPALAKRISHNAN joined conducted the fi rst scientifi c wildlife and with over a decade of MYCAT as a volunteer for Citizen research on tiger ecology in experience working on forest and Action for Tigers (CAT) Walk in Malaysia between 1998 and 2001 conservation issues, KANITHA 2012, interned with the Secretariat’s in Taman Negara.