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Evaluation of Tiger Poaching in Bukit Tigapuluh National Park, Indonesia

Preliminary results from Sumatran Tiger Conservation Program, 2003

Document created 27 April 2006, last updated 01 May 2006

Location map   Map of Sumatra Island with location of national parks including Bukit Tigapuluh
Bukit Tigapuluh National Park
This park, straddled across the provincial boundaries of Jambi and Riau, encompasses approximately 130,000 hectares of lowland and hill tropical rainforest. It represents a component of the highly threatened, but globally significant, Tesso Nilo forest complex, where some of the highest biodiversity indices on earth have been recorded.

Wildlife known to exist within the park include the Sumatran tiger (Panthera tigris sumatrae), Malayan tapir (Tapirus indicus), Asian elephant (Elephas maximus), gibbons (Hylobates agilis and H. syndactilus), golden cat (Catopuma temminckii) and clouded leopard (Neofelis nebulosa), among many others.
Preliminary studies seem to show a fairly high density of tigers throughout the park, with a complete range of abundant prey species.

The park suffers due to the intensive activity of illegal loggers in the production forest areas around its periphery. Weak enforcement and poor boundary demarcation has resulted in significant timber losses from the park. Expansion of estate crops (primarily oil palm plantations) also threatens park integrity in some localities. Despite this, strong lobbying from the current park chief, with the support of local government, has facilitated a strong advocacy movement to implement a buffer zone around the park. Currently a Ministerial decision is pending as to whether these adjacent forests will be gazetted in an expansion of the park’s current area.
Forest in the national park   Tropical hill forests in Bukit Tigapuluh National Park
Integrated Tiger Protection and Monitoring Programme in Bukit Tigapuluh National Park of Sumatra, Indonesia
This project, partially funded by ExxonMobil Save The Tiger Fund, represents the implementation of a priority action as defined in the national and provincial level Memorandums of Understanding of the Sumatran Tiger Conservation Program – to initiate field protection, intelligence networks and population monitoring of tigers in the Bukit Tigapuluh National Park. This document is drawn from the Interim Progress Report April to August 2003 (links provided below to report’s full text).
assessment of historic poaching pressures and current threats to tigers
A network of informants
The field conservation teams (Tiger Protection Units or TPU) are supported by information relayed from a growing network of informants deployed in villages and towns surrounding the park. This intelligence network involves the anonymous employment of key local people, where stipends are paid on receipt of information verified by the project coordinator and network liaison point. Currently an average of four informants per month have been employed by the project, though additional personnel from the Directorate General of Forest Protection and Nature Conservation (PHKA) have been assigned the task of collecting more wide-ranging historical data relating to tiger poaching. Gathering of data relating to illegal poaching and trade in tigers and their products has represented a core activity of the project during 2003.
To date the investigations have been successful in uncovering a significant rate of poaching from the Bukit Tigapuluh region. Verifiable data obtained can reliably account for 305 tiger deaths during the period 1972 to 2003.

Quantifying the loss to poaching
The rate of loss of tigers from the ecosystem is estimated at approximately 9.8 tigers/year for this period, though the annual loss of tigers varied widely over the 32 years covered. Obviously data such as this, relying on direct interview with the poachers themselves wherever possible, becomes increasingly difficult to obtain the further back in time the investigation progresses. It is possible that many of the poachers operating in periods prior to 1980 have either died or have moved out of the region, and therefore this early data is considered to be an underestimation of the true extent of poaching pressure prior to 1980. Similarly as one gets closer to the present day, the less easy it is to obtain information relating to poaching through this particular method. For this reason the period 2000 to 2003 is also assumed to underestimate the true extent of poaching in the region. Other methods of poaching and trade monitoring are currently being implemented to compensate for this deficiency. However, for the purposes of estimating historic rates of poaching in the region, data from period 1980 to 2000 is considered to be most representative with an estimated rate of loss of 11.8 tigers per year.

Identifying the poachers
The tiger deaths recorded are attributed to 32 individual poachers or groups, with the average poacher accounting for a mean harvest of 9.5 tigers during the study. A peak in poaching activity (number of poachers or poaching groups active) was noted during the 1980s, a decade characterised by unprecedented rates of land conversion and logging in Riau province. Several of the poachers identified have continued their illegal activities up until recent times. These poachers are currently being covertly monitored by the TPUs, though information suggests that only one of the groups remains active. The TPUs and informants will continue to monitor these groups until either they are confirmed as no longer active or, if they still are, until sufficient evidence has been obtained to mount a legal case against them or they can be apprehended directly in the field.

Similarly the TPU informant network continues to identify and monitor the activities of various middlemen and taxidermists involved in the illegal trade of tiger products. Informants will continue to monitor the activities of these people to assess their current involvement. Cases will be developed leading to arrests as further information arises.

Information source:
This document is based on the interim progress report April to August 2003 of the Integrated Tiger Protection and Monitoring in Bukit Tigapuluh National Park of Sumatra, Indonesia
(A project of the Sumatran Tiger Conservation Program,
a collaborative effort between the Directorate General of Forest Protection and Nature Conservation, Ministry of Forestry RI, The Tiger Foundation (Canada) and Sumatran Tiger Trust (UK) with the Management Unit of Bukit Tigapuluh National Park, Riau & Jambi Provinces, RI.)

to EXXONMOBIL Save The Tiger Fund (A project of the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation)

(cf links provided to the report's full text online, as well as Save the Tiger Fund website)

Links to external websites:

[wb1]  Full text of report part 1 - Integrated Tiger Protection and Monitoring in Bukit Tigapuluh National Park of Sumatra, Indonesia: Interim report April to September 2003

[wb2]  Full text of report part 2 - Integrated Tiger Protection and Monitoring in Bukit Tigapuluh National Park of Sumatra, Indonesia: Interim report April to September 2003

[wb3]  Full text of report part 3 - Integrated Tiger Protection and Monitoring in Bukit Tigapuluh National Park of Sumatra, Indonesia: Interim report April to September 2003

[wb4]  Save the Tiger Fund - Since its launch in 1995, the Save The Tiger Fund has supported projects in 13 out of the 14 tiger range countries through a partnership between ExxonMobil Foundation, the Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund, and the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation.

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Location map Map of Sumatra Island with location of national parks including Bukit Tigapuluh

Forest in the national park Tropical hill forests in Bukit Tigapuluh National Park

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