Panthera

Aceh, northern Sumatra: The tiger population in the Indonesian province of Aceh is one of the largest on Sumatra, and quite possibly also one of the largest in Asia as a whole. The Government of Aceh has a long history of actively conserving its natural resources, and in keeping with this tradition is currently working towards a sustainable and environmentally-sensitive economic development strategy, known as the ‘Aceh Green Vision’.

Under this initiative, the Governor of Aceh has recently established a working group that will focus on the social, economic and environmental impacts of planned road construction in Aceh. The working group contains several International NGOs, including the Leuser International Foundation, (LIF) the Wildlife Conservation Society's Indonesia Program, and Fauna & Flora International.

In January 2010, Panthera was invited to support this Government of Aceh Road Working Group and specifically the team working to identify the impacts of roads on tiger habitats throughout Aceh. By supporting the GIS component and lending technical expertise, the results from this study will be incorporated directly into the Government of Aceh's strategy. Ultimately, this spatial planning project will help to preserve the integrity of the largest tiger landscape on Sumatra, the Leuser-Ulu Masen Landscape, by providing robust, timely data for the Government to evaluate alternative road development plans.

Tandai Tiger Corridor (TTC), west Sumatra: The TTC is a collaborative project with Fauna and Flora International and local NGO partners in west Sumatra, Indonesia. Launched in January 2010, the project is building community-based conservation teams that work to ensure the safe passage of tigers moving through community farmlands and villages that lie between Kerinci Seblat National Park and Batang Hari Protection Forest. Rural areas in close proximity to major tiger populations are often hotspots for human-tiger conflict and are all too easily reached by well-organized poachers intent on killing tigers for profit.

However, in the TTC, Panthera is partnering with a local NGO to build collaborations with local communities and villagers to remove snares set for tigers and tiger prey, and improve community livestock enclosures to prevent livestock depredation that often leads to retaliatory tiger killing. These collaborations have also resulted in local communities helping with law enforcement operations against outsiders involved with illegal activities threatening tigers in the TTC.

It is hoped that the project will be developed in 2011 to include active protection of core tiger sites in the north of Kerinci Seblat National Park and Batang Hari Protection Forest. Ultimately, techniques developed here will be exported to other areas and used to secure similar clusters of core areas and intervening dispersal landscapes.