14th October 2018


As now-rare megafauna at the top of the food chain, the presence or absence of tigers – strikingly beautiful and endangered – in forest ecosystems throughout Asia can tell something about the state of the ecological health of various national parks and wildlife sanctuaries. They are also an indication of the effectiveness of police enforcement, habitat destruction, and, often, corruption.

They can tell us if an ecosystem is functioning the way it should, if law enforcement and park officials are up to task, and they can indicate the degree of crime and corruption in and around protected areas, crime that is often trans-national and runs globally into the tens of billions of dollars. In short, tigers are not just big sexy cats, something to gush over and romanticize about. They symbolize the integrity of the country.

Tigers prowl what remains of some of Asia’s forest blocks from Sumatra to Russia to Nepal, and their status varies greatly between countries. Nepal, one of the poorest countries in the world, has managed to nearly double the number of its wild tigers in the past 10 years, and it is the first tiger range country to meet TX2 target set at the St. Petersburg tiger summit hosted by Russia in 2010. How did Nepal accomplish this, especially when it neighbors China, the largest consumer of tiger parts?

Read full story here