To mark Global Tiger Day, WWF-Australia's Dr Ashley Brooks provides an update on the worldwide progress being made in saving wild tigers from extinction, and the focus areas that still remain.

Since the beginning of the Richmond Football Club and WWF partnership, wild tigers have had mixed fortunes. Across India, Nepal, Bhutan and Russia the sustained recovery of tiger numbers has continued, and Nepal even achieved its goal of doubling tigers three years early – from 121 (2009) to 235 (2019). Tigers in China’s north east are also bouncing back and will no doubt soar to new heights over the coming decades. These gains in tiger numbers are all the more remarkable when we consider the competition for space that tigers have with very high human populations and densities across their range in India, Nepal, Bhutan and China. Unfortunately, the success in these countries is not shared with our south east Asian neighbours. Sharp declines in tiger numbers in Sumatra Indonesia, Malaysia, and Myanmar continue. Thailand’s tigers are at a cross-roads and numbers appear to have stabilised… for now.

Successful tiger recovery across the sub-continent, China and Russia, gives us a lot of hope that with the right ingredients – political will, law enforcement & monitoring, and community support – tigers can remain in the wild long term. However, the path toward tiger extinction across south east Asia continues. The challenges in south east Asia are immense: snaring and poaching of tigers and their prey continues to rise; minimal, and sometimes zero of, government budgets is allocated to protected areas, rangers and species protection; and previously remote inaccessible areas are being cleared for industrial crops and development – meaning tigers are losing their remaining habitats.

Much of WWF’s work toward TX2 or doubling tiger population by 2022, is centered on preventing extinction of tigers across south east Asia and building on the success of tiger recovery across the sub-continent, China and Russia. This takes many forms in each country context, but each case involves the three critical ingredients: political will, law enforcement & monitoring, and community support. Over the past year WWF has catalysed and supported various successes across the tiger range. Some highlights include:

• The largest ranger welfare survey across tiger range which highlighted basic operating challenges and resource gaps for these critical frontline staff;

• Monitoring in Nepal recorded the movement of a tiger at an elevation of 2,500 metres for the first time, opening up new avenues for the research and community partnerships;

• The first comprehensive survey of tiger Heartlands (the areas critical for recovery and breeding populations), with findings suggesting that 61% of the total area of heartlands (7.6million ha) is effectively managed and hold around 25% of the total tiger population;

• The Jigme Singye Wangchuck and Royal Manas National Parks in Bhutan, and the South Parganas mangrove forests in the Indian Sundarbans were CA|TS Approved – demonstrating the high level of tiger management standards there. CA|TS is the international best practice standard – if a site reaches this level, then tiger conservation there is assured long term;

• The Malaysian government stepped up to the plate with the Prime Minister giving tigers the political attention they deserve. The government mobilised critically needed resources to tiger areas across the peninsula;

• In the Russian far east, the government set aside 81,000 hectares for a new protected area to specifically protect tigers and leopards called the Komissarovsky Wildlife Refuge.

Amidst these achievements, Nick Vlastuin and Toby Nankervis visited Pench and Kanha Tiger Reserves in central India in November 2019 and saw firsthand the overlap between tigers’ and human spaces and the challenges of protecting tigers along with meeting people’s basic needs. In 2020 we begin the project to support the indigenous Orang Asli people of the Malay Peninsula to conduct patrols for snares and monitor tiger movements. Not only is this project, supported by Richmond Football Club, vital to keep poachers and their snares out of the Belum State Park, it is a critical part of building that community support, through jobs and training, which is that third essential ingredient for tiger recovery.

The partnership between WWF and the Richmond Football Club is one of the most unique conservation partnerships in Australia. It has been exciting helping it develop, and I look forward to it growing over the coming year.