The amazing tigerland of Indonesia
Indonesia is a mega-diversity country and the largest archipelago in the world. With 17,508 islands of different sizes, the country is famous for its endemic fauna and flora. The total land area of the country is 1.9 million km2, of which 73% is covered by tropical forests. The tiger is one of the flagship species of the country. Once the country had three out of eight subspecies of the tiger (Sumatran, Javan and Bali tigers), but today only the Sumatran tiger exists in the forests of Sumatra.
The Zoological Society of London (ZSL), together with the Indonesian Government and the local stakeholders, is fighting to save the Sumatran tiger in its natural habitats and I was lucky to have the opportunity to visit the tiger territories, during 09-19 March 2009, and exchange the knowledge and experience with my colleagues who are working over there.
We all (Sarah Christie, Tom Maddox, Dolly Priatna and myself) had gathered in a meeting in the headquarter of the Indonesian Forest Department, or 'Departemen Kehutanan' as it is locally called, in Jakarta and afterwards we flew to Jambi a province in Sumatra. From there we went to a conflict area near Berbak National Park (NP). Once the entire area was peat-swamp forest, but today the oilpalm plantations dominate the landscape. Anyone would assume that tigers would cross the oilpalm plantations, where tiger's preferred prey wild boar is quite common, but the research that was conducted by ZSL has revealed that they don't. That means the oilpalm plantations are responsible for fragmentation of tiger population, which is probably the biggest threat to tigers in Sumatra, and emphasizes the need for making corridors through the oilpalm plantations.
The forests outside Berbak NP are declining due to legal and illegal logging. In an area called Panchoran we witnessed how the organized gangs of loggers extract the timber. Since the area is swampy, they use the trolley above wooden tracks to carry the timber up to the edge of the forest where the timber is shifted to a truck and taken to the cities for sale.
If the human disturbance is as such in a tiger territory it is no wonder that the conflict between tigers and people takes place. There are reports of eight human deaths by a tiger in three months. The ZSL staff, together with the local authorities, is trying to solve the problem by capturing the man-eater and releasing it inside the NP far away from human habitations. A tigress was already captured, but probably this was not responsible for any human death since the last case of human death took place after it was captured. The tigress is now in Jambi Zoo, waiting to be released in Berbak NP. Hopefully, the man-eater will be captured successfully. Based on the locations of eight human victims it appears that the man-eater has no stable territory, which means that it is either an old or a subadult tiger. In case it is an old tiger, probably it will die soon and no more human will be killed.
In the mangroves of the Sundarbans of Bangladesh, i.e. the area where I work, many tigers have the reputation as man-eaters, and as many as 50 people die every year in tiger attacks and many more get injured. These man-eaters are not necessarily old or injured, but healthy tigers that treat humans as natural prey. Therefore, the situation in the conflict area near Berbak NP is not too bad. Hopefully, capturing the actual man-eater and relocating it will solve the problem. This, however, is not an option for man-eaters of the Sundarbans, because there are many of them and people mainly get killed inside the forest.
After visiting the conflict area near Berbak NP we went to the core area of the NP. Having an area of 162,700 ha, this NP is situated in the southeast of Sumatra. From Jambi it was a day-long journey by car and speedboat. We spent the night in a wooden house owned by a local fisherman. We had to enter the core area (Simpang Malaka) through a river from the east coast of Sumatra. The water of the river was as dark as the black coffee due to the high proportion of organic materials. Since it is a peat-swamp forest, the forest-floor was soft and wet, and as dark as the water.
The river was beautifully margined by nipa palm (Nypa fruticans) and Pandanus that reminded me the Sundarbans, but the vegetation inside the forest was completely different. There were very tall trees and palms, together with a lot of climbers and epiphytes, making the forest interior very dark. We were lucky to see two species of primates (long-tailed macaque and silver leaf monkey) and many species of birds (rhinoceros hornbill, southern pied hornbill, hill myna, black-and-red broadbill, ashy tailorbird, kingfishers, green pigeons, drongos, barbets, etc.). Moreover, we saw the footprints of tiger, tapir, wild boar and deer.
From the river we entered different parts of the forest in order to get the camera-traps back, which were set there three months earlier (after coming back to Bangladesh I came to know that many photos of three individual tigers were obtained from those camera-traps). The field-researchers also kept records of tiger pugmarks, together with the measurements. While Sarah and I took shelter in the speedboat to save us from the tropical rain, our colleagues continued venturing into the forest for bringing back the camera-traps.
On way back to Jambi we spent some time at Sungai Rambut, which is the western end of Berbak NP. The area is known to harbour 20 individual white-winged ducks -- a globally threatened species, but we had no time to search for them.
After returning to Jambi I said goodbye to my ZSL colleagues and started the 11-hour-long overnight journey to Kerinci Seblat NP the second largest NP (1,375,350 ha) and one of the few UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Indonesia. This NP is situated along the Kerinci and Seblat mountains in central Sumatra. Having an altitude of 3,805 m, Mt. Kerinci is an active volcano that continuously emits gas through its crater.
I spent three days in and around this NP, watching the wildlife. The NP officials and the local researchers of Fauna & Flora International were very cooperative. Unlike Berbak NP, the surrounding areas of Kerinci Seblat NP have cinnamon and tea plantations instead of oilpalm.
During my stay in Kerinci Seblat NP I made a presentation in the NP office to share my experiences of working with tigers in Bangladesh and spent most of the time watching wildlife in the wet hill forests. The forest harbours many species of wildlife, including the tiger. The most notable sighting for me was a pair of siamang a kind of arboreal ape.
Other than this I saw a few other arboreal mammals (banded langur, giant squirrel and small squirrel) and wide variety of birds including large niltava, shiny whistling thrush, mountain tailorbird, snowy-browed flycatcher, long-tailed shrike, bulbuls, mynas, minivets, babblers, swiftlets and swallows. A treefrog was also found that I could not identify. However, I could not find any rafflesia flower (the largest flower in the world) that I had tried hard to see.
This trip gave me an opportunity to observe and experience the attempts to solve the man-eater tiger problem, together with how the research and conservation are going on in partnership with the local stakeholders in Sumatra. Thanks to ZSL Conservation Grant that made this trip possible. Since both Indonesia and Bangladesh are Asian countries, where the tiger and its habitats are facing similar threats, it was a wise idea to arrange an exchange visit and share experiences.
Last year when Tom Maddox from Indonesia Programme had visited Bangladesh it gave me the opportunity to discuss the challenges of the project. While I was in Indonesia I experienced the mechanism of partnerships among the international organizations, the Forest Department and the local community. The way ZSL team is working over there is an example of well-organised conservation work that needs to be followed by us in Bangladesh.
Photographs by the writer
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