Implementing partner: Fauna & Flora (F&F)
Project name: Kerinci Seblat Tiger Protection and Conservation Program
Location: Kerinci Seblat National Park, Sumatra, Indonesia
Background: Launched in May 2000, the Kerinci Seblat Tiger Protection Project is an ongoing project in collaboration between Kerinci Seblat National Park (KSNP) and Fauna & Flora (F&F).
Kerinci Seblat National Park is the second-largest national park in Southeast Asia, covering approximately 1.35 million hectares excluding buffer zone forests. The Park is a critical habitat for the endangered Sumatran tiger.
Six four-man Tiger Protection and Conservation Units are operational with each unit led by a National Park Ranger leader with ranger members drawn from forest-edge communities. Units operate under the day-to-day direction of young national park managers who report to the director of the national park.
Goal: To secure a sustained, natural increase in Sumatran tiger populations in Kerinci Seblat National Park through reduced threat to tiger, tiger prey and habitat, underwritten by effective collaborations between national and local government, local civil society and forest-edge communities.
Objective 1: Consolidate gains made, since 2016 in detecting and containing direct and indirect threats to Sumatran tigers and through conserving and protecting wild Sumatran tiger, their prey, and habitat, and so support a natural increase in tiger numbers.
Objective 2: Investigations identify poachers and IWT traders, their networks, and trade routes, and support law enforcement where evidence is available; while the wildlife black market is monitored for changes in demand to support adaptive strategies to counter any increase in threat.
Objective 3: TPCUs conduct fair and appropriate law enforcement directly while on patrol or through partnering with other government agencies outside the national park and law enforcement leverages reduced threat to tiger, prey, and habitat through deterring tiger and other wildlife poachers and forest crime more widely.
Objective 4: Respond swiftly to and mitigate human-tiger conflicts reported, where possible before livestock predation has occurred, using a nationally approved conflict mitigation protocol, with the purpose of protecting both tigers and forest-edge community livelihoods.
