Kerinci Seblat Sumatran Tiger Project

Implementing partner:

Fauna & Flora (F&F)

Project name:

Kerinci Seblat Tiger Protection and Conservation Program

Location:

 Kerinci Seblat National Park, Sumatra, Indonesia

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: Detect and contain direct and indirect threats to Sumatran tigers.
  • Conserve and protect wild Sumatran tiger, their prey, and habitat, to support a natural increase in tiger numbers.
• Objective 2: Investigations identify poachers and IWT traders, their networks, and trade routes.
  • Support law enforcement where evidence is available;
  • Monitor the wildlife black market for changes in demand.
  • Support adaptive strategies to counter any increase in threat.
• Objective 3: TPCUs conduct fair and appropriate law enforcement while on patrol or by partnering with other government agencies outside the national park.
  • Leverage reduced threat to tiger, prey, and habitat by deterring tiger and other wildlife poachers and other forest crime.
• Objective 4: Respond swiftly to and mitigate reported human-tiger conflicts. where possible before livestock predation has occurred.
  • Use nationally approved conflict mitigation protocol to protect both tigers and forest-edge community livelihoods.

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, 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 national park director.

Current Work – Results

The poaching threat to tigers and main tiger prey, such as a rusa sambar deer and muntjac, continued to show a long-standing multi-year decline.Threats to the Sumatran tigers and their prey, recorded on SMART forest patrols conducted by the TPCU and the tiger monitoring team across the landscape, remained far below the long-term programme average. No active snares, both for tiger or tiger prey were recorded on a total of 70 SMART forest patrols conducted during 2024. 

SMART forest patrols continued to encounter threats to tiger habitat, through encroachment and clearance of forests and illegal logging both in the national park buffer zone and within the park itself, for small-holder agriculture. In 2024, seven formal written cautions were issued by TPCU patrols to 13 men clearing national park and park-edge forests.