A tiger roams
a forest in southern Thailand in this 1998 file photo. The picture,
was taken by a camera, fixed to a tree, and triggered by an infra
red beam. Photo by AP
By SARAH STEWART
Khao Yai Park,
Thailand: Wildlife experts studying the last of the tigers roaming
Thailand's jungles have made the startling discovery that fewer
than 150 are left, and that poachers are fast closing in on the
survivors.
Thailand's
forestry department had long thought at least 500 of the majestic
animals prowled the country's national parks, among some 7,000
worldwide which still live in the wild.
But conservationists
who this year set up infra-red camera traps in the undergrowth
of the oldest of the parks were dismayed to capture just two of
the beasts on film -- along with hundreds of poachers.
The poachers,
mostly poor villagers from settlements surrounding Khai Yai national
park, scour the jungle for exotic birds, the valuable bark of
the aloewood tree, and game like sambar deer and the gaur, a wild
ox which stands taller than a bison.
And every
year or so, a tiger is hunted and stripped of its body parts --
the pelt, bone and penis -- which can fetch up to $US10,000 ($A17,200)
from collectors and Chinese medicine shops.
"They're
worth more dead than alive," says Timothy Redford, the coordinator
of the Khao Yai Conservation Project.
"And
as the economy improves in China, people have got more money to
buy this sort of stuff."
Experts working
on the project, run by the US-based Wildlife Conservation Society
and Wildaid, aim to study 15 forest regions where tigers dwell.
Initial results have been disappointing.
"We've
conducted surveys in three important forest complexes so far and
found the density of tigers to be a fraction of what they were
thought to be," says the project's tiger expert Tony Lynam.
"Our
best estimate for the whole country is probably 150 and that's
being generous."
"Khao
Yai is one of the more disappointing areas because it's a big
area and it's Thailand's oldest national park, and a region where
people have known tigers to be in the past," he says.
But the team
has not given up on the tigers of Khao Yai, a lush stretch of
virgin forest which lies less than two hours drive from the capital
Bangkok.
"There
can't be more than 10 tigers in the park, says Lynam. "But
10 is a viable population if they have enough water and prey."
Given the
right conditions, a female can bear four cubs a year and the offpsring
can begin breeding just three years later.
One theory
that makes conservationists hopeful Thailand's tiger population
might spring back is that Khao Yai could be part of a tiger "corridor"
extending east into Cambodia.
It is the
westernmost of a patchwork of national parks covering 9,000 square
kilometres -- divided by highways, rivers and the landmined Thai-Cambodia
border -- which could theoretically support up to 70 tigers.
Intriguingly,
one of the two beasts found so far in Khao Yai roams territory
in the extreme south-west of the park which is heavily poached
but which also lies closest to the boundary of the next park.
"We think
it's possible that the tigers are using a sliver of forest, just
five kilometres wide, as a corridor. If they are then it's an
important link, possibly all the way to Cambodia," Lynam
says.
"But
without protecting forests, working with local communities and
monitoring the area there can't be a very good future for the
tigers at all."
The Khao Yai
project will not only catalogue the park's tigers, but also train
the rangers to protect them better, and reach out to the villagers
who also depend on the forest for their livelihood.
For the first
time, rangers are being drilled in weapons training, patrol techniques
and wildlife protection law before they go out to face well-armed
poachers.
Last November
a firefight between a poacher armed with an AK-47 and a ranger
who came across his illegal jungle campsite left both men dead.
"It's
a dangerous job, especially when they are well equipped. In the
old days they used to carry only homemade weapons and we could
handle that, but now it's much more difficult," says chief
ranger Salieng Meethai.
Former poachers
are now being trained as rangers and are proving invaluable members
of the park team.
"We took
on one young man after he paid his fine for hunting aloewood,"
says Salieng. "Now he is a good worker and a good ranger."
Krisana Kaewplang,
who runs Khao Yai's outreach program, says the only way to combat
the problem is to involve the whole community in conservation
work.
"I call
them collectors, not poachers. They rely on the forest and they
are very skilled in working here," she says. "They know
it's illegal but they have to feed their families."
However, poaching
is a dangerous way to make a living and many villagers say they
would be happy to earn an honest wage if they had the chance.
Krisana is
working to secure funds that will allow the communities around
the park to set up commercial fish ponds and vegetable farms that
will enable them to give up their illegal trade.
Just about
everything that moves in Khao Yai is a target for poachers. Snakes
are boxed up and sent to China for traditional medicine and baby
monkeys are netted and taken to resorts where they pose for tourists.
Exotic birds
are shipped to foreign pet shops and orchids are taken away in
truckloads to be sold in Bangkok's markets.
And inside
the Khao Yai visitors' centre stands the pitiful stuffed figure
of a month-old baby elephant which starved to death after poachers
snatched it away from its mother.
However, the
worst damage to the park is done by the 500 villagers who on any
one day hunt for the bark of the aloewood tree, which is rendered
down to produce a costly aromatic oil.
The bark gatherers
set snares and traps for birds and small mammals to eat during
their stay, devastating the park's delicate ecology.
"What
seems quite inocuous, chipping a bit of wood off a tree, is actually
very serious because of the knock-on effect," says Redford.
If it proves
successful, the Khao Yai conservation project, which is funded
by Australian, US and Thai governments, may be replicated in 50
other tiger habitats in Thailand, Malaysia and Cambodia.
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