Reserves range in size, but successful schemes have included the huge Xioaling in China, at 21 km², and Indonesia’s Kerinci Seblat, comparatively tiny at 14,846 km².
Another approach to saving the tigers has been adopted by the ‘Terai-Arc Landscape’ program, which aims to increase tiger numbers by reducing ‘habitat fragmentation’. They work to actively shape the landscape to increase accessibility between tiger territories, encouraging the remaining tigers to interact with each other, in areas that may have been previously inaccessible due to human developments or settlements.
Other notable projects include ‘Project Tiger’ (which orchestrated the 1972 national ban on tiger hunting in India, as well as the Wildlife Protection Act), ‘Tigers Forever’ (which aims to increase tiger numbers in key areas by 50% in the next ten years) and the ‘Save the Tiger Fund’ (which has contributed over $10.6 million to more than 196 conservation schemes).
It is important to realise that saving the tigers doesn’t just help them, but it helps us too. By ensuring that tiger populations are well fed and well protected, we reduce the risk of them being hostile towards humans, who are now beginning to live and work even closer alongside tiger habitats in developing countries.
In some areas, the tigers are a vital source of income for the community, as they generate revenue from tourism and other related industries, whilst many tiger conservation schemes also employ local people to implement their work.
Most importantly, if the wild tiger population was to go extinct, then tigers would effectively disappear, becoming a species that you read about in textbooks, or see in films and television shows, but not one that you would ever have the chance to see for yourself.
By Jennifer Cohen
Graph on previous page sourced from:
http://bengaltigerawareness.weebly.com/threats.html