conservation

An infra-red night shot of an Indochinese Tiger (© WCS Lao/NEPL NPA). See more nightshots of wildlife here.

A high point of last week was getting notice from the CEO of the Global Environment Facility (GEF) that she had approved the initial project document for an exciting conservation project in NE Lao PDR worth $1 million.  This had been long awaited and the team was coming to terms with the idea that it was unlikely to survive. That made getting the approval to fully prepare the project all the sweeter. Given that this week was the start of the Year of the Tiger, it is significant that this project focuses on Nam Et-Phou Loei (NEPL) National Protected Area, the most important tiger site in Lao PDR, and a site acknowledged as a global priority for tiger conservation (pdf).

We’re hoping the project will be able to demonstrate replicable innovations in protected area management that will increase the sustainability and effectiveness of the entire national protected area system. This currently suffers from gaps in staff capacity and inadequate financial resources. To help with this we intend that the project will put in place - for the first time in Laos – both working models of effective zoning that incorporate sustainable wildlife use for community subsistence, and control of illegal hunting for trade.

It was clear that our study area on the Indonesian island of Siberut is now rarely visited by anyone. (More photos)

My last post described my reactions to going back to Siberut Island with my wife after a 30-year break, and this one considers the changing conservation situation there. The terrestrial mammals of the island are remarkable in that almost all are endemic, and among them are four species of primates (one an endemic genus) – levels of endemism equivalent to those found in Madagascar.

There has been formal logging on and off over the last 30 years but we hadn’t found a map of exactly where.  When we reached the basin where our study area had been, the views from the villages was of logged-over forest. The rights to log the forests had been negotiated with local clans, but in hindsight the benefits were pretty meager and short-lived. The trees the loggers sought were the large and magnificent Shorea, and with these now gone it is getting harder for people to make their dugout canoes. Also, we were struck by the contrast of the timber quality of the longhouses we visited in areas without logging against the timber quality of the small government-sponsored modern houses with corrugated iron roofs. The timber available now seems to start looking decayed as soon as it is nailed into place.

One of the most exciting conservation initiatives in Asia at the moment is the Harapan Rainforest Initiative in central Sumatra, where I have just stayed for a week.

One of the most exciting conservation initiatives in Asia at the moment is the Harapan Rainforest Initiative in central Sumatra, administered by a trust formed of the RSPB, BirdLife International and Burung Indonesia. I’ve been fortunate to have just stayed there for a week, sleeping out on the forest floor with local teams while being based in their main camp.

As Sukianto Lusli, Burung Indonesia Executive Director, told me with great excitement when he first explained his crazy idea to me years ago, “It’s flat!” This may not mean much to most people, but given that conservation areas tend to be those areas with difficult access, little water, steep topography, and basically the bits that no one else wants, to be in an area managed for conservation that was (more or less) flat was wonderful.

So much is being written about climate change. The heat is on, so to speak, to find new solutions to increasingly dire predictions from ever more detailed data and refined models. Many conservationists are setting great store by the promise afforded by RED (Reducing Emissions through Deforestation) and REDD (add Degradation). It is only a few more months before we learn whether the leaders of the world reach agreement of whether to move forward and unlock the money which could – forest governance permitting – cause a major boost to the funding and rationale for forest conservation.

Meanwhile, a new World Bank report has revealed that conservationists have actually been doing climate change projects all along; they just hadn’t realized it. New technological fixes aren’t essential to taking positive action.