The conservation of tigers and other wildlife in oil palm plantations

However, in Indonesia the potential for wildlife benefits outside protected areas are
greater than in many other countries, thanks to the relatively low level of historical land
clearance and exploitation which has left large areas of unprotected land with high
conservation potential still available Figure 1). Nevertheless, this situation is changing
rapidly, particularly in Sumatra, with massive losses of potential habitat occurring
annually. Forest cover, for example, fell from 162 million hectares to 98 million hectares
between 1950 and 2000 (Glastra, Wakker and Richert, 2002) with losses from 2000-2005
estimated at 1.8 million hectares / year or 2% of the remaining forest, making it the
fastest rate of deforestation in the world (FAO, 2007). The future of many of these areas
currently hangs in the balance. As forest concessions reach the end of their cycle, with
for example many areas no longer able to support selective logging due to excessive
exploitation, decisions are being made on what to do with the land. In September 2006,
the Indonesian Forestry Minister announced that 17 million hectares of lapsed or
unused forestry concessions across Sumatra, Kalimantan and Sulawesi were to be
offered for development by the Indonesian government with $1 billion allocated from
their reforestation fund to support the work. Eight million hectares were specifically
allocated to agriculture, primarily oil palm and sugar, with the aim of meeting biofuel
targets. Replacing these swathes of natural forest is a patchwork of production forests,
plantations and human habitations, fast becoming the prevailing landscape.
Determining how to access the remaining conservation potential in this increasingly
degraded and human-dominated landscape is an urgent priority.
Figure 1 -
Left: Isolated protected areas
in Sumatra;
Right: the potential of unprotected
forests (green) and industrial
plantations (yellow)
to connect protected areas.
Data from Global Forest Watch
(www.globalforestwatch.org)
Indonesia’s biodiversity wealth is phenomenal, but it is also home to the highest
number of IUCN red listed species of any country in the world. Sumatran tigers
(Panthera tigris sumatrae) provide a good example of the potential value of
unprotected areas. Listed as “Critical” by the IUCN, and on CITES Appendix I, the
Sumatran tiger is the last remaining subspecies in Indonesia following the extinctions
of the Balinese tiger in the 1930s and the Javan tiger fifty years later (Seidensticker and
Suyono, 1980). As a wide ranging, large and persecuted carnivore, Sumatran tigers
are also particularly vulnerable to the restrictions of protected areas (Woodroffe and
Ginsberg, 1998). The number thought to remain in the wild is only several hundred in
protected areas (Franklin et al., 1999) however these are thought to be distributed
between a number of increasingly isolated protected areas with only two national
parks (TN Kerinci Sablat and TN Leuser) considered large enough to hold selfsustaining
populations and up to 75% of likely tiger forest habitat located outside
protected areas (Philip Wells, pers. com). The future for tigers, if relying entirely on
protected areas, looks grim; however, tigers are a surprisingly adaptable species
(Sunquist, Karanth and Sunquist, 1999) and even apparently inhospitable cleared or
agricultural land does not necessarily represent a barrier to them (Seidensticker, 1987).
Unprotected areas could therefore play a vital role in tiger conservation, and in that of
many other species, but almost no research has been carried out into this subject.
12 Wildlife conservation in oil palm plantations