Conservationists on the rise

Tiger numbers throughout Southeast Asian countries are dwindling due to poaching and habitat loss; farther north, Tshering Tempa has dedicated his life to saving the big cats in Bhutan. As the top tiger expert in the country, he recently led Bhutan’s first-ever National Tiger Survey—a critical project because one of the most effective steps toward ensuring a species’ long-term survival is understanding how many there are and where they live. Tempa, along with his colleagues from the Department of Forests and Park Services, collected and analyzed tiger data over the course of a year and a half. They now officially estimate there are 103 wild tigers in Bhutan.

With fewer than 3,900 wild tigers left in the entire world, that estimate marks Bhutan as a critical tiger country. And the new baseline data makes Bhutan better prepared to monitor and protect its current tiger population, and to strategize ways to help tiger numbers grow.

With support from WWF, Tempa will earn his PhD in wildlife biology from the University of Montana. He will then combine existing research on tiger populations in Bhutan with new research into how Bhutan’s tigers are connected to other members of the species throughout the Himalayan region. Eventually, Tempa’s research and fieldwork will prove critical to tiger conservation efforts not only in Bhutan and the Himalayas, but also throughout Southeast Asia.

Dr. Ha Thang Long established GreenViet, a Vietnamese nonprofit that works to raise awareness about the country’s biodiversity. GreenViet has over 200 volunteers that help monitor illegal activities in Son Tra Nature Reserve. The protected forest, which has no gates, is home to the endangered red-shanked douc langur. The monitoring effort has greatly helped reduce poaching of this large, vibrantly colored monkey.

Gladys Kalema is the Uganda Wildlife Authority’s first veterinary officer. Through her nonprofit, Conservation Through Public Health, she works to help people and wildlife coexist by improving their quality of life and limiting the spread of disease—an effort that is especially important to the gorillas she works to protect. Humans and apes share 98% of the same DNA, making gorillas especially susceptible to disease transmission from humans living along the borders of national parks.

Kerstin Forsberg is an internationally recognized conservation biologist who works every day to protect our oceans and the species that live in them. Currently, over 50% of Peru’s population lives on the coast and depends on marine resources for their diet and source of income. In spite of the importance of coastal habitat, historically much of the country’s conservation work has focused on inland areas such as the Andes and Amazon. Kerstin has come to believe this is due to a lack of awareness about the ocean’s importance. To tackle this issue, she founded Planeta Oceano, an organization focused on empowering and educating coastal communities to protect marine ecosystems.

One recent project, done in collaboration with local and international partners, investigated how manta ray populations are affected by local fisheries. Manta rays are seriously threatened by overfishing and bycatch worldwide, and Peru is home to the largest known population of manta rays that had gone essentially unprotected. Kerstin’s team showed that a high percentage of manta rays caught in fisheries are pregnant or juvenile—a finding that, because of the manta ray’s slow reproductive rate, means this already vulnerable species is at greater risk than previously realized. After a concerted advocacy and outreach campaign, Planeta Oceano helped gain government support to legally protect manta rays in Peru. This new level of protection is vital to the species’ survival, and it paves the way for the development of a sustainable manta ray tourism industry.