LETTERS: The Malayan tiger, a subspecies found only on the Malay Peninsula, is on the brink of extinction.
Globally, 97 per cent of the world's tigers have been lost in the last century due to habitat loss and poaching.
While the Bengal and Siberian subspecies are recovering in number due to strict protection, the Malayan tiger population has plummeted over the past two decades.
No local tiger landscape has been spared; even highly protected national parks such as Taman Negara have experienced a significant drop in wild tiger numbers.
The official estimate of Malayan tigers remaining in the wild as announced this year by the government is "fewer than 150". This follows a RM18 million, four-year national tiger survey that began in 2016.
As a conservation biologist who has been tracking the extinction process of the tiger in Peninsular Malaysia for the past quarter of a century, I estimate the population of the Malayan tiger over 1 year old is likely to be 100 or fewer.
One challenge facing tiger conservation efforts is that wild tigers are not found in one place, but are scattered over large and increasingly fragmented forest complexes across the peninsula.
Created over a decade ago, the federal government's Central Forest Spine Master Plan proposed to connect 5.3 million hectares of primary rainforests in the peninsula with 37 linkages.
Its realisation is of crucial importance for the survival of not only tigers and other wildlife, but also for the health and wealth of the nation.
It provides ecological services such as flood mitigation, carbon sequestration, water purification, crop pollination and livelihood resources for local communities. Yet despite its importance and urgency, particularly in light of climate change, it has yet to be fully realised. A pivotal role in this effort lies in the forest conservation and biodiversity preservation projects in the state of Pahang. Pahang has the largest forest coverage in Peninsular Malaysia and also hosts the largest tiger population.
However, no single forest or state in Malaysia is large enough to support a viable population of tigers, hence, making connectivity between various forests a critical feature in the survival of the species.
A viable population of Malayan tigers is possible only when Pahang takes action to protect the country's most important ecological corridor, while the federal government's initiatives try to put more boots on the ground to protect tigers from poachers.
Identified in the master plan as "Primary Linkage 1", it is located along the Sungai Yu watershed in Kuala Lipis district.
The Sungai Yu corridor is the final linkage connecting the two largest forest complexes in Malaysia, namely the Titiwangsa main range in the west, and Taman Negara range in the east (see map).
When tigers can roam safely across the Sungai Yu corridor, Malaysia has a fighting chance of having a viable population of Malayan tigers that survive into the next lunar Year of the Tiger.
DR KAE KAWANISHI
Wildlife biologist
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect those of the New Straits Times
