Save the Tiger Project
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H. Zell, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
ROLE: Program Lead for National Fish & Wildlife Foundation
Time Frame: 1995-2002
Deliverables: More than $7.8 million invested in 11 tiger range countries
In 1995, Asia’s wild tigers were in alarming and widespread decline throughout their range. At the beginning of the 20th century, when William Blake immortalized the tiger in poetry and Rudyard Kipling introduced Shere Khan to the literary world, some 100,000 tigers roamed the Asian continent. But the ensuing decades treated the tiger no more kindly than so many other species of large predators. Human population growth and the resulting loss of habitat drove tigers from their former homes, while the over-harvest of prey species starved the cat and trophy hunting, followed by rampant poaching, took its toll.
In 1995, the Save The Tiger Fund was created by Exxon Corporation, and the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation. The two organizations had first joined to support research on the Amur tiger in the Russian Far East in 1991. But the tiger crisis of the early 1990s made it clear that something more substantial was needed. Exxon agreed to commit a minimum of $5 million over five years and bring to bear its world-wide network of companies, shareholders, and customers to support the Fund. Exxon’s commitment marked one of the largest corporate financial commitments to saving a species ever made. In turn, the Foundation anted up its conservation credibility and grantsmanship expertise. Recognizing the need for direct tiger expertise, the Foundation formed the Save the Tiger Fund Council, a panel of volunteer experts, to assist the Foundation in guiding the overall direction of the Fund and its project investments.
Proclaiming an intent to “save” the tiger was a bold and far-reaching goal amidst the tiger crisis of the mid 1990s. Until the Fund began increasing investments in basic monitoring and research, no one could make more than an educated guess as to how many tigers might remain in corners of Asia. Until the Fund used its influence to encourage cooperation among tiger biologists, there was little collaborative work underway and no overall assessment of tiger conservation priorities existed. The Fund’s six year history has marked its growth from a bold concept to a cornerstone of tiger conservation initiatives. Calling the Save The Tiger Fund “catalytic” in the conservation world, Kathryn Fuller, President of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and Fund partner observed:
“The Fund has encouraged non-governmental organizations to cooperate, pool resources, and share the limelight; tiger experts are now talking to one another and joining forces more often, giving rise to larger landscape-level programs that are increasing the tiger’s chance for long-term survival in the wild.”
In eight years, the Save The Tiger Fund has invested more than $10.3 million in 196 projects throughout 13 of the 14 tiger-range countries. Grants were provided to 56 organizations in support of their tiger conservation efforts. The STF took a multi-layered approach to tiger conservation, providing flexible grants to tackle the diverse problems of multiple cultures and ecoregions throughout the tiger's range. These grants varied from support to create health clinics in rural Indian villages and educational programs for schoolchildren in China to forming antipoaching teams in Thailand and acquiring habitat in Russia.
Against the odds and all predictions, wild tigers survive today. They still prowl the western Terai of India and Nepal, the mangrove swamps of Bangladesh, the untamed borderlands of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia and the vast boreal forests of the Russian Far East. It is neither bold nor boastful to say that the Fund has played a pivotal role in helping to secure this stability.
