World needs to invest $1 billion over next decade to conserve tigers and their habitats across the continent
An Amur or Siberian tiger in the snow of the Russian Far East. Photo: iStock A whopping $1 billion are needed over the next decade to conserve tigers and their habitats across Asia. The Bhutanese government is hosting the Sustainable Finance for Tiger Landscapes Conference on Earth Day 2024 to mobilise the funding, according to a statement.
The two-day conference will be hosted by Bhutan under the patronage of the country’s queen, Jetsun Pema Wangchuck. It seeks to mobilise the aforementioned amount in new funding over 10 years for the preservation of tiger landscapes, which are vital to maintaining biodiversity, sequestering carbon, supplying resources to over 100 million people, and ensuring the overall health of the planet.
“Co-organised by the Royal Government of Bhutan and the Tiger Conservation Coalition, the conference will include expert panels leading insightful discussions on sustainable finance, linkages with the United Nations’ Global Biodiversity Framework, and the role of public-private partnerships in safeguarding tiger landscapes,” the statement, released by big cat organisation Panthera, read.
The Tiger Conservation Coalition was formed ahead of the 2022 Year of the Tiger. It comprises a diverse group of tiger conservation organisations and multilateral agencies that support tiger range countries in realising their long-term tiger conservation ambitions and delivering impact for nature and people from the local to the global levels.
“Bhutan is honoured to host this globally significant event on tiger landscape conservation as part of our ambitions to be a world leader in environment sustainability, carbon neutrality, and biodiversity conservation,” Prime Minister of Bhutan, Tshering Tobgay, said.
CEO of the Global Environment Facility, Carlos Manuel Rodríguez, said, “Since 2010, the Global Environment Facility has provided more than $197 million in financing and mobilised another $880 million, in co-finance, for tiger conservation. To increase effectiveness of the GEF’s investments, and to mobilise sustainable financing for biodiversity conservation and use, we need to expand collaboration across all sectors of society.”
He added that the conference will bring together varied experts and leaders to focus on the iconic species and help determine how to realise biodiversity financing at the scale urgently needed.
The tiger is the largest felid in the world. An apex predator, it plays a significant role in the structure and function of the ecosystems on which humans and wildlife rely.
Tigers are a “landscape” species, needing large areas with diverse habitats, free from human disturbance and rich in prey.
Tiger Conservation Coalition Chair and Lead of WWF Tigers Alive, Stuart Chapman, said, “Landscapes with wild tigers are healthy and vibrant ecosystems which are critically important in a climate changing world. Securing these tiger landscapes through sustainable financing will bring multiple benefits to the people and wildlife across Asia.”
Keynote speakers will include PM Tobgay; Rodríguez; and leaders in the financial sector such as Robert Litterman, Chairman of the Risk Committee and founding partner of Kepos Capital in New York.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature had announced in 2022 that the global tiger population had stabilised and potentially increased.
“Data suggested a potential 40 per cent increase in tiger numbers, from 3,200 in 2015 to 4,500 in 2022, despite extreme threats. This represented the first potential climb in the species’ numbers in decades,” according to the Panthera statement.
“Tiger range countries and the conservation community have made extraordinary progress in protecting the species in recent years, with several populations witnessing upward trajectories in numbers,” Panthera Tiger Program Director, Dr. Abishek Harihar, stated.
“Carrying momentum from this recent win for the species, the coming together of inspired minds from a diversity of public and private sectors is precisely what is needed to strategically identify how a long-term future for the tiger is financially possible, to the benefit of the world’s largest wild cat, our planet and the communities who live alongside the species,” he added.
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