Malaysia:~WWF Tiger Conservation Officers Share Some Insight On Their Efforts In Saving The Malayan Tigers.

[Hand In Hand With Asia]

“Poachers have almost entirely wiped out the tiger populations in places like Vietnam and Cambodia ” says Shariff Mohamed, the senior programme officer (Species Conservation Team) at WWF-Malaysia. “It is only a matter of time before they turn their eyes to Malaysia.” Shariff & Aslan Mohamed are part of WWF-Malaysia’s tiger monitoring team and they have been carrying out camera trapping to determine the population status in tigers in Belum-Temengor for the past few years. Using camera traps they hope to monitor the tiger population for future research and conservation efforts. 
For the past 5 years WWF-Malaysia have been working at conservation from within the ‘grassroots’ – the people in Belum-Temengor, beginning with the Belum-Temengor Forest Complex. 

Umi Rahman who is WWF-Malaysia’s senior community liaison officer for species conservation says, “Engagement with the community is the key to how well conservation efforts take off especially with local communities and the Orang Asli.” (indigenous people). “What we have found is that helping local communities and maintaining conservation efforts are close knit and inseparable issues. The local people have deep knowledge of the forests surrounding them and they can become the eyes and ears of the authorities and can report wildlife crime in their areas. The Orang Asli know when poachers come. Often they are outsiders from the area, not just foreigners.“ The Orang Asli keenly depend on the forest for their food, medicines and for selling fish, rattan and honey and they often do not get an income from the middlemen. 
Umi continues, “If they have other sources of sustainable income, they will be able to take on more pro-active roles to stop poachers and keep their land safe – indirectly also preventing them from falling prey to middlemen posing as buyers.”
Extracts from Pauline Wong’s article in The Heat, Photo of the WWF-Malaysia officers by Daniel Chan, The Heat.