WWF used the opportunity of the Year of
the Tiger in the Chinese calendar to run an
18-month campaign to focus attention on
the plight of the tiger – numbers of tigers
have been almost halved since the previous
Year of the Tiger in 1998. The campaign’s
main aim to gain commitment by all 13 tiger
range states to double tiger numbers by the
next Year of the Tiger in 2022 was agreed
at the St Petersburg International Tiger
Conservation Forum. Other aims achieved
included specific conservation actions, and a
rebranding of tiger conservation to include
wider values for people and the environment.
The Summit also produced the
Global Tiger Recovery Programme, bringing
together all 13 tiger range states and the
international community in the first unified
plan to halt the tiger’s decline.
Conservation 2011: Tigers
WWF’s Year of the Tiger campaign
Protecting tigers and their habitats
During the Year of the Tiger, new protected
areas (PAs) totalling approx 2 million
hectares were announced by Cambodia,
India, Indonesia, Laos, Myanmar and
Nepal. New national tiger action plans
were announced by Bangladesh, Cambodia
and Thailand. Bhutan created a tiger
conservation fund to compensate for
livestock killed by tigers to reduce humanwildlife
conflict. India and Indonesia also
announced measures to reduce such conflict.
In addition, China and Russia agreed to
establish a transboundary PA network for
the Amur tiger, and Russia has introduced a
ban on the logging of Korean pine to protect
tiger habitat.
Stopping the tiger trade
Important commitments were announced
to address the illegal tiger trade and benefit
other species. The South Asia Wildlife
Enforcement Network (SAWEN) was
established, with WWF and TRAFFIC
support, to strengthen wildlife trade law
enforcement efforts in Bangladesh, Bhutan,
India and Nepal. And CITES, INTERPOL,
the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, World
Bank and World Customs Organisation
agreed to establish the International
Consortium for Combating Wildlife Crime.
In the field, a major figure in Vietnam’s
illegal tiger trade was fined US$70,000 and
jailed for three years. And a suspected tiger
smuggler has been arrested in West Sumatra,
Indonesia, with the skin of a tiger believed to
have been poisoned.
India’s tigers increase
New figures on the population of tigers in
India – which holds half the world’s tigers
– estimates an increase in tigers from 1,411
counted in the last census in 2007, to 1,706.
Discounting tigers from areas not previously
included in the count, there is a possible
increase of up to 225 tigers. These figures
indicate the importance of strong protection
for core tiger habitat, and linking areas,
plus effective ‘tiger friendly’ management in
surrounding areas, and that with the right
conditions tigers can recover. The new tiger
numbers were released by the Government
of India at the International Conference on
Tiger Conservation in New Delhi in March,
which was a follow up to the Tiger Summit in
St Petersburg last November.
A roaring communications success…
With the core message ‘save the tiger and so
much more’, WWF’s Tigers Alive campaign
combined field work and high level advocacy
with the tiger range states, together with
extensive use of new and social media,
celebrity engagement, a Youth Summit,
stunts and huge media coverage throughout
the world to hugely increase awareness of
the plight of the tiger and mobilize effective
conservation action. An estimated 12% of
all mentions of WWF in the media during
the Year of the Tiger concerned the tiger
campaign. In all, hundreds of thousands of
people signed onto WWF’s e-petitions, and
visited WWF web sites, especially in China,
India, Indonesia, Germany and UK.
Beyond the campaign
While celebrating the many campaign
achievements – in protecting tigers
and their habitat, halting trade and
building political will, in communications
outreach and mobilisation of people
and funding – the emphasis now is to
ensure the promises are fulfilled. New
commitments will also be mobilised,
building on the political momentum that
has been generated – all with the purpose
of helping ensure tiger numbers can be
doubled by 2022. An opportunity with
the UN Year of Forests in 2011 is to show
the linkages between tigers and forests,
and that by protecting tigers and their
various forest habitats, this also protects
a huge range of other species and the
environmental services provided by these
forests to people.
