According to a recent study in India by Lamba et al. [2023], by increasing forest cover, tiger conservation efforts in a number of areas can also help prevent the release of around 1 million metric tons of carbon dioxide between 2007-2020. During this period, 5,802 hectares of forest were also spared from deforestation.
“The avoided emissions are equivalent to the greenhouse gases released from cooking gas by 4.1 million Indian households per year,” quoted from nature.com .
Still the same journal, avoided deforestation is also equivalent to US$93 million in ecosystem services from the social costs of avoided emissions and potential revenue of US$6 million in carbon offsets.
“Our findings trace the co-benefits of carbon sequestration of species conservation strategies and thereby help align climate action and biodiversity conservation goals,” the study wrote in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution entitled Climate co-benefit of tiger conservation .
Currently , there are only 6 tiger sub-species left in the world. One of them is the Sumatran tiger [ Pantera tigris sumatrae ], endemic to the island of Sumatra.
“This is also the last remaining tiger population since the extinction of the Javanese and Balinese subspecies,” wrote Smith, Wang and Carbone [2018], in the journal Biological Conservation .
The Sumatran tiger’s conservation status is Critical, or one step closer to extinction. In the analysis of the HarimauKita Forum [FHK], the population of Sumatran tigers in nature ranges from 400-500 individuals. It is spread over 23 habitat landscapes with an area of around 9 million hectares, while the total area of Sumatra Island is around 47 million hectares.
“The biggest threats are habitat deforestation, poaching, and human-tiger conflicts,”
Forest degradation which continues to narrow the Sumatran tiger’s habitat also has the potential to cause conflict. In 2023 alone, FHK recorded 24 cases of conflict, 9 of which resulted in the death of the Sumatran tiger.
This is also exacerbated by the still high levels of poaching and trading of tigers. Based on data from the last 20 years, around 3,000 tigers have been confiscated in cases of global trade. Indonesia is in third place. This means that the interest in ownership of wild animals or tigers globally is very large.
In addition, the educational motive in animal ownership cases cannot be legitimized, because education is in the realm of conservation.
Previously, quoting detik.com , despite having a captive permit, the death of a Bengal tiger cub in a captive cage owned by YouTuber Alshad Ahmad sparked public discussion. It is known, the West Java BBKSDA has deployed a team to find out the causes of death of animals which according to the IUCN have an endangered status.
In some countries such as China, to address the high rate of tiger poaching, they are considering easing regulations, for example allowing products from tiger farms or captive breeding to be sold legally.
In other words, it is estimated that the process of captive tigers has not had any impact on the tiger population.
This was also emphasized by Drh. Nur Purba Priambada from the Association of Wildlife Veterinarians, said that captive breeding is synonymous with commercial matters, not conservation.
Tiger breeders also often use justification to worry about the state of the tiger population in nature. But conversely, in captivity, the function of wildlife ecosystems will not function. Another thing that is also important to note is the fulfillment of the welfare of the wild animals themselves, starting from nutrition, satisfaction when eating, interactions, wild instincts and so on.
“Therefore, it is important to keep wild animals in the wild. So, their positive function in the ecosystem can be felt by all living things on earth,” he emphasized.
