Tigers On The Rise

Think you’ve got a tough job? Here we speak with a man whose brief is to help double the global wild tiger population by 2022. Halfway into the initiative, Mike Baltzer updates us on the progress, and tells us how wildlife spotting in Singapore can be surprisingly better than expected.

- Katie Roberts

After dramatic scenes emerged of officers raiding Thailand’s infamous Tiger Temple earlier this year, the deplorable living conditions of its captive bred tigers drew widespread condemnation, along with the whole questionable practice of tiger farming. The incident also called attention to the dramatic drop in global wild tiger numbers over the past 100 years, and in particular the spectacular collapse of populations in Southeast Asia – largely driven by consumer demand for traditional medicine derived from tiger parts.

Based in Singapore, Mike Baltzer is leader of the WWF’s Tigers Alive Initiative. He moved here from Kuala Lumpur last year and, together with his regional team and global network, coordinates the WWF’s efforts on the ground – and also at a policy level with government.

Concerted efforts to halt the decline of wild tiger numbers commenced in earnest in the 1960s, but Mike says poaching, habitat loss and the growth of Asia’s human population saw numbers continue to fall. The catalyst for change came in 2008 when the World Bank (then CEO Robert Zoellick was a tiger fan) launched the Global Tiger Initiative, and then, in collaboration with Russian President Vladimir Putin (also a tiger fan), held a summit in 2010. The result was that governments and conservation organisations agreed to rethink tiger conservation, to meet annually, and to commit to an ambitious global goal to double the wild tiger population by 2022 (known as the TX2 Goal). In working towards the same goal, the WWF has radically transformed its approach to increasing tiger numbers.