Illegal deforestation threatens Sumatran tigers, activists say

Oct 12, 2010, 10:18 GMT

Jakarta - Clearing the rainforest for allegedly illegal palm oil plantations is threatening the endangered Sumatran tiger in Indonesia's Riau province, conservationists said Tuesday.

Video cameras installed by the Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF) filmed a bulldozer clearing trees in the East Sumatran province, the group said, presumably to plant palm oil trees.

The cameras also captured footage of tigers walking through the cleared area, it said.

'The video recordings on deforestation proved there is a serious threat to the tigers' survival in the area,' said Ian Kosasih, the WWF-Indonesia's forest and species programme director.

Kosasih said he was not sure whether the logging was continuing.

The Forestry Ministry's director of forest protection said he would send a team to investigate the incident, and vowed to enforce the law if necessary.

Forests in Bukit Batabuh, where the footage was taken, are protected, and their exploitation forbidden. WWF installed the heat-seeking cameras in 2009 to study the population and habits of the Sumatran tiger, and the threats they are facing.

Around 400 Sumatran tigers are left in Indonesia, the group estimates, about 12 per cent of the global tiger population of 3,200. Their numbers are under threat from widespread deforestation and illegal poaching for their body parts, which fetch high prices on the black market.

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