Of the estimated 350 - 400 Sumatran tigers surviving in the wild, more than 150 are found in and around Kerinci Seblat National Park – part of a World Heritage site. Since 2000, FFI has been working with the park authorities and local communities to strengthen tiger protection through forest patrols, undercover investigations and law enforcement operations to combat illegal trafficking of tigers and tiger parts.
Aceh’s coastal systems contain some of the highest concentrations of biodiversity in the world, with critically endangered species like the leatherback turtle, and genetically unique species such as giant clams. To protect these vital resources from unsustainable fishing practices, FFI is working with coastal communities and the Aceh government’s Marine and Fisheries Agency to identify the areas of highest conservation importance.
Situated on Cat Ba Archipelago, off the coast of northern Vietnam, Ca Ba National Park holds the only remaining population of Cat Ba langur, which is critically endangered and teetering on the edge of extinction. In the 1960s the total population was believed to have been between 2,400 – 2,700 individuals, whereas today it is estimated to comprise a maximum of 50 – 60 individuals. The langur’s perilous situation is due to the negative impacts of human activities, including hunting and unsustainable tourism and infrastructure development.
Restricted to the forests of central Vietnam, the known global population of grey-shanked douc langurs was almost doubled in 2016, during a field survey by FFI, when 500 individuals were discovered in Kon Plong, in Kon Tum Province. This site is a Key Biodiversity Area and habitat for two critically endangered primates (the douc and yellow-cheeked gibbon), among a host of other important species, including endemic birds and butterflies.
Found only in Vietnam, and with a global population numbering around 200 individuals, Delacour’s langur is on the brink of extinction. Van Long Nature Reserve – with an estimated 120 individuals – harbours the largest known population of this critically endangered species.
The Hoang Lien Son Mountains at the south-eastern tip of the Himalayan range are home to the last remaining western black crested gibbons in Vietnam. The entire Vietnamese population of this species is restricted to one block of forest stretching across two neighbouring provinces. FFI’s long-term engagement in this area helped pave the way for the establishment of two protected areas.
The cao vit gibbon, also known as the eastern black crested gibbon, was rediscovered by FFI Vietnamese scientists in 2002 in a small fragmented forest of Trung Khanh district, Cao Bang province, on the border with China. Conservation efforts by FFI and partners helped the gibbon population stabilise and increase, with no hunting and major habitat destruction over the last 15 years.
Conservation is a social process, whereby the culture, history and livelihoods of a community are all intertwined with how they interact with their environment. The indigenous Khmer Dauem have been living in Cambodia’s Cardamom Mountains for many years and, through their customs and traditions, have been protecting the critically endangered Siamese crocodile and endangered Asian elephant.
There are currently estimated to be between 400 and 600 wild elephants in Cambodia, with the main concentration located in the Cardamom Mountains in south-western Cambodia, and the eastern plains of Mondulkiri Province. FFI established the Cambodian Elephant Conservation Group in 2005 to ensure the survival of the Asian elephant in Cambodia by stabilising and increasing wild elephant populations throughout the country.
After decades of under-investment in the education sector, following civil war and the Khmer Rouge genocide, biodiversity conservation in Cambodia was severely hampered by a shortage of trained biologists and reliable biodiversity data. To address this issue, FFI in partnership with the Royal University of Phnom Penh established Cambodia’s first Master of Science degree in biodiversity conservation in 2005, which has trained over 250 Cambodian nationals to date and provides much needed vocational courses to natural resource management professionals from the NGO and government sector.
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