Day 5 of Singapore Tiger Week concluded the tiger conservation in North, Central and South Asia track. Our speakers ‘travelled’ the farthest of any so far to come to us, from the Russian Far East and Kazakhstan respectively! Our first speaker, Dr. Dale Miquelle is the coordinator of the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) tiger program and the director of their Russia program. Our second speaker, Mr. Grigory Mazmaniants is the director of the World Wildlife Fund’s (WWF) Central Asia program. We opened the session with a video about women in conservation in Bhutan before moving onto the first talk. 

     Dr. Dale Miquelle took us into the future of Asia’s tigers. He argued that they lie “at the epicenter of the extinction vortex of big cats.” If tiger populations decrease, other wild cats will face pressure from poaching threats. What happens to tigers will eventually affect everyone. And with only 57% of the necessary funding to implement the solutions, the question is what to prioritise.  Dr. Miquelle condensed his top actions into a six-point-plan: prioritise functional source sites, focus on key threats, expand efforts, ensure connectivity, regular monitoring, and site based conservation. 

     The second half of Dr. Miquelle’s talk took us into tiger conservation in Northeast Asia. The situation of Russian tigers used to be dire. In the 1940s hunters nearly drove Russian tigers to extinction, but over 45 years the population recovered to around 500. Unlike in prey-dense India, where a tigress requires a 20 square kilometer range, a Russian tigress requires a 400 square kilometer range. Consequently, conservation efforts must focus on both protected and unprotected land, reduce access to tiger habitat to combat poaching, as well as rehabilitate lone tiger cubs so they may reintegrate back into the wild. 

     Mr. Grigory Mazmaniants discussed the unprecedented and ambitious plan to reintroduce Amur tigers into Kazakhstan. Caspian tigers—one of the closest relatives of Amur tigers—had a historic range that, before their extinction, stretched across Kazakhstan. With no extant tiger population in the country, reintroducing tigers to Kazakhstan can help improve its ecosystems and create a valuable population of Amur tigers. The program has four stages. The first, between 2018-2024, involves restoring the million hectare landscape and increasing the ungulate population so tigers will have sufficient prey. They also established the security for the project site, including camera traps, UAV monitoring, satellite fire control, and SMART patrols. 

     But the plan faces many challenges, from people to resources. China’s water use and climate change threatens the future of the transboundary Balkhash lake, whose water supports the ecosystem. Surrounding communities financially depended on poaching small animals. It’s been generations since tigers lived here, and many locals have forgotten what that kind of coexistence means. To address this, the project team launched 11 educational movies, awarded 46 grants of 800-4000 euros, and supported 60 families with vegetable growing, updating the antiquated irrigation system. After they assure community safety, the government will reintroduce between 10 and 20 tigers from 2025 to 2030, monitor their population from 2030 to 2034, and hopefully watch the Amur tiger population rise in the years afterwards. 

     We hope you enjoyed these insights into the past and future of conservation. The challenges have never been greater—but neither has our ability to innovate solutions.