‘We were watching a species disappear’

In her four decades tackling the extinction and poaching crisis, Ginette Hemley has likely seen more tigers in the form of skins and bones seized from the illegal trade than alive in the wild. But with each wildlife contraband seized, her commitment to stop poaching and the illegal trade only grew. It’s a big feat to tackle an extinction crisis, but she will never stop trying. This mission led her to play a key role in protecting tigers, one of the most heavily poached species in the world.

Let’s start off with a tiger conservation memory that sticks out. Do you have one to share?

I can vividly recall my first ever trip to Ranthambore National Park in India in the 1990s, as we were slowly building the drumbeat towards the movement to protect tigers in 2010. 

It was bad. Poaching was rampant in the isolated reserve, prey numbers were obliterated and tiger numbers were down to a mere 10 or 12 in the entire area. Despite venturing to what felt like every corner of the park, we didn’t see any tigers. We in fact saw very little wildlife at that visit over a three-day period and it honestly felt doomed. I thought, gosh, you know, what is the future of this place? I even remember thinking, this is one place we might have to write off.

Well, I was able to go back to Ranthambore in 2016, which is around the time when we reported an increase in global tiger numbers, and what I saw was unbelievable. The area was teeming with wildlife. Tiger numbers had not only rebounded to nearly 70 but were virtually spilling out of Ranthambore, naturally migrating to other places or being relocated.

Witnessing this remarkable rebound was a testament to what we can change with increased conservation investment, political support, on-the-ground action from multiple stakeholders and global attention.

Can you take us back to the years before 2010, when the world was coming together for tigers — the first-ever international effort to protect an endangered species. Where were you and how did your focus shift to tigers?

At the time, I was working in the Species Conservation Program at WWF-US and we had been seeing the slow, steady decline of tigers across the range in the years leading up, particularly from the mid 1990s, when things were looking pretty dismal. There wasn't political support, there wasn't enough attention, and we were just watching a species disappear.

Were you surprised by the unprecedented level of support for a 12-year tiger recovery plan or had you expected it?

We had been socialising the idea of a long-term tiger recovery plan with tiger range countries in the years leading up, and of course, many tiger range countries, particularly  India, had been doing pioneering tiger conservation work over the preceding decades so we weren’t surprised by their level of involvement. 

The only question on the day was whether or not all countries would actually sign on the goal coming out of that meeting. And to our surprise, not only did all the tiger range countries sign but we also had leaders from Europe, the United States, and other major funding countries agree to support tiger conservation efforts. 

So it really did bring everyone together and in the end, it wasn’t questioned. 

At the end of this 12-year tiger recovery period, what excites you the most about the future of tiger conservation? 

It's no coincidence that the countries seeing the most promising progress are also the ones that have made commitments at all political levels. So that is absolutely one of the most fundamental things you need to achieve progress — and we’ve been seeing it across the range.

It has been so inspiring and heartening to see the level of investments that India is making. They have institutionalised tiger conservation. They formed their National Tiger Conservation Authority very early on. Tens of millions of dollars are going into tiger conservation every year. And this prioritisation of tiger recovery on a national level is making a massive difference, which is also inspiring similar models across the tigers range. 

Nepal is also doing some of the most innovative work alongside communities — from community patrols to citizen-led monitoring efforts, the approach we’re seeing from Nepal has reminded us that community leadership remains a core part of tiger recovery. This commitment from people on the ground all the way to the Prime Minister’s office has paved the foundation for their recent success in tiger recovery. It’s no wonder Nepal has nearly tripled their tiger numbers since 2010. 

Bhutan is another country that's really stepped up in that regard. We’re seeing tiger recovery commitments made at the national level with an unprecedented level of support for tiger conservation coming from the highest political levels. 

China has also made commitments on the ground to expand protected areas. The largest protected area for tigers in the world exists in China along their border with Russia. While tiger numbers are still in the double digits here, they’re slowly rising which is a very positive sign. 

So in a handful of countries, investments have been made to address the barriers to recovery. Watching this unfold is so promising. I look to those countries and say they've got the ingredients: they've made the commitments, and maintained support at all levels. We now need to see those same elements taken up by the countries that haven't yet got to that point.

What can we learn from the places where wild tigers are being pushed towards extinction? 

One lesson we've learned is that when you have species like tigers, elephants or rhinos that have such high commercial value, you need that constant focus, investment and a minimum number of rangers to be able to protect them effectively. We've got a lot of work to do in that regard, particularly in Southeast Asia. 

Sadly, the level of  investment I described earlier hasn’t been made in many parts of Southeast Asia. We don't know how many tigers are left because many places haven’t yet committed to a survey. In early 2022, Malaysia, one of the last strongholds for the Sunda (panthera tigris sondaica) subspecies of the tiger, found only in Sumatra, sadly announced that they estimated less than 150 tigers in the country. We’re really at a crossroads for this subspecies and if nothing is done soon, we may forever lose it in the wild.

Only recently have Southeast Asian countries begun increasing their investments in community patrolling, transboundary cooperation and in improving the ranger workforce. We’ve seen promising progress; poaching is better under control in many places. But it’s certainly a mixed picture.

As someone who has monitored tiger poaching over the past 12 years and beyond, what new challenges have emerged that we should be wary of?

Frankly, we haven’t done enough demand reduction work. We need more investment in this area in the future. 

We still don’t have a global ban on all tiger trade. But from very early on, one of the actions we took was to engage with the Traditional Chinese Medicine leadership within China to remove tiger bone officially from their Pharmacopeia and that has been really important. So officially, tiger bone is not allowed to be used in traditional Chinese medicine. Today, the awareness of the fact that there is no scientific evidence of any health benefits from tiger parts and products is also growing.

A new problem that has emerged is that tiger farms have been serving as a cover for illegal trade. Facilities hosting hundreds of caged tigers under the guise of ‘public information and entertainment’ are promoting new products for widespread consumption, not traditional medicinal products, per se, but new ‘health tonics’ and other products that are being marketed as consumer items. 

So even though we’ve made some progress with reducing demand on the Traditional Chinese Medicine front, we now have this new problem with tiger farms promoting products that we believe are serving as a cover for the illegal trade of wild tigers.

What’s next for tiger conservation moving forward, especially in the face of worsening climate impacts, infrastructure development and other threats?

Seeing the tiger range expand as well as promoting connectivity between intact forest areas are key needs in the decades ahead. We’ve seen throughout tiger conservation history that when support isn’t maintained, tiger numbers can quickly slip again. So we have to be consistent and continuous with our support.

We’re learning quickly in the experience of places like Nepal how crucial it is to have tiger habitats connected so they can travel wide distances to maintain healthy gene flows and breed in new areas. 

At the same time, in some parts of the range, we need to find new ways to manage human-tiger conflict so that tigers and people can co-exist. We haven’t had a breakthrough yet that we need here on a scale that really matters. We’ve got a lot of work to do, especially in engaging the insurance sector more effectively so that people have compensation in a reliable way for losses.

When it comes to your work with tigers, what’s been one of your biggest takeaways over the last 12 years?

My biggest takeaway is reaffirming that protecting tigers is in fact really not about the single species. It’s about protecting healthy forests, which in turn help people through ecosystem services they provide and the carbon that they store. The fact that tiger forests on average can store more carbon than other forests alone reflects their value. And so they are helping us slow the rate of climate change. Tiger forests are also protecting watersheds across Asia that provide water for millions of people and industries.

We need to continue integrating and building bridges to the larger global conversations around the world about the biodiversity crisis, which is in turn linked to the climate crisis. And we have to constantly be reaching out to our colleagues in conservation as well as in governments to ensure that we are effective at conveying those linkages. 

What tigers need to survive are very much part of the equation of addressing the climate crisis and meeting our sustainable development goals. We’ve just got to spread that message far and wide.