On the prowl: A file photo of a tiger in the Royal Belum State Park in Perak. The Orang Asli Menraq Patrol Unit protects the Royal Belum landscape and tigers against poachers.
Orang Asli patrol force on a mission to protect a national symbol
IPOH: With extensive knowledge of the forests, 100 people, including members of the Orang Asli, will patrol the dense rainforests in Royal Belum State Park monthly as part of a dedicated tiger conservation plan.
These Orang Asli are among the estimated 1,000 Orang Asli living inside Royal Belum located in Hulu Perak and they are crucial towards tiger conservation efforts, said Perak State Park Corporation (PSPC) interim director Lau Ching Fong.
A pristine land mass, the state park is among the oldest in the country and acknowledged by Unesco as “the crowning glory” of Peninsular Malaysia.
The conservation plan to save the tigers is akin to a do-or-die mission following reports that there are only about 150 Malayan tigers left in the wild.
They are classified as critically endangered under the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species.
Lau said the Jahai tribe is part of the Orang Asli Menraq Patrol Unit, formed by PSPC and Tiger Protection Society of Malaysia (Rimau) to provide additional resources for protecting the Royal Belum landscape and tigers against poachers.
The patrol unit not only conducts anti-poaching operations but also engages in ecotourism, wildlife monitoring, plant nursery management and habitat enrichment activities, aligning their livelihood with conservation objectives.
Lau said the conservation efforts are jointly held with various parties, including the Wildlife and National Parks (Perhilitan), World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Malaysia and Rimau.
“As the managing authority of the area (state park), we will coordinate the efforts for patrol duties.
“We have our own patrol team, as do Rimau and WWF,” he said.
Currently, WWF is leading the third round of tiger population studies to monitor the tiger population’s health and track conservation progress.
“Through the status of the tiger population, we want to see if our conservation efforts are adequate,” he added.
He also said that between 2016 and 2018, there had been a poaching crisis due to syndicates, which brought the tiger population down by about 60%.
Since then, intensified ground patrols, collaborative conservation efforts and the establishment of a police wildlife crime bureau have helped curb these losses.
However, challenges persist, such as a scarcity of prey like wild boars, whose population was decimated by African swine fever in 2022.
This prey shortage, compounded by land-use changes, has driven tigers to travel further for food, leading to more frequent human-wildlife encounters, livestock attacks and road fatalities.
Lau said they put a lot of focus into tiger conservation efforts.
Lau said he hoped that the tiger population in the country would grow with the efforts in place, adding that tiger conservation must go beyond individual parks.
“The management of the population needs to be holistic, concerted and trans-landscape, for example, between the Titiwangsa range and Taman Negara, and to ensure the tigers would have connectivity between these areas,” he said.
Perak Perhilitan director Yusof Shariff said various initiatives had been conducted to protect the animal.
He said these included enriching the habitat such as releasing sambar deer for prey, conducting patrols, forming a community ranger squad and raising public awareness.
“The Federal Government, through the Natural Resources and Environmental Sustainability Ministry, has also developed the Malayan Tiger Crisis Action Plan 2021-2030, which will be spearheaded by Perhilitan,” he said.
