SFA Board Member Helps Establish World’s Largest Tiger Reserve

We have long said that “if you stutter, you’re in good company.” That’s because many of those who stutter accomplish tremendous things in life.

Take, for example, the establishment of the world’s largest tiger reserve, accomplished this March under the leadership of SFA Board member Alan Rabinowitz, Ph.D., director of the Science and Exploration Program at the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS).

The government of Myanmar, formerly Burma, recently announced the creation of the reserve, which covers a land area nearly as large as Vermont. It’s a project Rabinowitz has been working on for 10 years.

National Public Radio’s Renee Montagne interviewed Rabinowitz for a special that aired March 15 on Morning Edition. (Interview and photos available at www.npr.org/programs/re/archivesdate/2004/mar/tigers/) An article also appears in the April, 2004, issue of National Geographic magazine.

Rabinowitz’s many visits to Myanmar’s Hukwang Valley—as well as his struggle with stuttering—are detailed in his book, Beyond the Last Village. (Island Press, see Books on page 12.)

His first visit was in 1993, and in 1999 he surveyed the tiger population, using “camera traps” to capture on film the big cats, of which probably only 100 now remain. He also began working with the country’s national parks department to create, then expand, the wildlife sanctuary.

Although the announcement is a tremendous step forward, the “really hard work,” according to Rabinowitz, is actually just beginning. He plans several more trips to Myanmar to work out details on funding, wildlife management strategies and how the WCS and Myanmar’s forestry department will work together to make the world’s largest tiger reserve a reality.

This is not the first reserve that has resulted from the zoologist’s efforts. The Society’s web site (www.wcs.org.) documents work done by Rabinowitz and the Society’s Jaguar Conservation Program team to establish a safe corridor for jaguars spanning 14 countries, from Arizona through Central America and into northern Argentina.

In Search of Jaguars, a National Geographic Special that aired this past November on PBS stations nationwide, also documents the team’s efforts to protect the endangered cats.

The efforts are paying off. Rabinowitz will be part of a ceremony this June in Costa Rica, dedicating a wildlife sanctuary there as part of the “necklace” or corridor of protected wild places the elusive cats call home.