Over the last century tiger populations have declined by over 95% due to habitat loss and wildlife trafficking. But UNDP Malaysia and the Global Environment Facility in partnership with local communities, are working to protect last remaining wild populations of endangered Malayan tiger. A century ago, there were approximately 100,000 wild tigers in their various natural habitats worldwide; that number has decreased to around 3,500 today, with three out of nine subspecies of wild tigers declared extinct within the last 70 years. At present, tigers are under severe pressure from a variety of interlinked threats: poaching and the illegal wildlife trade, loss of prey species, disease, roadkill, and habitat destruction, to name just a few. The challenge is exacerbated by the interrelationships between threats and their overlapping timeframes. In the short term, the illegal wildlife trade has the greatest potential to crater the tiger population, whereas the long-term survival of the tiger will depend on cohering fragmented tiger habitats (or rehabilitating adjacent degraded ones) into a functioning whole. The Improving Connectivity in the Central Forest Spine Landscape (IC-CFS) project is a collaborative effort between the Malaysian Government and international bodies to conserve biodiversity and ecosystem services. With funding from Global Environment Facility (GEF) and support from United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the project is working to restore contiguous forest landscapes in Central Forest Spine. An integral part of the project is targeted support to wildlife enforcement systems. Specifically, the project is improving the wildlife crime intelligence system through the integration of wildlife enforcement operations to protect tigers and reduce wildlife crime in Malaysia. Read more : https://undp-biodiversity.exposure.co/crouching-tiger-hidden-treasure Credits/Reference:UNDPCLIMATE: Twitter Photo by UNDP MALAYSIA