A Supplemental HCVF Assessment on the Sumatran Tiger ...

FINAL REPORT Tiger <strong>HCVF</strong> <strong>Supplemental</strong> <strong>Assessment</strong> – Serapung FMU
Unggulan zones of the FMU continue to be traversed by tigers as they travel from
Tandjung Datuk to the inland forests adjacent and to the west of the FMU.
In relation to the tiger’s habitat within the FMU the prey abundance in the moratorium
area is sufficient for tigers, though not qualitatively different to prey abundance in the
wider adjacent forests. Prey species extraction through snaring and hunting by local
people in the recently opened moratorium area is ongoing and is predicted, over the
near-term, to further reduce the prey biomass available and increase the risk of
accidental trapping of tigers. Other types of human disturbance are also expected to
continue to be high in this coastal and easily accessible region, further reducing its
suitability for tigers without a much higher investment in conservation management and
protection. The tiger HCV present is therefore also considered at risk due to human
activities facilitated by easy access from the coastline.
The ProForest <strong>HCVF</strong> Toolkit defines High Conservation Value Forests as the area
required to maintain or enhance an HCV within the FMU. At the FMU-level the Toolkit
states that any part of an assessment area that has been identified as a priority site
for threatened or critically endangered species (HCV1.2) will normally be considered as
<strong>HCVF</strong>. However, at the FMU-level such definitions are not well suited to considerations
of “coarse-grained’, wide-ranging species such as the Sumatran tiger – whose
existence and ranging patterns, even for single individuals, extend well beyond the
geographical confines of any particular FMU or FMU sub-unit.
As a guideline for delineation of tiger <strong>HCVF</strong> in the Serapung FMU the SmartWood
<strong>HCVF</strong> report suggests that if “If confirmed not to be present within the FMU, or the
FMU does not constitute an integral portion of the habitat and range of the tiger
population, then this <strong>HCVF</strong> will not exist within the FMU”. The findings of this
assessment confirm that the moratorium area, in terms of its size (i.e., less than 2% of
the total Siak-Pelalawan forest block) and its location (i.e., it is not a corridor or area
vital for connectivity), cannot be considered to currently represent an integral portion (a
critically important or essential component) of the Siak-Pelalawan tiger habitat
landscape – and therefore <strong>HCVF</strong> cannot be declared on this basis.
Under such guidelines only a very large FMU, or one which provides essential habitat
connectivity, could be considered to represent a critical component of the wider tiger
landscape and therefore be recognised as <strong>HCVF</strong>. Under such guidelines a series of
<strong>HCVF</strong> assessments, carried out in several different FMU sub-components of a tiger
habitat landscape, would consistently find no strong justification for delineation of tiger
<strong>HCVF</strong> on the FMU scale - even though at a landscape level <strong>HCVF</strong> status is clearly
appropriate. Viable landscape-level tiger populations run the risk of being iteratively lost
to forest conversion through successive <strong>HCVF</strong> assessments at the FMU level.
Clearly more stringent criteria are required in order to appropriately address the <strong>HCVF</strong>
requirements for tigers when assessed at the FMU level. Currently this is not facilitated
by Indonesian and generic <strong>HCVF</strong> Toolkits – which recommend the identification of
“priority sites” for endangered or threatened species as the basis for <strong>HCVF</strong> delineation,
where measures of the FMU’s contribution to population survival in the adjacent
landscape often becomes the threshold for <strong>HCVF</strong> decisions.
6.3 Importance of Considering Future Landscape Context Scenarios
A further limitation regarding the FMU-scale <strong>HCVF</strong> process for tigers arises from the
limited amount of data relating to future tiger viability and habitat availability in the wider
landscape. For the Sumatran tiger in the Siak-Pelalawan block an outcome of this is
that it is impossible to assess a FMU’s future contribution to tiger viability given such
uncertainty in the wider landscape. While the FMU may not currently present an
integral or critical contribution to wider landscape tiger viability (see section 6.2 above),
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