Tambling Wildlife Nature Conservation
Tambling Wildlife Nature Conservation is a 45,000-hectare forest and 14,082-hectare marine conservation area on the southern tip of Sumatra. The area is remote, with no public transportation available. TWNC was founded by Tomy Winata, an Indonesian businessman and philanthropist. Owner and chairman of the Artha Graha Group and Network, Winata also founded the nonprofit Artha Graha Peduli Foundation.
Since 1996, TWNC has been funded and managed by the foundation. As part of a July 2008 agreement with the Indonesian Ministry of Forestry, TWNC is part of the Bukit Barisan Selatan National Park.
History
The area has experienced illegal activity, including poaching, illegal fishing and unauthorized logging and land use. As a result of these activities,deforestation in the national park has destroyed about 20 percent of the forest. Coral reefs were damaged by an exponential increase in fishing over an approximately area around the TWNC.
Forest, wildlife and marine conservation
The Go-Green Society began the foundation’s program to restore TWNC in 1998. The recovery progress was relatively slow because of extensive damage caused by illegal activity in the area, and the foundation spent years reducing and stabilizing the rate of deforestation in the conservation area.Foundation programs and efforts implemented in TWNC include:
- Reforestation, planting more than 10,000 trees of endemic species including waru, bayur and nyamplung since 1998
- Assisting Indonesian forest patrols with additional personnel and equipment to protect TWNC Conservation and provide training and information about conservation to villagers surrounding TWNC.
- Rescue of Sumatran tigers. According to a 2010 WWF-IUCN estimate, the Sumatran tiger population numbers less than 300. The foundation and TWNC are working with Panthera, an international nongovernmental organisation focused on big cats. Since 1998 the foundation and TWNC have moved eight Sumatran tigers, and five have been returned to their natural habitat. In the TWNC area there are 30–40 Sumatran tigers, which are occasionally photographed. In 2011, three cubs were born in the area to rescued Sumatran tigers.
- Return of endangered species, including sea turtles and the Sunda pangolin, to their natural habitats
- A program encouraging local residents to support the foundation’s go-green activities, reversing deforestation
- A drug-rehabilitation program, employing former addicts in conservation-based activities in cooperation with the National Anti-Narcotics Agency (BNN) to reduce the rate of relapse. The program combines drug rehabilitation with TWNC's conservation work, encouraging former addicts to pursue careers in conservation and ecotourism. The program was presented by Winata at the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime 2013 annual meeting in Vienna.
- A limited ecotourism program, providing biodegradable products and tree-planting activities.