THE TIGER
MALAYAN TIGER: Landscape
The Main Range Landscape:
Located in and forms the Central Forest Spine, from the Malaysia-Thai border to Negeri Sembilan.
The Greater Taman Negara Landscape:
Located in the east of the Central Forest Spine which includes Taman Negara National Park, the country’s largest protected area.
The Southern Forest Landscape:
Found south of the Pahang River but isolated from the landscapes above.
Source: Department of Wildlife and National Parks Peninsular Malaysia, 2008. National Tiger Conservation Action Plan for Malaysia.
Each of these forest landscapes has a priority core area for tiger conservation: Belum-Temengor Complex, Taman Negara National Park and the Endau-Rompin Complex, respectively. These landscapes are vital to tiger conservation, but it is also important that such areas are connected by “ecological corridors” which would prevent small populations of tigers becoming isolated from others. Small populations will become inbred if tigers cannot mix with those from other areas – and cannot survive in the long term.
The identification and protection of the priority ecological corridors will increase the potential of the tiger landscapes to conserve tigers in Malaysia by allowing the continued dispersal of tigers within these landscapes.
One critical linkage that still exists, and must be actively maintained and enhanced to ensure that these vital landscapes remain connected, is a narrow strip of forest connecting the Main Range and Taman Negara (near the western border of the Park in Pahang). Existing and proposed infrastructure projects such as roads, railways and a major oil pipeline threaten the connectivity of habitats within and between all these areas. Mitigation measures are available to counter the risk of fragmentation if these are incorporated into the first stages of planning projects which may block the corridors.