Bhutan will today host a global meeting to mobilize funding for tiger conservation across Asia

As much as $1 billion is needed over the next decade to conserve tigers and their habitats across Asia. According to a statement, the Bhutanese government is hosting the Sustainable Finance for Tiger Landscapes Conference on Earth Day 2024 to mobilize financing.

The two-day conference will be hosted by Bhutan under the patronage of the country’s queen, Jetsun Pema Wangchuck. The aim is to mobilize the above amount over the next ten years into new funding for the conservation of tiger landscapes, which are essential for conserving biodiversity, sequestering carbon, providing resources to more than 100 million people and ensuring the overall health of the planet.

“The conference, co-hosted by the Royal Government of Bhutan and the Tiger Conservation Coalition, will feature expert panels leading insightful discussions on sustainable finance, linkages to the United Nations Global Biodiversity Framework and the role of public- private partnerships in tiger conservation. landscapes,” said the statement from the big cat organization Panthera.

The Tiger Conservation Coalition was established in advance of the Year of the Tiger 2022. It consists of a diverse group of tiger conservation organizations and multilateral agencies that support tiger range countries to achieve their long-term tiger conservation ambitions and realizing impact for nature and people, from local to global level.

“Bhutan is honored to host this globally significant event on tiger landscape conservation, as part of our ambitions to be a global leader in environmental sustainability, carbon neutrality and biodiversity conservation,” said Prime Minister of Bhutan, Tshering Tobgay.

CEO of the Global Environment Facility, Carlos Manuel Rodríguez, said: “Since 2010, the Global Environment Facility has provided more than $197 million in funding and mobilized an additional $880 million in co-financing for tiger conservation. To increase the effectiveness of GEF investments and mobilize sustainable financing for the conservation and use of biodiversity, we must expand cooperation across all sectors of society.”

He added that the conference will bring together a range of experts and leaders to focus on the iconic species and help determine how biodiversity finance can be delivered at the scale that is urgently needed.

The tiger is the largest feline in the world. As an apex predator, it plays an important role in the structure and function of the ecosystems on which people and wildlife depend.

Tigers are a ‘landscape species’, requiring large areas of diverse habitats, free from human disturbance and rich in prey.

Stuart Chapman, Chairman of the Tiger Conservation Coalition and leader of WWF Tigers Alive, said: “Wild tiger landscapes are healthy and vibrant ecosystems that are vital in a climate-changing world. Securing these tiger landscapes through sustainable financing will deliver multiple benefits for people and wildlife across Asia.”

Keynote speakers include PM Tobgay; Rodriguez; and financial industry leaders such as Robert Litterman, chairman of the Risk Committee and co-founder of Kepos Capital in New York.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature had announced in 2022 that the global tiger population had stabilized and possibly increased.

“Data suggested a potential increase in tiger numbers by 40 percent, from 3,200 in 2015 to 4,500 in 2022, despite extreme threats. This represented the first potential increase in the species’ numbers in decades,” Panthera’s statement said.

“Tiger range countries and the conservation community have made extraordinary progress in protecting the species in recent years, with several populations witnessing an upward trend in numbers,” said Dr. Abishek Harihar, program director of Panthera Tiger.

“Building on the momentum of this recent victory for the species, the coming together of inspired minds from a diversity of public and private sectors is exactly what is needed to strategically identify how a long-term future for the tiger is financially possible, for the benefit of the world’s largest wildcat, our planet and the communities that live alongside this species,” he added.