In 1995, the Sumatran Tiger Project was established to study and protect Indonesia's last Sumatran tigers. The most immediate objective was to catalogue how many tigers and other species lived in the park using a then-new approach that relied on remote infra-red cameras. Over the next five years the Sumatran Tiger Project grew to include more than 20 Indonesian staff, some 40 anti-poaching guards partly funded by the project, a handful of Indonesian university students, and a host of provincial and local forestry counterparts. Various studies indicate that fires directly or indirectly impact tigers significantly by severely modifying or destroying forest habitat, by causing a reduction in prey availability, and by exposing them to severe environmental stress. It also seems reasonable to suggest that fire must be considered as a significant threat to tiger populations, especially in the island's smaller reserves and forest fragments. While biodiversity research, conservation, and education programs frequently rely on local" knowledge to inform management and policy, with more and more migrants living near wildlife protected areas, care must be taken to understand how human demographic shifts may affect these relationships. © 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved."
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