Qualla: Where Tigers Return and Addicts Heal

Where Tigers Return and Addicts Heal: Introduction

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit User:Teguhwardoyo, CC BY-SA 3.0. In 2011, three Sumatran tiger cubs were born in the forests of Tambling to parents that had been rescued from human conflict. Fewer than 300 Sumatran tigers remained in the wild at the time, and every birth mattered -- but these cubs represented something larger than arithmetic. They proved that a forest ravaged by illegal logging and poaching could recover enough to sustain the most demanding predator in the ecosystem. Tambling Wildlife Nature Conservation occupies 45,000 hectares of forest and 14,082 hectares of marine habitat on the southern tip of Sumatra, at the edge of Bukit Barisan Selatan National Park. It is one of the few places in Indonesia where the food chain remains complete from the forest floor to the apex predator.

Image: User:Teguhwardoyo | CC BY-SA 3.0

Where Tigers Return and Addicts Heal: A Forest That Nearly Disappeared

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit User:Teguhwardoyo, CC BY-SA 3.0. When the Artha Graha Peduli Foundation began restoration work at Tambling in 1998, the damage was extensive. Illegal logging, poaching, unauthorized land use, and unregulated fishing had destroyed roughly 20 percent of the forest within Bukit Barisan Selatan National Park. Coral ...

Image: User:Teguhwardoyo | CC BY-SA 3.0

Where Tigers Return and Addicts Heal: The Tiger's Return

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit User:Teguhwardoyo, CC BY-SA 3.0. Tambling's signature conservation achievement is its work with Sumatran tigers. In partnership with Panthera, an international organization focused on big cat conservation, the foundation has rescued eight Sumatran tigers from conflict situations since 1998, returning five to the...

Image: User:Teguhwardoyo | CC BY-SA 3.0

Where Tigers Return and Addicts Heal: Healing People, Healing Land

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit User:Teguhwardoyo, CC BY-SA 3.0. Perhaps the most unexpected program at Tambling links drug rehabilitation to conservation work. In cooperation with Indonesia's National Anti-Narcotics Agency, the foundation employs former addicts in forest restoration and ecotourism activities, using the discipline of conservat...

Image: User:Teguhwardoyo | CC BY-SA 3.0

Where Tigers Return and Addicts Heal: Threats That Do Not Pause

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit User:Teguhwardoyo, CC BY-SA 3.0. Conservation at Tambling is not a problem that can be solved and set aside. The mantangan plant, a flowering vine in the morning glory family, smothers tree canopies and blocks sunlight, requiring constant management. More fundamentally, rising sea levels are eroding Tambling's c...

Image: User:Teguhwardoyo | CC BY-SA 3.0

Where Tigers Return and Addicts Heal: Sumatra's Southern Edge

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit User:Teguhwardoyo, CC BY-SA 3.0. Visitors to Tambling have included Kylie Minogue, fifteen foreign ambassadors during the 2009 Krakatau Festival, journalists from The New York Times, and delegations from UNESCO and the UN Office on Drugs and Crime. The ecotourism program is deliberately limited -- biodegradable ...

Image: User:Teguhwardoyo | CC BY-SA 3.0