WEFCOM is a 1,870,000-hectare protected area complex made up of 19 national parks and wildlife sanctuaries, including the Huai Kha Khaeng (HKK) World Heritage Site (https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/591). It is home to about 160 tigers, by far the largest population in Southeast Asia. Most of the conservation effort has gone into HKK, which is where almost all the tigers are found.

Research in WEFCOM has uncovered a paradox. Despite intensive protection efforts by Thailand’s Department of National Parks (DNP), the tiger population appears to have plateaued. The conclusion is that outside of HKK the prey base has been depleted to the point where it cannot support a larger population. In other words, WEFCOM’s tiger population is at carrying capacity, where the existing prey base cannot support a larger tiger population.

In Myanmar, tigers have been reduced to a few small populations of questionable viability, including in the 1,000-km forest corridor running along the Myanmar-Thailand known as the Dawna-Tenasserim Landscape (DTL).

The future of tigers in the DTL depends critically on their dispersal out of HKK, across southwestern WEFCOM, and into Myanmar. If this dispersal is hampered by the lack of food or safe habitat, Myanmar will end up like Cambodia, Lao PDR, and Viet Nam with no wild tigers and no prospect of natural recovery. Ensuring biological connectivity is thus key to the future of Myanmar’s tiger population.

In October 2020, a training session was organised for DNP rangers who will be responsible for deploying the camera-traps over the next six months.