Department of Physics, Chemistry and Biology (IFM)

According to the Tiger Action Plan, tigers should be present and increase in Cambodia until 2022. The social and ethical consideration for this project includes both the local people and the tigers. Human-tiger conflicts are present almost everywhere as they occur today. But it’s rather a question regarding predator’s right of existence in the wild, as the humans population is continuing to grow. In order to maintain a wild population of tigers, strategies of decreasing the conflicts has to be developed wherever they exists in the wild rather than not allowing them to be in the wild.

It is also arguable, whether it’s ethical or not to translocate tigers, both addressing the individual’s welfare and the tigers chances in survive in the long term in Mondulkiri. As there is no guarantee in a successful re-introduction, it might be arguable that the tiger’s will have a better chance in India. But it can also been seen in a wider perspective, a conservation perspective, where the individuals possible can make a bigger contribution in re-establishing a tiger population in Cambodia. As well as we’re not able to predict the tigers’ long term survival in Cambodia, it is not predictable in India either. A re-introduction would probably require more years to realize. Even if the present situation might argue for a better chance, it is impossible to know how the future conservation situation looks like in respectively country. One could argue, that since human was the cause of the tigers in Cambodia to go functionally extinct, it is our responsibility to re-introduce it.