IF an endangered Malayan tiger were to make a rare appearance in a jungle community, the residents might react in one of two ways.
The first is akin to the response of the Orang Asli villagers in Pos Lenjang in Lipis, who, gripped by fear and anxiety, curtailed outdoor activities by working fewer hours on their farms.
Or react in the spirit of extreme adventure: donning camouflage and standing by in a tiger observation tower, prepared to wait for hours to catch a glimpse of the majestic big cat in its natural environment.
These two reactions reflect human attitudes to wildlife, especially to animals threatened by urbanisation that is decimating their natural habitats. The Orang Asli's reaction is particularly telling: a tiger sighting traditionally symbolises a good omen in their spiritual life and is marked with naturalistic rituals. Instead, the Orang Asli have pleaded for the Wildlife and National Parks Department to catch the tiger, when once they would have taken the initiative themselves.
The Orang Asli appear to have grown distant from the rainforest life of their ancestors, burdened by modernisation and pushed towards living in technological comfort.
The irony is that urbanites, used to fast food and happy hours, could never stomach a grilled python, broiled monkey meat or insect crackers, yet they campaign for the Orang Asli to retain their way of life.
However, in this equation, the Orang Asli is inconsequential; it is the wildlife's very existence that is at stake. The last surviving Sumatran rhinoceros was lost last year.
The Malayan tiger, a subspecies native to the peninsula — and probably the same animal spotted in Lipis — is on the brink of extinction. Only 150 to 200, from a once-thriving 3,000, prowl the rainforests.
We hope wildlife rangers can coax the Lipis tiger back to its habitat, which is tough when there's little or no prey, all the while under the threat of poaching. To ensure their survival, these tigers are protected like the orangutan, in vast shelters like the Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre.
Yet, even this protection seemed inadequate: like other magnificent beasts, tigers, if they aren't poached for their paws, brains and meat, could disappear due to deforestation — a consequence of the lacklustre political will to conserve wildlife.
It's hard to convince state governments to grasp wildlife habitat restoration and regeneration because it involves tracts of land. As a political instrument, land preservation, which means keeping interconnected forests intact, yields zero revenue from development and taxes.
Should conservation efforts fail, we will be all the poorer for it, dependent on zoos and the national archives: one to gawk at a living Malayan tiger, if it can survive at all, and the other a repository of pictures for future children, showing what tigers looked like before they were butchered into extinction.