Oxford University to launch initiative for big cat conservation

[Guest guest]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/6005984/Tom-Kaplan-I-have-big-pl\

ans-for-big-cats.html

 

Tom Kaplan: 'I have big plans for big cats' US billionaire, Tom Kaplan, is

funding a new Oxford University research centre in a bid to save endangered

lions and tigers - and fulfill a childhood passion.

 

By Max Davidson

Published: 7:00AM BST 11 Aug 2009

 

" It's time to put our asses on the line, " says Tom Kaplan. " Otherwise we might

as well give up. " The American tough-guy slang sits incongruously with the soft

voice and the immaculate business suit, but then a lot of things about Kaplan

are incongruous. *

 

*Who could have predicted that a mild-mannered Oxford-educated historian,

with a PhD in the politics of colonial Malaya, would make an absolute

killing from mineral extraction, with assets valued at billions of dollars?

*

* Who then could have predicted that, while still in his mid-forties, the

billionaire minerals magnate would channel his energies and business acumen

into saving big cats from extinction? *

 

*Peeping out from under his immaculate business suit is a bright orange

wrist-band with the legend " Tigers Forever " . His mission is to save tigers,

he explains, not just by maintaining their present numbers, but by

increasing their numbers by 50 per cent in the next 10 years. This

unassuming businessman means business. Where others wring their hands, he acts.

 

*New York-based Panthera, the charity which Kaplan founded in 2006, has

rapidly become one of the biggest players in wildlife conservation in the

world, with projects around the globe and spending on a scale – its various

financial commitments are set to top $20 million in five years – which other

agencies can only envy. *

 

* " I am a businessman because I am good at business, " says Kaplan. " But big cats

are my first love. " *

 

*He first fell under their spell as a seven-year-old, when he was given a

copy of The Maneaters of Kumaon by Jim Corbett. Soon his bedroom was lined

with posters of tigers and other predatory felids. By the age of 10, he was

tracking bobcats in Florida. By 11, he was jaguar-spotting in Colombia with

his mother. A life-long passion had taken root. *

 

*And his love of animals runs in the family. He has been married for 10

years to Dafna, whom he met at high school in Switzerland, and who was later

serving in the Israeli defence forces while he was at Oxford. They are now

based in New York. Only their daughter, Orianne's fixation was snakes. *

 

* " Pop, you know you always said we should try to give something back? " she

said, when she was just five. " Well, why don't we try to save indigo

snakes? " Project Orianne, a Kaplan-founded snake conservation project in

Georgia, was the result. A billionaire father can be a girl's best friend. *

 

*But childish sentiment alone is not going to save the world's big cats –

the tigers and leopards and jaguars and other felids on the endangered

species lists. Nor is money alone. For Kaplan, conservation involves the

head as much as the heart. *

 

* " When I founded Panthera, I set out to procure the greatest talent in

wildlife conservation. And I use that mercantile image advisedly. Whatever

you are doing in life, you have to build a high-class vehicle to deliver

your vision. " *

 

*To that end, he has appointed Alan Rabinowitz, a fellow New Yorker and

world-renowned conservationist, to be the CEO of Panthera. Rabinowitz was

the driving force behind the Jaguar Corridor that now extends from Mexico to

Argentina and is regarded as a model of wildlife conservation in practice.

It is not enough to talk conservation; it is necessary to provide viable

habitats, often spanning many different countries. *

 

*Similar " corridors " – effectively offering the big cats safe passage

between their various natural habitats – are being considered for tigers in

Asia and lions in Africa. One of the tiger corridors alone could stretch

from Nepal to Malaysia. It is a colossal, visionary undertaking. *

 

*But outstanding leaders, as Kaplan knows from his business experience, need

outstanding lieutenants. To that end, he is investing millions of dollars in

endowing the scholarships and research grants needed to inspire a new

generation of conservationists. *

 

*He has donated millions to his alma mater, Oxford University, where last

week he welcomed students from around the world – Madagascar, Zimbabwe,

Bhutan, Bolivia – to study conservation at the Wildlife Conservation

Research Unit, which he is funding, and launched a new diploma course in

international wildlife practice. " This is going to be the premier

university-based felid conservation centre in the world, " he says, with a

note of pride. *

 

*When Kaplan talks about the big cats he has seen in the wild, it could be a

schoolboy speaking. " I once saw a male and female tiger together in a

reserve in Rajasthan. They must have mated about eight times in two hours!

And after each time, the female cuffed the male, as if she was cross with

him. Extraordinary. " *

 

*Left to their own devices, he says, the animals would reproduce

effortlessly. Unlike the giant panda, say, big cats are naturally prolific.

But on a crowded planet, it can be hard to persuade people of the

desirability of breeding more dangerous predators. There are now,

dismayingly, more tigers in zoos than in the wild. *

 

* " People need to look at wildlife conservation in its totality, " says

Kaplan. " As soon as you lose the apex predator, it has harmful consequences

right down the food chain. " *

 

*Convincing others of that logic, winning the necessary hearts and minds,

requires different strategies in different parts of the world. In Brazil,

Kaplan has recently acquired huge cattle ranches on the edge of the forest.

" Who would have thought it? Me, a vegetarian, buying 8,000 head of cattle? "

But he knows that buying the land is the most practical way to protect his

beloved jaguars. Under Brazilian law, the farmers would otherwise be

entitled to shoot the jaguars if they preyed on their livestock. *

 

*He also knows that, at the intersection of forest and farmland, there will

be what conservationists call an " edge effect " : a flourishing eco-system at

the point where two different habitats meet. *

 

* " Local communities need to be brought into the conservation process. They

need to be treated as stake-holders. In a developing country like Brazil,

there is huge scope for offering rural communities help with health care,

say, in exchange for their cooperation. " *

 

*Idealism may be at the heart of the projects which Panthera has undertaken,

but Kaplan understands better than anyone the Realpolitik of conservation –

the hard facts, the clinching arguments, the hidden interstices between

money, power and land. *

 

*In Malaysia, he persuaded the government that they were not just conserving

the tiger but, specifically, the Malayan tiger, a rare sub-species; he

appealed to national pride, and did not just deal in wishy-washy slogans. *

 

*In Pakistan, he went one better, persuading then President Musharraf, not

known as an animal-lover, to take a close interest in snow leopards:

convening conferences and establishing leopard reserves. How did he do it?

By quietly impressing on the Pakistani president how much kudos his country

would get on the world stage from protecting its leopards, while India made

such a hash of protecting its tigers. *

 

*Kaplan may be planning ahead, dreaming big dreams, making big plans, but he

has not forgotten the lesson he learnt 20 years ago, when he was a history

student at Oxford: it is the past of the planet that holds the key to the

future of the planet. *

 

* " If you ask people to look too far into the future, they don't get it. You

need to foster an understanding of the habitat destruction that has taken

place in the past, and how we can avoid making the same mistakes. You need

to explain and execute a strategy that shows people why wildlife is worth

conserving. " *

 

*For more information about the big-cats conservation charity Panthera,

visit **www.panthera.org* <http://www.panthera.org/>