Clouded Leopard Education Projects

• The Indonesian Wildcat Conservation Project
• Mural Competition & Teacher's Guide Workshop Report
• Sumatran Carnivores Conservation Education & Outreach Program
• The Clouded Leopards and Small Cats of Sumatra: Conflict Mitigation in the Face of a Quickly Rising Human Population
• Sumatran Carnivores Conservation Education Program – Progress Update 2013

Mural Competition and Teacher's Guide Workshop Report

Kerinci Seblat National park (KSNP) is a large forest that covers 1,400,000 hectares, four Sumatran provinces, and helps form the Tropical Rainforest Heritage of Sumatra. The park, spread across the Bukit Barisan mountain range, provides water to three major watersheds of over 5 million people in west-central Sumatra. It also shelters Sumatran endemics such as the Sumatran tiger, rhino, and elephant, as well as thousands of less well-known species, which provide both scientific and ecotourism value to the area.

The wild cats of KSNP have been identified in particular as important flagship species to conserve. And the year 2010, being the year of the tiger in the Chinese calender, seemed to be an opportune moment to raise social awareness of wild felid conservation. To that end, the KSNP Management authority held two events in the city of Sungai Penuh, Sumatra: the Wild Cat Mural Competition and the Wild Cat Teacher's Guide Training Workshop on July 18th and September 25-26th 2010, respectively.

Mural Competition

Preparation for the mural competition included internal consolidation and steering committees, coordination with the City Council of Sungai Penuh, media campaigns, and participant registration. A particular wall was chosen and painted white in preparation. Twenty groups of two participants were accepted into the competition and allowed to choose their own themes and genres. The competition started at 7:00 on July 18th and finished at 16:00 (Western Indonesian Time).



Wild Cat Teacher's Guide Training Workshop

Twenty junior high school teachers were invited to participate in this workshop and the Indonesian Wild Cat Teacher's Guide was distributed two weeks prior to the meeting. Nineteen teachers attended. The workshop was split into two sessions, an indoor discussion on how to use the guide as an education tool and an outdoor field excursion to Hutan Adat Temedak (Temedak Customary Forest, also known as HAT) in Keluru.

The indoor session was led by Mr. Dian Risdianto and Mr. Misbah Satria Giri and included discussion on the present condition of wild cats in KSNP, possible threats, actions and law enforcement procedures, followed by games and simulations based on the book.

The field excursion forest site was located in Keluru Village, Kerinci Regency and was roughly 24 hectares in area. It is 20 minutes from Sungai Penuh. The group was accompanied by Rio Ganum, the chief of HAT management. The participants were educated in the importance of forest conservation for clean water and invited to an interpretation simulation led by Mr. Agung Mughroho about local plant species.