Translator: Milenka Okuka Reviewer: Mile Živković
I wanted to be a photographer for National Geographic --
which I've been for the last 22 years --
since I was eight years old.
Lying on my living room floor in Fort Wayne, Indiana,
turning the pages of the magazine,
looking at exotic cultures and people that I wanted to meet.
I work with big cats.
But I didn't choose big cats, big cats chose me.
And this happened on a story I was doing.
It was really strange.
I was doing a story on the resplendent quetzal,
high on the mountain top in the cloud forest of Guatemala.
One night, laying in my bunk, reading my book,
when all of a sudden I heard the stairs creak.
Then I heard the floorboards creak.
And then underneath the door I heard the scratching,
and then... (Sniffs).
All the hair on the back of my head, or every part of my body, stood up.
I grabbed my machete, whacked it on the side of the bed.
I heard nothing.
Then I whistled,
and then I heard the animal bounding down the stairs.
I grabbed my walkie-talkie, called Juan Carlos down the mountain,
who's a naturalist I was working with,
and told him what had happened.
And Juan Carlos said, "Esteban, no problema.
It's just a black jaguar."
(Laughter)
Well, no problem for you, Juan Carlos --
(Laughter)
because you're drinking in the pub down in the village.
And if anybody told me
my next story would be the first story ever
in National Geographic
on the world's third largest cat,
I would've said, "You're crazy. I don't know anything about jaguars."
And I don't have a background in biology,
that's why I work with scientists.
Specifically, one of my best friends Dr. Alan Rabinowitz, CEO of Panthera.
Alan and I started my quest on tigers in Myanmar,
doing the story for National Geographic on Hukawng Valley,
the creation of the world's largest tiger reserve.
We worked with scientists, quantifying the fact
whether there were enough animals and tigers
to create a park of this size.
This was my first foray into Asian jungles.
And I came in, putting all my equipment on the back of three elephants
and went into the jungle.
But between the time I proposed this story
and got there,
life had changed, as life does in the natural world,
and our city world.
Hundred thousand miners came in,
cutting down the forest, and started gold mining,
looking for riches.
The story changed, I had to change with it.
And one of the things I've always said
is that animals do not live in a Shangri-La.
Most of the photography, and what we see on television,
makes it seem like they do.
We need to show the humans that animals live with,
the ecosystem and the interaction between them all.
We do a disservice to viewers and readers
when we only show them pretty pictures of a Shangri-La.
We change, we show the truth,
and the truth will set us free and help save our wildlife.
Hundred thousand people come in.
Did they bring a supermarket with them? No!
What do they like to eat? The same food of the tiger.
You can't eat the same food of the tiger, and expect the tiger to survive.
Who came behind them?
The Burma Road Open.
Traders from China,
looking for ingredients for a traditional Chinese medicine market.
They set up tables on the street corners.
Like tiger bone on the right, and elephant skin on the left.
I had talked to a village elder who had his trophy board
where he prayed before he went hunting to the spirits of the animals.
His son had no trophy board.
He sold those skulls to the Chinese traders.
I searched out an Aga shaman, and asked him,
"What was the last tiger you had ever seen?"
He said, "I'm wearing it around my neck, and the hat on my head."
The realm of the tiger had changed, and not for the good.
But I went to Kaziranga, the historic landscape of the tiger
where tigers still live with other animals as in centuries past,
and I'd learned why tigers have stripes.
The tigers in Kaziranga live with 80% of the world's one-horned rhinos,
the largest population of Asian elephants and water buffalo.
I rely on the expertise of guards
to protect me and tell me where the animals are.
Because I use remote cameras,
I try to get intimate, eye-to-eye view of the animals
in a way that I couldn't get --
unless I would be dead.
(Applause)
There's no way I'm going to get the picture of the tiger this close,
so I use remote cameras.
Because I have to find a way for you to look at animals again.
We see pictures every minute of the day.
Every moment we get up, we grab our phone, look at Facebook, Instagram, everything.
But my pictures need to find a way to save animals.
Kaziranga is only the way it is
because of all the guards with the shoot-to-kill policy.
And tigers are protected because poachers go after rhinos.
So, it's an unfortunate fact.
But the guards are great shots.
They're up against poachers with AK-47s,
but in many instances they do capture the poachers.
The animals are safe deep within the park.
But Kaziranga is surrounded by tea gardens,
farms.
And when the animals leave,
they run into problems with human-animal conflict.
Like these elephants.
They run into roads, villages, oil refineries,
and end up dead like this one who is being revered by the village elder.
But I found that there was only 3,000 tigers left in the wild,
and proposed a new story to National Geographic magazine,
to give tigers a voice.
I went to Sumatra
where they said the next tiger would go extinct.
Sumatra is under siege by palm oil plantations.
People come in to the area to work for the plantations,
and set up... snares.
But snares are indiscriminate.
They capture tigers also.
Like this cub which spent three days in the snare,
and had its front paw removed.
I loved the tenderness shown by the guard here
carrying the tiger's tail.
The black market in endangered species is worth 20 billion dollars a year.
Drugs, guns, humans, and endangered species.
This tiger was poached inside of a zoo.
But I believe that tigers are worth more alive than dead.
Innovative programs have started using ex-poachers, and ex-loggers
to be forest guards.
Because who better to find a poacher than an ex-poacher.
And this ex-poacher showed me
where to find the only picture of a Sumatran tiger.
The only tiger with a mane like a lion.
Now the Sumatran tiger is the largest population of tigers
outside of India.
A success story, I'd say.
(Applause)
I went to Huai Kha Khaeng in Thailand to work with the Thai tiger team.
This area was decimated 20 years ago
with hardly any tigers left, or any animals.
Poaching was so rampant.
The Thai tiger team, camera traps, snares --
And for the first time in history
they're doing a study on the home range of female tigers.
Where do they go? How much land do they need with their cubs?
Do they go outside?
These animals are protected by the Smart Patrol Rangers,
an innovative program that's used all over South Asia.
They work with Thai military and police
because this is a war against the poachers.
And I got a picture, finally, of an Indo-Chinese tiger.
And Huai Kha Khaeng is a perfect example of rewilding.
Taking a habitat that has been decimated,
and in 20 years bringing it back to the ecosystem it is today,
an example for the world, by the paper that Ullas Karanth wrote,
India's number one tiger expert.
But I came to India.
You have 1.3 billion people and 1,700 Bengal tigers,
with an economy that's booming.
I say, "Congratulations!"
There's a lot that needs to be done.
But what about the country that once sold the tiger bone?
How many tiger reserves do they have?
A big fat zero.
So, congratulations, India.
We have a big road ahead of us, but it's good.
I spent most of my time in Bandarban on top of an elephant,
or working in an open jeep,
and asking the guards, "Where should I put my camera traps?"
Where would you put a camera trap?"
Everyone says, Pot Parnell Water Hole.
And I worked with three tiger cubs --
(Applause)
for many months.
But I also needed to show tigers leaving the park.
What happens?
Tigers need protected corridors.
And the Village Relocation Program that the Indian government has
is incredible and needs to be expanded over the whole country
so animals can move from one protected area to another.
Because if not, people poison tigers.
And they come into poachers' crosshairs.
But I believe that if we save tigers, we save ourselves.
If you save the top predator of any ecosystem,
you save the whole ecosystem.
Our forests are our lungs of the world,
pulling carbon from the air, and slowing climate change.
They are also a sponge,
giving us water for our rivers and lakes to drink.
So, if we save tigers, we save ourselves.
There are only two pictures that I have taken
that brought tears to my eyes.
This was one of them in Bandarban National Park.
We do have hope, because those were tears of hope.
Where there is life, there is hope.
If we all work together,
governments work with scientists, NGOs, local people,
we can save the tiger.
Thank you very much.
(Applause)