Stay Wild is a community based project to ensure the survival of the Sumatran tiger and the Gunung Leuser ecosystem as a whole. Forest edge communities play an extremely important role in the protection of the ecosystem. Stay Wild is based in Batu Katak, a small community on the edge of the national park and a 200ha Karst forest (in the unprotected park bufferzone) which is being threatened by mining.

If the karst forest is mined all the communities around the area will no longer be able to live there due to the air and water pollution. At present the communities make a living from rubber plantations, palm oil, rice and a small amount of tourism.

In order to save this important area from destruction we are providing opportunities, resources and knowledge to all the small communities living around the karst forest. We have a wildlife monitoring program involving camera trapping and border patrols and these activities are undertaken by a team of local community members. At the conclusion of our 2 year camera trapping project we will publish a report on the wildlife using the karst forest area as support for protecting it from being mined. We will share our data with any other conservation organisations interested to maximise protection efforts.

We provide free english and environmental lessons to the children. Currently we have English lessons in 3 communities several times a week with demand for more. We focus the environmental aspect on the importance of bats and birds to agriculture and the ecosystem, so they understand why these need protecting for their future. Bird and bat hunting is common in Indonesia and their are many caves in the karst forest that are used for bat hunting.

We have a tree planting program in the Lesuer buffer zone area to provide additional food for wild animals and help prevent any human wildlife conflict. We are also involved in helping to reforest areas of illegal encroachment in the national park.

We have a domestic animal welfare program providing medications to dogs in the all the villages we are associated with. These dogs usually have owners but vet treatment is very rare in Sumatra and often out of the financial means of most people.

Tourism is already a source of income for some people in this area. We wish to support this and provide guidelines on sustainable levels of tourism that have minimal disturbance on the area. We are in the process of compiling best practice standards for tourism in caves to protect this precious ecosystem.

Our overall goal is to empower the communities with knowledge, alternate sources of income and ways to maximise current income, so they don’t need to further encroach into the karst forest or undertake any hunting activities there or in the national park.