Fearing for the future of the Malayan tiger, Lara Ariffin and Harun Rahman - a husband-and-wife team of documentary filmmakers, took action to make a difference.
Established in 2018, RIMAU takes on the formidable challenge of not only reversing the decline in Malayan tiger numbers but also igniting a national movement to save this iconic species.
For their noble efforts, RIMAU is named as one of the 10 winners of the Star Golden Hearts Award (SGHA) 2024.
SGHA is an annual award by The Star that honours everyday Malaysian unsung heroes.
For more SGHA videos, visit https://www.sgha.com.my/
WATCH MORE: https://thestartv.com/c/news
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Established in 2018, RIMAU takes on the formidable challenge of not only reversing the decline in Malayan tiger numbers but also igniting a national movement to save this iconic species.
For their noble efforts, RIMAU is named as one of the 10 winners of the Star Golden Hearts Award (SGHA) 2024.
SGHA is an annual award by The Star that honours everyday Malaysian unsung heroes.
For more SGHA videos, visit https://www.sgha.com.my/
WATCH MORE: https://thestartv.com/c/news
SUBSCRIBE: https://cutt.ly/TheStar
LIKE: https://fb.com/TheStarOnline
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NewsTranscript
00:00Hi, I'm Lara Arifin and I'm the President of RIMAO.
00:03And I'm Harun Raman, I'm the Project Lead.
00:05We are the winners of the Star Golden Hearts Award 2024.
00:24The Malayan tiger today is critically endangered.
00:30The National Tiger Survey that was conducted between 2016 and 2020
00:35indicated there were less than 150 Malayan tigers left in the rainforests of Malaysia.
00:43What would it say about us as Malaysians if we lost the animal that sits on our national crest?
00:50The Malayan Tiger
00:59Fearing for the future of the Malayan tiger,
01:01Lara Arifin and Harun Raman, a husband and wife team of documentary filmmakers,
01:06took action to make a difference.
01:08Established in 2018, RIMAO takes on the formidable challenge of not only reversing the decline in Malayan tiger numbers,
01:16but also igniting a national movement to save this iconic species.
01:20To date, RIMAO has made a remarkable impact in areas such as the Royal Bellum State Park, Amanjaya and Korbu.
01:28The biggest threat to tigers is poaching because every part of the tiger is in demand.
01:34So for RIMAO, what we wanted to do was to put anti-poaching efforts in the jungle
01:38to basically help the government in the efforts to save the Malayan tiger.
01:42RIMAO, together with the Orang Asli community, is racing against time
01:46to bring the Malayan tiger back from the brink of extinction.
01:51For us, working with local communities is extremely important
01:54because you cannot have successful conservation efforts without the buy-in of the local community.
02:00And together we set up the team called the MENRAK team.
02:03And the MENRAK means the people in the Jahai language.
02:06So we established initially a team of only five patrollers in Royal Bellum,
02:11but now we have 30 patrollers in Royal Bellum.
02:14And we have extended our work not only to Royal Bellum but to Amanjaya and into Korbu as well.
02:20RIMAO's unique approach involved empowering the Orang Asli, the indigenous people of Peninsular Malaysia.
02:26At the heart of this is transforming young Orang Asli
02:29into skilled patrollers and guardians of their ancestral forests.
02:33These patrollers, equipped with technology like GPS devices and satellite phones,
02:38detect and deter illegal poachers, threatening the Malayan tiger.
02:43My role as a project team lead for RIMAO is basically to oversee all the teams that we have
02:48in the three landscapes that we work in, in Bellum, in Amanjaya and in Korbu.
02:53So I basically set the overall policy and I work with the coordinators quite closely.
02:59They in turn work with the patrollers.
03:01So usually what I do is do a lot of planning and I also do a lot of training as well.
03:06So I train the boys in smart protocols.
03:10When they do an observation in the forest, when they see any animal tracks or any human signs,
03:16they record and they have to record it properly in a particular protocol
03:21so that it can be used in the nationwide smart database.
03:26Camera traps are also set up to determine the condition of the forest
03:30and the condition of the animals in the wild.
03:32We also do what we call wildlife monitoring, where we set up camera traps.
03:36The camera traps help us because we leave the cameras for months and months
03:40and we can see whether the population of tiger prey is problematic
03:45or if we see a tiger is in trouble.
03:49Then we alert the authorities and we try to take action.
03:55One of the significant challenges Harun faces is bridging the gap between traditional knowledge
04:00and technological literacy among the Orang Asli patrollers.
04:07One of the biggest challenges is actually teaching the Orang Asli how to do all the signs.
04:12The signs have to be quite exact.
04:15And when a patroller doesn't know how to read and write, that can be very challenging.
04:18But we teach them how to do this and we teach them how to read and write what they need.
04:23But for somebody who can't read and write, that's a mountain to climb.
04:27And they have basically climbed a very, very tall mountain.
04:38One of the young patrollers, 24-year-old Kivan Dali from the Semai tribe,
04:43said he wants to guard the forest and see the wildlife thrive.
04:57The forest can be up to 2-3 kilometres long.
05:03It's important to do this job because we want to protect the forest,
05:06reduce the number of predators in the forest.
05:08Because we want to see that the wildlife are all alive.
05:11If possible, we want to see all the animals in the forest.
05:16Besides providing a steady job for the Orang Asli community,
05:19Rimau has also set up a community fund component,
05:22which makes it different from other NGOs.
05:28I think for us it's important to see the work that we do as more holistic
05:33and not just the patrolling work.
05:36It's important for us to see the work that we do as more holistic
05:40and not just the patrolling work.
05:42One of the things that Rimau does is that we have a community fund component
05:46to our programme.
05:47So basically for every day the patroller works,
05:49RM10 is put into the community fund,
05:52where it can be shared and the benefits are shared with the whole community.
05:56So whether it's for education or for health,
05:59or sometimes it's an emergency and they need the money,
06:02and we help them with that.
06:04Lara's vision extended beyond conservation,
06:07fostering a national consciousness
06:10She passionately argued for a whole-of-nation approach,
06:13emphasising that it cannot just rest on the shoulders
06:16of the wildlife department or the forestry department,
06:19but requires a comprehensive collective effort.
06:23There is still a lot of work to be done.
06:25We are nowhere near being able to say that the Malayan tiger is safe.
06:30And one of the important things for me is that this requires
06:34a whole-of-nation approach.
06:36This requires a whole-of-nation approach.
06:39It cannot be just Jabatan Perilitan or the forestry department.
06:43We need all the government departments to work together.
06:46We need all the NGOs to come together.
06:49We need the foundations to come together.
06:51So we need to put all our efforts in to making sure
06:56that they have a future here.
07:02Winning awards is about getting the message heard,
07:05many people still don't know about the plight of the Malayan tiger.
07:08And I think this is one way for more Malaysians to understand
07:12that the Malayan tiger is in crisis.
07:16And I think with the award, that we can help share this information
07:20out to a bigger audience.
07:29Happy 10th anniversary, Star Golden Hearts Award.
07:35Happy 10th anniversary, Star Golden Hearts Award.