The biodiversity inventory covers all sites, from baseline situations of degraded land to fully grown agroforest areas and a “control unit” which is secondary forest. So we hope to find that with an ageing agroforest the soil and biodiversity comes closer to a secondary forest ecosystem. Where the belowground biodiversity means digging up soil samples, collecting worms and do some carbon sequestration calculations, we placed bio acoustic equipment and a few wildlife cameras to analyse animal sounds and support them with wildlife in real video mode.
So as everyone was curious, after 10 days one of our field assistants decided to have a look at the cameras to see the first results. And what a beyond believe catch, not only deer, civet cat, monkeys, birds, but also the one and only SUMATRAN TIGER passed by to show himself.
Although we have occasionally seen footprints over the past 10 years, and a tiger once scratched its back against our hut, while we were sleeping there. As everyone in the hut was very silent that time, the hut was shaking and they did not allow me to move to try and see the animal. So we never really saw it. But now the tiger agreed to be on video. What an amazing animal. Just imagine, the tiger could have walked anywhere, but opted to pass in front of our camera.
Our field staff got excited and scared at the same time. From that moment onwards they always ask a few local people to join them when checking the cameras. The local people are not afraid of the tiger. THey say, we know how to deal with a tiger and other wild animals. They mention that the tiger is their friend, if you treat them with respect. The tiger is said to protect them, and help them where possible.

We often hear stories from farmers about how a tiger "protected" them at night in the forest against "wild animals" by walking around their bushcamp the whole night. I would think, he was just checking out whether there was something edible, hahaha.
But the fact is, that it is very rare to get a tiger on camera, let alone if you are not specifically looking for it, and already appears within 10 days after placing the camera. It really makes me think whether the local people are right, the tiger intended to help us with the biodiversity inventory by passing in front of the camera, and to enable us to show high impact from our restoration activities and attract more funding for our work by showing this amazing animal.
We are incredibly excited and grateful that we can share this video. It shows that carbon offsetting can make a difference, if planned right, despite the fact that there is so much disbelieve and sometimes ungrounded criticism about carbon offsetting.