Tigers are endangered – There’s around 3900 left.

Information provided by WWF

Tigers are endangered mainly due to illegal wildlife trade, Human wildlife conflict, Habitat loss and fragmentation.

The Explory series book ‘Toto and The Magic Tree’ aims to raise awareness for the tigers being effected by habitat loss, the biggest factor to the decline in their species.

“Wild tiger numbers dropped by more than 95% since the beginning of the 20th century.”

This figures are shocking, I think it’s important to try and help through design and story telling by raising awareness.

The book is based of tigers who live in the Indonesian island, Sumatra. The Indonesian island of Sumatra holds some of the richest and most diverse tropical forests on the planet, giving shelter to many rare species and providing livelihoods for millions of people. This is the only place where tigers, rhinos, orangutans and elephants live together. This is why Toto and The Magic Tree has these animals as they are all effected by deforestation of Sumatra.

About 12 million hectares of forest on Sumatra have been cleared in the past 22 years, a loss of nearly 50%.

More shocking figures. Critically endangered, there are fewer than 300 Sumatran rhinos and fewer than 400 Sumatran tigers left in the wild. This is why I’ve chosen these animals for the characters in the book. A lesser known fact about orangutans is that the Sumatran orangutan is more endangered than the Borneo orangutan.

I feel it’s important to raise awareness in order to try and help these animals habitats through design and story telling. This is what Explory is all about.