The species that the biologist and conservationist has spent his life protecting don't vote, don't form insurgencies and can't address grievances with governments.
So Rabinowitz, as executive director of the Science and Exploration Program at the Wildlife Conservation Society at New York's Bronx Zoo, will work with anyone - including military dictatorships - to save the cats and their habitat.
Dubbed the “Indiana Jones of wildlife science” by the New York Times, Rabinowitz has spent the last 30 years in jungles and rain forests around the globe, working with governments to protect the cats he came to love as a child.
In Missoula for the International Wildlife Film Festival, where he is receiving a lifetime achievement award for his efforts, Rabinowitz most recently helped preserve more than 8,500 square miles of tiger habitat in the poverty-stricken, military-run country of Myanmar, formerly known as Burma.
His new book, “Life in the Valley of Death: The Fight to Save Tigers in a Land of Guns, Gold and Greed,” is an account of his years-long struggle to create the single largest tiger preserve in the world.
To do it, Rabinowitz had to work with the military-run government of the Southeast Asian nation, which is no friend of the United States - and a dictatorship Rabinowitz himself finds appalling and illegitimate.
So when he first brought up the idea of a national preserve, he had to speak on their terms.
“They're interested in conservation not necessarily because they love tigers, but because they understand the long-term view of saving the watershed so health is improved and water quality is better,” he said. “I don't talk to them about how pretty the tigers are. We talk about economics, we talk about this huge ecosystem that will keep on providing clean air, clean water and nontimber resources for the people.”
That said, mention of the tigers commands attention.
The tigers, Rabinowitz said, are the most big and beautiful representatives of the ecosystem he wanted to protect. If you want to convince governments they need to set aside wildlife reserves, you talk about big cats.
“I've met the prime minister of Belize about their jaguars, sultans in Malaysia, ministers and prime ministers in Thailand,” he said. “What got me into the door was talking about big cats. I wouldn't have been able to get in the door if my tagline was, ‘Your birds are in crisis.'
“When you've got to balance politics and economics,” he added, “it's very hard fighting the battle for individual species. I never bring up turtles or frogs, all of which I'm thinking about the whole time.”
It wasn't just the Myanmar's military junta Rabinowitz had to convince of his lofty intentions. The country is rife with indigenous people, insurgent groups and tribes who look at Western outsiders with much suspicion, he said. Add to that rampant poverty and jungle malaria, and you have what is indeed a “valley of death.”
Rabinowitz met a shaman of the northern-based Naga tribe, which until about 50 years ago was known for its headhunting ways.
The shaman was at first suspicious of Rabinowitz, but eventually was persuaded to join in the conservation effort as a way of preserving the tribal lifestyle.
“I told him, ‘I guarantee that you will still have this forest, and you can preserve your culture,' ” he said. “ ‘As much as you think you own this land, it's being sold out from under you by the military dictatorship.' ”
Rabinowitz used to live in Myanmar half of the year, but now spends only about two months in the country, making sure the preserve is fully functioning and that the tribes and government are complying.
He was not there earlier this month, when a cyclone ravaged the country, killing tens of thousands of people.
But unlike many media outlets have reported, Rabinowitz does not believe that the military government is purposely hoarding relief supplies or deliberately trying to starve its own people. The slow trickle of relief getting to the people is more a result of the country's terrible infrastructure, he said.
“I've been in that area and surveyed wildlife in that area, and even developed a marine national park there,” he said. “Access is hugely difficult. That's why aid even now can't get to the worst-hit areas.”
Yet even Rabinowitz, knowing well the dictatorship's arrogance, was skeptical of government relief efforts at first.
“The military mind-set is that they can take care of it themselves,” he said. “But when they actually announced within days that they needed help, that they'd accept the world's help, well, you have no idea what kind of shift that is.”
Make no mistake, Rabinowitz said. He's no fan of the government of Myanmar. But that doesn't mean even they don't realize the value of conservation.
“Do I think these are great guys who deserve to remain in power?” he said. “No. But I'll work with them.”
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Jennifer Scarlott wrote on Jan 3, 2009 11:26 AM: