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I wanted to be a photographer
for National Geographic --

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which I've been for the last 22 years --

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since I was eight years old.

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Lying on my living room floor
in Fort Wayne, Indiana,

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turning the pages of the magazine,

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looking at exotic cultures and people
that I wanted to meet.

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I work with big cats.

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But I didn't choose big cats,
big cats chose me.

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And this happened on a story I was doing.

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It was really strange.

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I was doing a story
on the resplendent quetzal,

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high on the mountain top
in the cloud forest of Guatemala.

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One night, laying in my bunk,
reading my book,

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when all of a sudden
I heard the stairs creak.

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Then I heard the floorboards creak.

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And then underneath the door
I heard the scratching,

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and then... (Sniffs).

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All the hair on the back of my head,
or every part of my body, stood up.

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I grabbed my machete,
whacked it on the side of the bed.

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I heard nothing.

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Then I whistled,

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and then I heard the animal
bounding down the stairs.

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I grabbed my walkie-talkie,
called Juan Carlos down the mountain,

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who's a naturalist I was working with,

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and told him what had happened.

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And Juan Carlos said,
"Esteban, no problema.

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It's just a black jaguar."

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(Laughter)

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Well, no problem for you, Juan Carlos --

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(Laughter)

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because you're drinking in the pub
down in the village.

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And if anybody told me

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my next story
would be the first story ever

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in National Geographic

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on the world's third largest cat,

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I would've said, "You're crazy.
I don't know anything about jaguars."

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And I don't have a background in biology,

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that's why I work with scientists.

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Specifically, one of my best friends
Dr. Alan Rabinowitz, CEO of Panthera.

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Alan and I started my quest
on tigers in Myanmar,

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doing the story for National Geographic
on Hukawng Valley,

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the creation of the world's
largest tiger reserve.

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We worked with scientists,
quantifying the fact

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whether there were enough
animals and tigers

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to create a park of this size.

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This was my first foray
into Asian jungles.

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And I came in, putting all my equipment
on the back of three elephants

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and went into the jungle.

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But between the time
I proposed this story

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and got there,

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life had changed, as life does
in the natural world,

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and our city world.

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Hundred thousand miners came in,

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cutting down the forest,
and started gold mining,

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looking for riches.

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The story changed,
I had to change with it.

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And one of the things I've always said

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is that animals
do not live in a Shangri-La.

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Most of the photography,
and what we see on television,

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makes it seem like they do.

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We need to show the humans
that animals live with,

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the ecosystem and the interaction
between them all.

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We do a disservice to viewers and readers

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when we only show them
pretty pictures of a Shangri-La.

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We change, we show the truth,

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and the truth will set us free
and help save our wildlife.

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Hundred thousand people come in.

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Did they bring
a supermarket with them? No!

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What do they like to eat?
The same food of the tiger.

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You can't eat the same food of the tiger,
and expect the tiger to survive.

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Who came behind them?

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The Burma Road Open.

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Traders from China,

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looking for ingredients
for a traditional Chinese medicine market.

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They set up tables on the street corners.

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Like tiger bone on the right,
and elephant skin on the left.

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I had talked to a village elder
who had his trophy board

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where he prayed before he went hunting
to the spirits of the animals.

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His son had no trophy board.

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He sold those skulls
to the Chinese traders.

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I searched out an Aga shaman,
and asked him,

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"What was the last tiger
you had ever seen?"

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He said, "I'm wearing it around my neck,
and the hat on my head."

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The realm of the tiger had changed,
and not for the good.

85
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But I went to Kaziranga,
the historic landscape of the tiger

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where tigers still live with other animals
as in centuries past,

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and I'd learned why tigers have stripes.

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The tigers in Kaziranga live with
80% of the world's one-horned rhinos,

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the largest population
of Asian elephants and water buffalo.

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I rely on the expertise of guards

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to protect me and tell me
where the animals are.

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Because I use remote cameras,

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I try to get intimate,
eye-to-eye view of the animals

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in a way that I couldn't get --

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unless I would be dead.

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(Applause)

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There's no way I'm going to get
the picture of the tiger this close,

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so I use remote cameras.

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Because I have to find a way for you
to look at animals again.

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We see pictures every minute of the day.

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Every moment we get up, we grab our phone,
look at Facebook, Instagram, everything.

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But my pictures need to find
a way to save animals.

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Kaziranga is only the way it is

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because of all the guards
with the shoot-to-kill policy.

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And tigers are protected
because poachers go after rhinos.

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So, it's an unfortunate fact.

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But the guards are great shots.

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They're up against poachers with AK-47s,

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but in many instances
they do capture the poachers.

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The animals are safe deep within the park.

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But Kaziranga is surrounded
by tea gardens,

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farms.

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And when the animals leave,

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they run into problems
with human-animal conflict.

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Like these elephants.

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They run into roads,
villages, oil refineries,

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and end up dead like this one
who is being revered by the village elder.

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But I found that there was only
3,000 tigers left in the wild,

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and proposed a new story
to National Geographic magazine,

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to give tigers a voice.

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I went to Sumatra

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where they said the next tiger
would go extinct.

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Sumatra is under siege
by palm oil plantations.

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People come in to the area
to work for the plantations,

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and set up... snares.

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But snares are indiscriminate.

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They capture tigers also.

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Like this cub which spent
three days in the snare,

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and had its front paw removed.

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I loved the tenderness
shown by the guard here

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carrying the tiger's tail.

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The black market in endangered species
is worth 20 billion dollars a year.

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Drugs, guns, humans,
and endangered species.

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This tiger was poached inside of a zoo.

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But I believe that tigers
are worth more alive than dead.

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Innovative programs have started
using ex-poachers, and ex-loggers

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to be forest guards.

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Because who better to find a poacher
than an ex-poacher.

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And this ex-poacher showed me

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where to find the only picture
of a Sumatran tiger.

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The only tiger with a mane like a lion.

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Now the Sumatran tiger
is the largest population of tigers

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outside of India.

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A success story, I'd say.

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(Applause)

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I went to Huai Kha Khaeng in Thailand
to work with the Thai tiger team.

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This area was decimated 20 years ago

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with hardly any tigers left,
or any animals.

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Poaching was so rampant.

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The Thai tiger team,
camera traps, snares --

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And for the first time in history

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they're doing a study
on the home range of female tigers.

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Where do they go? How much land
do they need with their cubs?

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Do they go outside?

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These animals are protected
by the Smart Patrol Rangers,

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an innovative program
that's used all over South Asia.

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They work with Thai military and police

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because this is a war
against the poachers.

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And I got a picture, finally,
of an Indo-Chinese tiger.

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And Huai Kha Khaeng
is a perfect example of rewilding.

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Taking a habitat that has been decimated,

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and in 20 years bringing it back
to the ecosystem it is today,

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an example for the world,
by the paper that Ullas Karanth wrote,

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India's number one tiger expert.

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But I came to India.

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You have 1.3 billion people
and 1,700 Bengal tigers,

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with an economy that's booming.

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I say, "Congratulations!"

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There's a lot that needs to be done.

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But what about the country
that once sold the tiger bone?

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How many tiger reserves do they have?

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A big fat zero.

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So, congratulations, India.

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We have a big road
ahead of us, but it's good.

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I spent most of my time in Bandarban
on top of an elephant,

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or working in an open jeep,

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and asking the guards,
"Where should I put my camera traps?"

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Where would you put a camera trap?"

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Everyone says, Pot Parnell Water Hole.

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And I worked with three tiger cubs --

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(Applause)

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for many months.

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But I also needed to show
tigers leaving the park.

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What happens?

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Tigers need protected corridors.

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And the Village Relocation Program
that the Indian government has

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is incredible and needs to be expanded
over the whole country

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so animals can move
from one protected area to another.

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Because if not, people poison tigers.

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And they come into poachers' crosshairs.

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But I believe that if we save tigers,
we save ourselves.

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If you save the top predator
of any ecosystem,

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you save the whole ecosystem.

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Our forests are our lungs of the world,

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pulling carbon from the air,
and slowing climate change.

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They are also a sponge,

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giving us water for our rivers
and lakes to drink.

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So, if we save tigers, we save ourselves.

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There are only two pictures
that I have taken

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that brought tears to my eyes.

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This was one of them
in Bandarban National Park.

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We do have hope,
because those were tears of hope.

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Where there is life, there is hope.

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If we all work together,

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governments work with scientists,
NGOs, local people,

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we can save the tiger.

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Thank you very much.

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(Applause)