Tiger defenders The women protecting Sumatra's nature

'Guess what I found?" Darma Budi Pinem asks the women who have gathered round to see what he has in his hands.

- Danielle Khan Da Silva

"My instincts tell me this is Opung's faeces," says Nayla Azmi as she studies the clump of hair, broken egg shells and bones.

"Opung" in Batak-Azmi's language means grandparent, the term used when referring to tigers. The Batak are an Indigenous people of Sumatra, the third-largest, western-most island of Indonesia, and many of their legends involve ancestors who formed friendships with tigers that became family.

Azmi, 35, is leading a training session with Pinem, 47, a former ranger for the Gunung Leuser national park (GLNP). She is with the four other members of the Nuraga Bhumi Institute, the allwomen Indigenous patrol team she founded in 2021. Their job is to help protect 100 hectares of buffer-zone territory between the national park's Bahorok V district and privately owned land.

The GLNP protects almost 1.1m hectares (2.7m acres) of the 2.6m hectare Leuser ecosystem, a world heritage site that spans the provinces of North Sumatra and Aceh. But with many unfenced borders and a shortage of rangers, it is not difficult for poachers or palm oil companies to encroach.