The mountain gorillas of Africa had Dian Fossey. The Malayan tigers have Kae Kawanishi.
Kawanishi, 39, may not be as famous as the late Fossey, whose life and work with gorillas in the mountain forests of Rwanda was immortalized in the Hollywood movie "Gorillas in the Mist," but the Osaka native is equally passionate about the conservation and protection of wildlife, especially tigers.
A renowned tiger expert, Kawanishi braved Malaysia's unforgiving rain forest with its dense, thorny undergrowth, leeches and snakes to study tigers between November 1998 and August 2001.