Cardamom National Park, Cambodia

Global Conservation is funding Global Park Defense technologies, systems and training needed to effectively protect core wildlife habitats from illegal logging, wildlife poaching and illegal hunting.

Working with Wildlife Alliance and the Ministries of Environment and Forestry of Cambodia, Global Conservation is deploying new technologies including command and control, cellular trailcams, aerial surveillance and targeted ranger patrols for increasing the effectiveness of forest and wildlife protection.

A multi-year Global Park Defense program is being funded by Global Conservation to enable Wildlife Alliance to protect the rainforest ecosystem and the critical populations of the landscape’s threatened species.

Effective and well-managed ranger patrolling on the ground is vital to stop commercial poaching, often involving deadly snares laid on the forest floor to catch wild animals on their way to drink in the rivers; hidden pockets of illegal logging operations; and clearing of forest for land grabbing conducted by everyone, from local farmers to government officials to city dwellers. It is absolutely critical that surveillance, patrolling and law enforcement deterrence are conducted on a daily basis.

Wildlife Alliance is also working on the long-term sustainable financing for forest protection in the landscape through developing carbon credit revenues from the Southern Cardamom Reduction of Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) project. Agreement from the Cambodian Government was obtained in January 2017.  The development of the carbon credits started in February 2017 and it is estimated that revenues from sale of credits will be generated from the end of 2018.

It took Wildlife Alliance 13 years of hard work to keep the Southern Cardamom forest standing and to convince the Royal Government to provide legal protection status.

Because of its highly desirable real-estate location, between Freeway 48 and the upper slopes of the Cardamoms, this land was coveted by many different sectors of economic interests, both inside the government and in the private sector, including companies coming from abroad (Australia, Korea, China) and covering all economic sectors from real-estate to commodities (sugar, bananas, palm oil, meat), to manufacturing, to development of modern satellite cities.

Illegal land clearing deep in the park is difficult to stop without daily aerial and satellite monitoring.
Below: Confiscated chahainsaws

Despite new legal protection, industrial and community-level forestland grabbing and wildlife poaching continue to threaten Cardamom’s biodiversity on a daily basis. Cambodia faces some of the highest deforestation rates of any country in the world – over 15% over 10 years. Drastic increases in wildlife snaring, use of hunting dogs, night lights, nets and guns are pushing biodiversity limits, driven by higher demand from Chinese consumers, industrial companies, hotels, restaurants mushrooming around the park.

Thousands of wildlife snares (“walls of death”) are confiscated every year.

Our partner, Wildlife Alliance, is implementing a comprehensive conservation model that combines law enforcement, reforestation, zoning and demarcation, and community education. Global Park Defense provides a critical set of systems, technology and training for Wildlife Alliance teams and Ministry of Forestry and Environment rangers. 

Partners in Conservation

Wildlife Alliance is the leader in direct protection of forests and wildlife in tropical Cambodia through on-the-ground interventions with government rangers and local communities directly addressing the causes of deforestation and the illegal wildlife trade.  

Wildlife Alliance builds rangers’ professional capacity and provide full support for their livelihoods. This enables them to focus completely on their duties to take strong action and creates a culture of Zero Tolerance for Corruption. Protecting the homes of elephants, clouded leopards, and gibbons, our rangers patrol 24-7 across 600,000 hectares of the Cardamom Rainforest Landscape.

Wildlife Alliance help recruit rangers, train them, and equip them.  Rangers are taught them how to conduct professional law enforcement, strengthen legal procedures through the judiciary system and report large land grabbing cases to local and central government. As well, rangers learn how to document cases for government interventions: all cases are documented with precise GIS data, photographic evidence, and detailed history of legal offenses.

The second step is to facilitate zoning and demarcation of land for local communities, so that they can claim enough land for permanent agriculture or other livelihoods. This is a participatory process that represents the first step in engaging communities in the responsible management of their natural resources.

Visible markers are then installed on the ground so everyone can clearly see where the agreed boundaries are. This achieves two benefits: it provides the local community with clear land ownership and also provides clear boundaries for strictly protected rainforest. Beyond these boundaries, no trees can be cut or burned.

For the third step, Wildlife Alliance works with local communities to assist them in developing livelihoods that do not damage the rainforest: either sustainable agriculture, or ecotourism, or development of small family-scale businesses. At the same time, community members are rallied to re-plant lost forest cover by enriching the soil and planting wild tropical tree species. The goal is to help the forest watershed recover and replenish water reserves in the village water wells.

Over 5,000 people in the area have benefited from development of sustainable jobs, 8 communities have their land zoned for livelihoods, and six ranger patrol stations are conducting over 2,500 patrols per year.

About Cardamoms National Park

The Cardamom Mountain Range in Cambodia is one of the last unfragmented rainforests in Southeast Asia, and one of the most threatened rainforests in the world, despite its newly acquired designation in 2016 as a national park, thanks to the leadership of Wildlife Alliance.

The 1,014,100 acres Cardamom National Park received permanent legal status on May 9, 2016. This new national park, which forms one of Asia’s last un-fragmented elephant corridors, is a biodiversity gem with over 2,000 species of plants and more than 50 globally Threatened species of vertebrates.

The protected area supports important populations of threatened species characteristic of Asian rainforests including Sunda pangolin (IUCN CR), Siamese crocodile (IUCN CR), Asian elephant (IUCN EN), pileated gibbon (IUCN EN), dhole (IUCN EN) sun and Asiatic black bears (IUCN VU), gaur (IUCN VU), clouded leopard (IUCN VU), hog badger (IUCN VU) and otters.

The Cardamoms rainforest has the greatest watershed value of any forest in Cambodia, with a staggering rainfall of 3,500mm-4,500mm per year due to the geographical positioning of its slopes along the Gulf of Thailand and its dense evergreen forest cover. The cumulated watersheds of the greater Cardamom Rainforest Landscape represent the largest mainland forest watershed in Southeast Asia, often plagued by drought.

Tiger reintroduction to Cambodia was identified as a priority in the Cambodia Tiger Action Plan and has recently been endorsed by the Cambodian Prime Minister Samdach Akka Moha Senabdeiy Techo Hun Sen. The Ministry of Environment, the line agency responsible for managing the Cardamom National Park, is also fully supportive of tiger reintroduction into the Cardamom Rainforest Landscape in the coming years.