2022 Progress: Cardamom Mountains National Park, Cambodia

Our Work in Cardamom National Park

Cardamom National Park was gazetted in 2016, owing to the work of our partner, Wildlife Alliance. The park consists of over 800,000 hectares of dense monsoon forest, melaleuca wetlands, mangroves, and a vast network of estuaries and rivers that course across the mountain slopes and into the Gulf of Thailand.

The Cardamom rainforest has the greatest watershed value of any forest in Cambodia, with a staggering rainfall of 3,500-4,500mm per year due to its dense evergreen forest cover and its position along the Gulf. Protecting this continuous forest canopy and the flow of water from the forest to the coast is a conservation priority for Cambodia.

Despite its new protected status, illegal land clearing and wildlife poaching continue to threaten this park. Cambodia faces some of the highest deforestation rates of any country in the world: over 15% of its forest has been cleared over the past 10 years.

Thousands of wildlife snares, which conservationists call “walls of death” for their ability to create fatal barriers to wildlife, are confiscated every year in the Cardamom region. In the depths of the unexplored forest, such activities are difficult to stop without daily aerial and satellite monitoring. Further, because of its highly desirable real estate location, industrial and community-level land grabbing and wildlife poaching continue to threaten Cardamom’s biodiversity on a daily basis.

To protect this park, Global Conservation, Wildlife Alliance, Conservation International, and the Ministry of Environment are deploying new technologies, including command and control, cellular trailcams, aerial surveillance and targeted ranger patrols for increasing the effectiveness of forest and wildlife protection. Wildlife Alliance builds rangers’ professional capacity and provides full support for their livelihoods. This enables them to focus completely on their duties and creates a culture of zero tolerance for corruption. 

Global Park Defense provides critical technology and training for rangers and Wildlife Alliance teams. Effective and well-managed patrolling 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. Effective enforcement also deters illegal logging operations and forest clearing for agriculture and other land uses. It's absolutely critical that surveillance, patrolling and law enforcement are conducted on a daily basis.

Recent Progress: Wildlife Alliance in Southern Cardamom Mountains National Park

Patrolling Results

Thanks to the support of Global Conservation, the 6-Ranger Global Park Defense System (GPDS) Unit embedded within the Roveang Patrol Station have worked together to monitor key areas in the north of Central Cardamom National Park and Cardamom Biodiversity Corridor from January to August 2022.

They have installed GPDS trailcams and patrolled to crack down on poachers, loggers and land grabbers. The rangers patrolled systematically and in response to GPDS trailcams. 

Key Accomplishments, Patrols, January-August 2022

• 330 patrols and 35 night ambushes 
• 14,310 km patrolled
• 1,217 snares removed
• 470 m of nets removed
• 25 live wild animals rescued
• 34 homemade guns seized

The rangers were able to ensure protection of the Roveang quadrant and cracked down on wildlife poaching, seized large numbers of snares, nets and guns, as well as combatted high levels of land grabbing and logging that is causing deforestation of the wildlife habitat.

While poaching is a major pressure in the area, forest land grabbing and illegal logging are also a major threat. Of all the Cardamom Forest Protection stations, Roveang Patrol Quadrant has the biggest percentage of forest land grabbing and illegal logging.

That is because prior to Wildlife Alliance arrival in the Roveang patrol quadrant in August 2019, there had been no law enforcement on forest crimes. Therefore, people are still becoming accustomed to following protected area laws and complying with logging and clearing prohibitions. 

Logging and Forest Land Grabbing Crackdowns, January-August 2022

• 160 illegal camps dismantled
• 149 m3 of timber and 152 logs seized
• 327 chainsaws seized
• All 13 land encroachment cases stopped and 5 heavy machineries seized
• 42 oxcarts and 43 mechanical buffalos (koyuns) seized
• 6 land grabbers arrested with 4 court cases submitted where 4 offenders were jailed 
• 145 acres deforestation stopped

Numbers of seized chainsaws and timber were much higher than the baseline. In the Roveang Quadrant, the majority of forest crimes are illegal loggers and forest land grabbers attempting to clear the forest.

The rangers will continue to crack down on both poachers and loggers in the area.

Trailcam installation

Ten trail cameras were purchased and placed at strategic trail locations in proximity to Roveang Patrol Station, along the Northern border of the Central Cardamoms National Park and the Cardamom Biodiversity Corridor, focused around community areas. 

The combination of GPDS technology alerts and deployment of rangers on the ground has proven successful as follows:

On January 13, 2022, in respond to a GPDS alert, Roveang Patrol Unit followed the track of the suspect inside Cardamom Biodiversity Corridor next to Central Cardamom National Park boundary in Rokat commune, Phnom Kravanh district, Pursat province.

The team rescued two turtles from illegal smuggling; unfortunately, the offenders were aware the arrival of the patrol unit and ran away. The team also confiscated one homemade gun and 50 hunting snares. Turtles were freed the same day.

On January 15, 2022 Roveang Patrol Unit conducted a daily routine patrol in respond to a GPDS alert, the team was able to encounter five oxcarts illegally transporting two cubic meters of construction timber inside of Cardamom Biodiversity Corridor in Rokat commune, Phnom Kravanh district, Pursat province.

The oxcarts and timber were destroyed on site due to lack of confiscation means.

On January 17, 2022 Roveang Patrol Unit conducted a long patrol in response to intel network information. The team found an illegal sawmill site deep in the jungle inside of Phnom Aural Wildlife Sanctuary (5 kilometers from the Cardamom Biodiversity Corridor boundary) in Santreae commune.

At the sawmill site, the rangers found:

• 3.42 cubic meters of construction timber
• 1 illegal logging truck
• 1 illegal logging camp
• 3 illegal chainsaws
• 1 sawmill machine
• 1 generator with electricity dynamo

All the evidence was destroyed on site due to lack of confiscation means.

On February 14, 2022 Roveang Patrol Unit conducted a daily routine patrol to Rokat commune inside of Cardamom Biodiversity Corridor. The rangers found an abandoned bike with carcasses of 3 long-tailed macaques (critically endangered on the IUCN Red List) and a wild bird.

The rangers burnt the wildlife carcasses and confiscated the bike to impound in Roveang Patrol Station.

On March 11, 2022 Roveang Patrol Unit conducted a long patrol following the information network to look for illegal logging trucks. At the trail near Knoung Srol area, the rangers saw the track of a logging truck to Da Loung river, so they followed the trail and found an ox-cart and an illegal camp.

The camp and ox-cart were destroyed on site and the rangers found and confiscated one chainsaw, two homemade guns and a set of electric fishing gear.

The rangers continued their patrol following the trail until Da Loung river and finally found a logging truck with 3.27 cubic meters construction timber on it, without offenders, inside of Phnom Aural Wildlife Sanctuary. The logging truck was confiscated to impound in Roveang Patrol Station.

On April 2, 2022 Roveang Patrol Unit followed the information network to Pramouy commune inside of Phnom Samkos Wildlife Sanctuary.

Following a track, the rangers found an illegal logging truck with 0.86 cubic meters of construction timber and a chainsaw. The evidence was destroyed on site due to lack of transportation means.

On May 22, 2022 Roveang Patrol Unit conducted a daily routine patrol to Krapeu Pi area in Pramouy commune. The rangers found an illegal excavator and platform truck parked next to an illegally cleared site.

The rangers approached the machinery and found fresh dirt contaminated on the chain of the excavator so the rangers immediately report this case to Pursat Prosecutor to confiscate this machinery. No offenders were found on site.

On June 19, 2022 Roveang Patrol Unit collaborated with Pursat Provincial Authority to clean up 61 illegal land encroachment flying-huts to grab over 6,894 acres (remaining from the total of 180 illegal flying-huts) at Stung Khiev area Cheung Phnom Khmouch in Chamka Chrey Khang Tbong village.

During the operation, Roveang rangers arrested one offender who is the organizer of this illegal land encroachment operation in that area and submitted the court case following article 62 of the protected area law. The offender was jailed following the Pretrial Detention no. 397 dated June 20, 2022.

On July 30, 2022 Roveang Patrol Unit conducted a daily routine patrol to Trasok Paem area inside Cardamom Biodiversity Corridor. The rangers encountered two offenders cutting to clear forest and burning to grab 6.55 acres of state land. The two offenders were arrested and the rangers filled court case documentation to submit to Pursat Provincial Court. 

On August 19 to 20, 2022, Roveang Patrol Unit collaborated with Samkos Wildlife Sanctuary rangers to conduct a search operation following the information network to surround and check a suspect compound in Tumpoir village inside of Phnom Samkos Wildlife Sanctuary. 

As a result, the rangers confiscated a total of 13.88 cubic meters of huge logs and timber.

On August 21, 2022 Roveang Patrol Unit collaborated with Samkos rangers to evacuate one offender to Pursat Provincial Court for his forest crime of illegally building a house inside of Phnom Samkos Wildlife Sanctuary. The offender has committed repeat offense as he was already arrested once before by the rangers for building an illegal house inside protected area and had signed a contract of non-reoffense at that time. The offender was jailed.