Battling Cambodia's Wildlife Snaring Crisis in Cardamom National Park

Rangers hold snares that they have found in the Cardamom forest and dismantled.

The Crisis: Snares are driving Southeast Asian wildlife to the brink of extinction

Over the past decade, snares, which are traps made of wire or rope, have become the biggest threat to wildlife in Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos. More than 200,000 snares were removed by patrol teams in five protected areas in that region, but even at that rate, law enforcement can’t keep up. 

As a result, wildlife is being hunted to extinction to feed the demand for bushmeat. Many of Southeast Asia’s ecosystems are now devoid of wildlife, with no mammals larger than a rodent inhabiting these empty forests.

Though poachers target species that are popular on the bushmeat market, like muntjac deer, wild boar, and porcupines, snares are indiscriminate killers: predators like this clouded leopard are often captured accidentally as bycatch and left to die a slow and painful death.

Wire snares are often made from bicycle and motorcycle brake cables, and they capture animals indiscriminately, trapping them until poachers return or they die of thirst or infection. Wild boar, muntjac deer, civets, porcupines, and other ground-dwelling animals are frequent victims of snares, and snares have driven the saola, an antelope-like creature that was only discovered by scientists in 1992, to the brink of extinction.

The Asian wild dog, or dhole, is a crucial predator that is also on the verge of extinction; though dholes are generally not eaten, they are trapped accidentally as bycatch. Deforestation, expanding road networks, and motorbikes have all given poachers a much further reach, making forest interiors more accessible than before.

Cambodia, in particular, has one of the highest rates of deforestation in the world, losing four times as much forest in 2014 as it did in 2001, according to Global Forest Watch.

Southeast Asia's beautiful rainforest, like this one in the Cardamom Mountains, Cambodia, are being emptied of their wildlife.

Protecting Wildlife from Snares and Other Threats

That’s why the work of our partner, Wildlife Alliance (WA), is so critical. WA has a team of 110 rangers who work tirelessly to remove snares from Cambodia’s Cardamom Mountains. In 2018 alone, they removed 20,000 snares and destroyed 779 illegal poachers’ camps across this biodiversity hotspot. Read on to find out more about their successes working with Global Conservation in one of the Cardamom’s worst poaching hotspots over the past few years! 

Global Park Defense in Cambodia's Cardamom Mountains

Wildlife Alliance (WA) have partnered with Global Conservation (GC) to deploy Global Park Defense in the Cardamom Rainforest Landscape of Cambodia from 2017 until present, to implement the Global Park Defense System that uses high-tech cameras, drones and towers to strengthen ranger response to poachers, loggers and land grabbers entering the rainforest.

The Cardamom Rainforest Landscape is the largest remaining contiguous rainforest in mainland South East Asia. The 2,000,000-hectare ridge-to-reef protected area complex is globally significant for biodiversity conservation and ecosystem services. It supports more than 55 IUCN threatened species of vertebrates and forms the region’s most important watershed and Cambodia’s largest climate regulator and carbon sink.

From 2017 to present, 56 Global Park Defense (GPD) trailcams and one repeater tower have been installed in the Cardamom Rainforest, allowing Wildlife Alliance GPD rangers to rapidly identify poachers and loggers and immediately deploy to intercept them.

GPD trailcams prior to installation.

2017 Results, Global Park Defense in the Cardamom Mountains

GPD was first deployed to the Cardamoms over a 20,551 hectare poaching hotspot in Chi Phat, in the heart of the Southern Cardamom National Park, which was named a protected area in 2016. A full time anti-poaching GPD 6-man ranger unit was tasked with patrolling the hotspot, targeting poachers and loggers, and responding to alerts from the GPD trailcams alongside the Stung Proat Wildlife Alliance Ranger Station. Thirteen trailcams were installed in the Chi Phat Hotspot, with an additional three trailcams installed at key points where needed by other ranger stations. In addition to responding to the trailcam alerts, the rangers also patrolled the hotspot systematically. The installation of the cameras and daily active patrols of the GPD team funded by the Morgan Family Foundation dramatically decreased the entrance of poachers into the forest in the GPD Hotspot.

2017 in Numbers

• 4 arrests
• 1,443 hunting snares dismantled
• 58 hunting hooks removed
• 11 hunting nets (111 meters in total) removed
• 12 live wildlife rescued
• 2 homemade guns seized
• 2 hunting camps dismantled
• 2 chainsaws seized.

A poacher arrested by the GPDS team with a live palm civet in August 2017. The civet was released safely.

Wildlife surveys conducted within the hotspot in 2017 also found the presence of large numbers of wildlife, highlighting the importance of the GPD program in the Chi Phat Hotspot. Asian elephants, Malayan sun bears, clouded leopards, dhole, Sunda pangolins and Asian golden cats were all recorded, as well as large numbers of prey species such as red muntjac deer and wild boar.

A Malayan sun bear (Helarctos malayanus), left, and an Asian elephant (Elephas maximus) caught on a camera trap in the Chi Phat Hotspot.

2018 Results, Global Park Defense in the Cardamom Mountains

In 2018, six GPD rangers continued to secure the Chi Phat Hotspot. Ten new trailcams were purchased and installed in strategic locations. A trial of solar panel powered trailcams was attempted but ultimately proved ineffective due to a combination of tree canopy cover and intense monsoon rain. The goal for 2018 was to fully secure the Chi Phat Hotspot and subsequently expand to other areas of the Cardamom Rainforest.

A Wildlife Alliance ranger installs a cellular trailcam in the Cardamom Mountains.

By the end of the year, the hotspot was considered secured, and the GPD unit wound down operations and handed them over to the nearby Stung Proat Ranger Patrol Station.

A GPD cellular trailcam alert showing a poacher allowed the GPD rangers to mobilize and rescue a live Critically Endangered Sunda pangolin (Manis javanica).

2018 in Numbers

• 295 patrols conducted
• 64 night ambushes conducted
• 9,487 km covered
• 29 court cases prosecuted 
• 1,882 snares removed
• 72 live animals saved
• 199 illegal hunter camps dismantled
• 35 land encroachments stopped
• 10 oxcarts with timber seized
• 47 chainsaws seized
• 5 guns seized

2019 Results, Global Park Defense in the Cardamom Mountains

In the beginning of the year, the six-man GPD ranger team relocated to the Chhay Areng Hotspot to the north of Chi Phat and installed an additional ten trailcams in the new area. This expanded the Global Park Defense System to cover the northern section of the Hunter Trail that moves from Chi Phat (South) to Chhay Areng (North) over 37 km, and the Kamlot Trail that goes from Chhay Areng (North) to Kamlot (East).

Additionally, two drones were purchased for the team, which allowed the rangers to rapidly identify hunter and logger camps and forest clearing for land grabbing, which could not be spotted from the ground and from rivers. Drone training was provided to the team.

Due to the remoteness of the area, lack of cellular network reception was the greatest challenge. To counter this, a cellular network repeater was installed to boost the signal and allow the trailcams to be installed over a wider area.

Installation of the antenna in the Chhay Areng Valley (2018 and 2019).

Results from 2019

• 215 patrols conducted 
• 46 night ambushes conducted
• 8,905 km covered
• 2 court cases prosecuted 
• 2,859 snares removed
• 11 live animals saved
• 13 illegal camps dismantled
• 11 land encroachments stopped
• 1.4 cubic meters of timber seized
• 33 chainsaws seized
• 6 guns seized

2020 Results to Date, Global Park Defense in the Cardamom Mountains

January to June 2020: The six-man GPD ranger team was redeployed to the south, to the 30,000-hectare poaching hotspot of Veal Thapou bordering National Road 48. The Chhay Areng drones were handed over to the Cardamom Forest Protection Chhay Areng Ranger Station. The need for this relocation was due to an increase in sales of wildlife meat in nearby restaurants. These restaurants, well-placed to target travelers along the road, were selling wildlife to workers from nearby Chinese Economic Land Concessions and visitors from the capital, Phnom Penh. Twenty additional trailcams were installed in the hotspot. An additional two drones were purchased for identifying and mapping poaching camps, logging and land-grabbing.

Drone training (with simulator and in the field) and illegal timber discovered through use of the drone.

In addition to responding to GPD trailcam alerts, the rangers systematically patrolled the GPD hotspot, seizing large numbers of snares, nets, and guns, cracking down on illegal logging, and stopping forestland encroachment attempts. From January to June, the GPD team regularly inspected restaurants on a random basis to crack down on the illegal selling of bushmeat. On January 21st, they collaborated with the Wildlife Rapid Rescue Team and raided the Anduong Teuk and Trapeang Rung restaurants, seizing 61 kg of wild boar meat, 59 kg of Bengal monitor meat, eight live Asian leaf turtles and one live Southeast Asian Softshell Turtle. The turtles were released. Subsequently, the team has inspected restaurants once per week but has found no bushmeat, suggesting that the selling has stopped due to law enforcement pressure.

Above: rescue of a Southeast Asian softshell turtle by the GPDS rangers and WRRT from a restaurant.

The number of snares found was lower than the baseline, suggesting that the trailcams, anti-poaching patrols and restaurant raids have led to a decline in poaching in the Veal Thapou Hotspot. However, numbers of seized chainsaws and timber were much higher, with illegal loggers attempting to clear the area. The rangers will continue to crack down, but will focus more on logging in this area. At the end of the grant period, ten trailcams remain in the Veal Thapou Hotspot and ten were removed and redistributed to other ranger patrol stations to be used in monitoring key roads and rivers, commonly by loggers and poachers.

Rangers inspect large quantities of wildlife meat being kept in restaurants for consumption.

2020 (January-June) in numbers

• 263 patrols conducted
• 32 night ambushes conducted
• 6,585 km covered
• 3 court cases prosecuted
• 1,094 snares removed
• 200m of nets removed
• 14 live animals rescued
• 54 illegal camps dismantled
• 124.66 cubic meters of timber seized
• 63 chainsaws seized
• 5 guns seized
• 1 wildlife poacher arrested

Next Steps

The next step in the implementation of GPD in the Cardamom Rainforest Landscape is to continue to scale up operations, especially in the Southern Cardamom National Park. The installation of more trailcams will secure more hotspots that are under threat from poaching and logging, allowing strong protection of the most vulnerable areas of the Cardamom Mountains.

Installation of new trailcams in the Veal Thapou Hotspot. This river is a known access point for poachers and loggers in the area.