Cardamom National Park Progress Report 2020

Cardamom Mountains National Park (CMNP) consists of a vast expanse of dense monsoon forest, melaleuca wetlands, mangroves, and a network of estuaries and rivers that course across the mountain slopes and into the Gulf of Thailand. Protecting this continuous forest canopy and the flow of water from the forest to the coast is a conservation priority for Cambodia.

This fragile forest conceals a menagerie of endangered wildlife species, including Malayan sun bears, elephants, gibbons, clouded leopards, Indian civets, banteng, dholes, gaur, and Sunda pangolins. In all, the park hosts more than 60 globally threatened animals and 17 globally threatened trees, many endemic to Cambodia. 

But 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. Thankfully, Wildlife Alliance has made great progress removing those snares.

To protect this incredible ecosystem, Global Conservation has been working with Wildlife Alliance and Conservation International in Cardamom Mountains National Park. We’ve been deploying new technologies, including command and control, cellular trailcams, aerial surveillance and targeted ranger patrols for increasing the effectiveness of forest and wildlife protection. Already, our partners have made incredible progress in 2019-2020. Here are their most recent updates:

Progress: Wildlife Alliance

As of 2020, Wildlife Alliance’s Cardamom Forest Protection Program (CFPP) covers 1,309,812 hectares of directly-protected rainforest in 7 Protected Areas, one of which is Cardamom National Park.

Wildlife Alliance is the Development Partner of the Ministry of Environment (MOE) since 2001 for the protection of the Cardamom Rainforest Landscape and has supported the Ministry in the creation of a ten-station ranger force, National Park infrastructure, protection strategy, and ongoing capacity building. 

The ranger stations are working hard to counter wildlife poaching, illegal logging, forestland encroachment and commercial charcoal production. Ten ranger stations, composed of MOE Judicial Police, Royal Gendarmerie Khmer (RGK) Military Police and Wildlife Alliance civilian rangers, are on patrol every day of the year. 

Their tireless work has been effective in strengthening law enforcement, returning forestland from land grabbers to the State, and cracking down on illegal logging and poaching networks. Wildlife Alliance has supported the work of the rangers by engaging local communities in sustainable natural resource management, facilitating participatory land use planning, zoning and demarcation and working closely with the Government at all levels to ensure good governance. 

The Wildlife Alliance park protection model is holistic and addresses all the drivers of deforestation simultaneously by: 

1. Implementing law enforcement to stop poaching, illegal logging and forestland grabbing; 
2. Rescuing wildlife and providing professional care to preserve and reinforce the Cardamom wild populations; 
3. Conducting zoning and demarcation to provide local communities with clear community land and strictly protected forest boundaries; 
4. Building political will to keep the forest standing; 
5. Working with local communities to develop sustainable livelihoods that earn proper income without having to cut the forest or kill wildlife for survival. 

WA’s policy is to preserve continuous forest cover, as opposed to delineating priority biodiversity areas and allowing the rest to be developed by urban expansion, farms or mining. By protecting vast expanses of continuous forest cover, WA’s work is contributing to global planetary climate benefits by preserving the water regulation function and carbon sequestration function of the rainforest.

In 2020, WA’s rangers patrolled 193,651-km, stopped 140 land encroachment attempts, seized 5,714 logs and 1,854 m3 of timber, destroyed 25,886 illegal hunting snares, rescued 562 live animals from illegal wildlife traders, and confiscated 1,720 chainsaws and 33 heavy machineries clearing the forest. As a result of this action, WA’s ranger Judicial Police Officers filed 115 court cases against forest and wildlife criminals. 

WA’s approach has demonstrable effective conservation results: the Cardamoms are the best protected body of rainforest in Cambodia and we have significantly reduced deforestation (<0.3% annual deforestation compared to the National average of 3.8% annually between 2013 and 2018), achieved Zero Poaching of Asian Elephants since 2006, and supported the recovery of populations of ungulates and carnivores.

In Numbers: Wildlife Alliance Success in 2020

• Kilometers patrolled: 193,651
• Land encroachment attempts stopped: 140 
• Court cases submitted: 115 
• Offenders taken to court: 53 
• Fines payment cases: 253 
• Excavator/bulldozer/tractors seized: 33 
• Vehicles seized: 150 
• Number of snares removed: 25,886 
• Meters of snares removed: 31,316 
• Timber seized (cubic meters): 1,854 
• Chainsaws confiscated: 1,720 
• Guns seized: 134 
• Illegal logging camps/huts removed: 960 
• Commercial charcoal kilns removed: 146 
• Live wildlife rescued: 562 
• Dead wildlife seized: 211 

Enforcement Highlights

A WA patrol unit dismantled 1 saw mill and confiscated 4 motorbikes, 246 pieces (45m3) of log planks and 2 chainsaws. The WA teams have also halted logging operations on several other occasions, dismantling or confiscating logging trucks, sawmills, and illegal timber.

  The WA team stopped 3 machines (1 excavator, 1 drilling machine and 1 truck) and arrested 3 offenders for the illegal dynamiting of the mountain and compression digging in the mountain rock, in an area of 5.12ha inside the Conservation Biodiversity Corridor. The team brought the 3 offenders to Kampong Speu Provincial Department of Environment for legal prosecution. 

A WA patrol unit conducted a night patrol ambush. They seized three critically endangered Sunda pangolins. The offender ran away. As the pangolins were healthy, the team released the pangolins back into the wild.

A team patrolling a village confiscated 1 dead muntjac, 1 Mini-tractor, 57 snares, 4 camps, 1 homemade gun and 6 chainsaws.

A WA patrol unit confiscated 7 chainsaws, burned 11 kg wild pig meat and released 51 birds (right) back to the forest.

A patrol unit confiscated and burned 38 kg of wild pig meat, 13 kg of Muntjac meat, 8 kg of Monitor lizard meat and arrested the offenders, issuing transactional fines.

A WA patrol unit conducted an ambush patrol to crack down on poachers. The unit confiscated 72 kg of Gaur meat, already for delivery to a wildlife trader. Gaur, Bos gaurus, are on the IUCN Red List as Vulnerable. The offenders ran away. The team confiscated the meat and burnt it. However, the team kept investigating to find the offender. On August 10, 2020, the team were able to identify the identity the trader and brought her to PDoE. The trader was punished through payment of a transactional fine of $2,000.

WA patrols dismantled 51 illegal settlements. These settlements were a result of a land-grab of 1,179 hectares of forest by someone who then illegally sold it. 

A patrol unit found a dead Muntjac trapped in a snare.

They also rescued and released a live, critically endangered elongated tortoise and 5 snared live wild pigs. They removed 350 rope snares.

A patrol unit rescued and released an 80kg live Burmese Python.

Results: Global Park Defense System Unit

Global Conservation is specifically supporting a Global Park Defense System (GPDS) Unit embedded in one of CCMNP's patrol stations. In 2020, this team worked to install trail cameras, monitor key areas, and patrol to crack down on poachers, loggers, and land grabbers. 

Results in Numbers: GPDS Unit

• 266 patrols
• 19 night ambushes
• 8,818km covered on patrol
• 411 snares removed
• 120m nets removed
• 33 live wildlife rescued
• 36 homemade guns and 1 SKS carbine rifle seized
• 185 illegal logging camps dismantled
• 153 cubic meters of timber seized
• 100 logs seized
• 234 chainsaws seized
• 16 land encroachment cases stopped
• 7 pieces of heavy machinery seized
• 49 oxcarts and 17 mechanical buffalos seized
• 19 land grabbers and 17 loggers arrested with 11 court cases
• 130.41 ha deforestation stopped

Conservation International Partnership in the Central Cardamom Mountains National Park

In September 2019, we also partnered with Conservation International (CI) to launch a project in CCMNP.

Since then, CI has made great progress restructuring the management of the park. To help with this, they performed inventory assessments of ranger stations and worked with the Ministry of Environment to equip 30 rangers with essential patrolling equipment (hammocks, GPS units, boots, first aid equipment, helmets, etc.). CI also provided them with funds for fuel and food, as well as salary supplementations.

Rangers maintained their patrols during in difficult conditions during the wet season. 

CI also conducted trainings on best practices in law enforcement, on strengthening law enforcement and court cases, on patrol strategy, and on GPS and SMART patrol data collection. They also educated local communities on protected area law, so that they understand what they may and may not collect from the forest.

From October 2019 to June 2020, Cardamom rangers working with CI:

• Conducted 480 patrols across 24,605km
• Arrested 4 suspects, fined 15 people, and wrote warnings to 30 who had committed offenses in the protected area
• Confiscated 40.5 cubic meters of illegal timber, one axe, and 87 chainsaws
• Confiscated 12 air guns, one rifle, and one home-made gun
• Confiscated 12 sticks of dynamite and 4 batteries used for electro-fishing
• Removed 595 leg snare traps, 3 drift nets, and one small mammal trap
• Confiscated 3 cars, 3 carts, 18 tractors, 12 motorbikes, and 11 trucks for transporting illegal timber
• Recorded 33 hectares of illegal land encroachment
• Destroyed 29 illegal camps
• Recorded numerous signs and sightings of 12 large wildlife species

Illegal snares were removed by rangers from Thma Baing & Areng stations in Koh Kong province.

From July 2020-December 2020, CI staff continued to provide support for protected area management and law enforcement in CCMNP. With the Ministry of Environment and Provincial Department of Environment as the main implementing partners, they continued to provide technical support and oversight with the CCMNP Trust Fund providing the financial means for fuel and food costs, as well as salary supplementations for 30 rangers to patrol CCMNP from six ranger stations.