Global Conservation Mission to Cardamom National Park in Cambodia

Executive Director Jeff Morgan visited Cardamom National Park in Cambodia to determine needed investment in Global Park Defense deployments, and support for our Partner in Conservation – Wildlife Alliance – led for the past 15 years by Suwanna Guantlett.

Global Conservation’s work to improve effectiveness of patrolling and surveillance in the Cardamoms began this year with the deployment of a dedicated cellular tower and multiple arrays of Cellular Trailcams to provide real-time surveillance of roads and trails used for wildlife poaching and illegal logging.

We saw the powerful work of Wildlife Alliance, one of the most impressive protection efforts in Asia, creating a massive new national park in 2012, shutting down over 40 logging and rubber concessions, achieving hundreds of arrests and confiscations, and building a powerful partnership with the Ministry of Environment and the military police for park and wildlife protection.

Cardamoms National Park is 2,062,624 acres of dense monsoon forest, melaleuca wetlands, mangroves, and a vast network of rivers and estuaries that constitute the Ridge‐to‐Reef biosphere running from the slopes of the Cardamom Mountain Range down to the Gulf of Thailand. Continuous dense evergreen forest and good, intact wetlands are rapidly becoming scarce in Asia, and this has been blamed for the decline of many important bird species (BirdLife International, 2001). Protecting continuous forest canopy and the flow from the forest to the coast of sufficient fresh water, sediments, nutrients and vegetation particles is a conservation priority today.

Global Conservation program in Cardamoms National Park is to assist and fund Wildlife Alliance to replicate the success of Global Park Defense in nearby Thap Lan World Heritage Park in Thailand where national park authorities have arrested over 600 illegal rosewood loggers and wildlife poachers, nearly achieving their goals of ‘No Cut, No Kill’ within 3 years.

Without the commitment of Wildlife Alliance to shut down wildlife poaching and illegal logging and land clearing in over 2 million acres of tropical rainforest, the Cardamoms would likely have disappeared like the rest of Cambodia’s forests, which have lost over 10% in the past 10 years.

Stunning views of unbroken forests and beautiful mountains surround a visitor to Cardamom National Park.

Confiscated chainsaws from hundreds of raids on illegal logging camps.

Illegal land settlment and clearing continue to plague areas in the Cardamoms where Wildlife Alliance is not working.

Tree surrounding area cut for monkey hunting laying down large nets and forcing monkeys out of the tree to sell for pharmacutical company testing.

Visiting Wildlife Alliance ranger station in the Cardamoms National Park.

High deforestation of Cambodia makes winning the battle for the Carmamoms forests even more critical.

One of the last major intact tropical forests left in Asia. Over 2 million acres.