In the heart of Asia lies the ancient Kingdom of Thailand, a country rich in culture and biodiversity, where its jungles are home of the last remaining tigers and other critically endangered wildlife on the edge of extinction.
Thailand has been ground zero of the Rosewood Wars. Constantly under pressure from illegal logging, wildlife poaching, land clearing and illegal settlement, Thailand has managed to hold its line on biodiversity loss, keeping its last few hundred tigers alive in the process.
The national parks and wildlife sanctuaries contain most of the last virgin Siamese rosewood tracts in the world. In 2010, Thap Lan National Park became a battleground for rangers trying to stop poachingsyndicates cutting down the last Rosewood forests to satisfy the ever increasing demand of China’s wealthy elite for Rosewood furniture.
Without urgent intervention Thailand’s forests were facing annihilation.
Armed multinational syndicates from Cambodia and Vietnam were moving into Thailand’s protected areas with virtual impunity, threatening Thailand’s very sovereignty.
In 2016, Global Conservation partnered with WCS Thailand to undertake a 4 year Global Park Defense program to eliminate the illegal logging of Rosewood and Wildlife Poaching in Thap Lan National Park, one of Thailand’s largest UNESCO World Heritage sites and a critical habitat for tigers.
With Global Conservation’s support, WCS Thailand worked with the Department of Parks and Wildlife to deploy Global Park Defense. Using a network of hundreds of real-time Cellular Trail cameras and SMART Patrolling systems and backed by the Thai military, Thap Lan National Park was able to track and intercept illegal Rosewood poachers and give the country a fighting chance to save their forests.
Over the next 5 years the initiative became a major success story and a model for conservation success in Southeast Asia.
As the illegal logging stopped, so did the poaching of prey species and this led to a steady increase in tiger numbers and biodiversity across several of Thailand’s world heritage protected areas.
Thailand is now the only country in Southeast Asia with a Tiger Population that is increasing. Its wildlife corridors and protection strategies are setting new standards for the rest of Asia, and the sightings of new families of tigers in Thap Lan National Park and Umphang Wildlife Sanctuary in Thailand's Western Forest Complex on the border with Myanmar is giving new hope for their recovery.
Thailand’s ability to address poaching and biodiversity loss on this level is an uncommon but promising model on how other countries can use Global Park Defense to achieve meaningful success in park and wildlife protection in an age of rapidly accelerating threats.
With government leadership, NGO support and technology and systems, Asia’s forests and their magnificent wildlife can have a viable future.
This is one of many success stories enabled by Global Conservation around the world. To support Global Conservation, see www.globalconservation.org.
Global Conservation - Thap Lan National Park: Epicenter in the War on Rosewood Poaching in Asia
New York Times - ‘These Forests Are the Lungs of the Country’: Thai Rangers Guard Precious Rosewood
National Geographic - A Life-or-Death Hunt for Tree Thieves
Mongabay - Asia’s most precious wood is soaked in blood
The Guardian - Thailand's forest rangers step up training in violent 'blood wood' war
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