Project
Summary: Funding anti-poaching operations and ranger training, together
with vital community education and outreach projects in Cambodia's Bokor
National Park, to save this pristine environment.
The last six
months at Bokor National Park have been a busy time for the management
and rangers. Threats to the park's biodiversity have come from
a multitude of directions and the pro-active response shown by
all the park staff is a credit to them and demonstrates their
fearless dedication.
Over the first half of this year, 207 anti-poaching
patrols have been conducted in all weathers by the nine ranger
teams. Some patrols were short, one day patrols reacting to information
gathered during a helicopter patrol, such as when sawmills were
observed. Others were 5 days or more to remote areas. Each patrol
is logged by GPS and the routes are downloaded when the patrols
return. Everything that the rangers see is recorded, which can
mean snares or other types of poaching, logging, and encroachment.
Most items confiscated from apprehended
poachers are destroyed in the forest, as often extremely long
distances are involved to bring evidence back to the sub-stations.
Recording the details of this poaching equipment and photographing
its destruction with a digital camera prevents allegations that
items find their way back into the hands of the poachers.
In developing countries, unscrupulous businessmen,
politicians and even the police often use poor people to break
the law. When poor poachers are caught, these same influential
people abandon their workers and demand their property back from
the rangers, saying the apprehended violators had borrowed, rented
or taken the chainsaw without their knowledge. Destroying these
items means they cannot be reclaimed under false pretences. It
also ensures the chainsaws and other equipment confiscated is
never used again, and represents a real financial loss for the
businessmen profiting from these illegal activities.
In the first half of this year, 240 poachers
were caught in Bokor. Some were hunting, but most were involved
in illegal logging. Luxury timber is being transported to nearby
Vietnam, where it can be sold at an immense profit. There it is
being manufactured into expensive furniture and legally exported
to many countries, even the UK. Almost no furniture coming out
of Vietnam is made from domestically grown timber. The vast majority
of timber is being smuggled in and re-exported with a permit,
appearing to be legal. European consumers need to be very careful
when they buy furniture and be aware that most products coming
from Southeast Asia are made from illegally harvested wood. Demand
for timber furniture is one of the primary causes behind the destruction
of habitat for elephants and tigers in Southeast Asia.
To mitigate the problem of habitat being
cleared by loggers and encroachers more than 100,000 trees have
been planted in the last year at Bokor. These were a combination
of luxury timber trees to replace those illegally logged, natural
fruit trees for wildlife to feed on, and pockets of fast growing
species which the local people will be allowed to thin for firewood,
as most do not have gas or electricity for cooking. The park community
outreach team has also worked with the local villagers to propagate
and plant more than 80,000 bamboo clumps. Once the bamboo has
matured the villagers will be allowed to harvest it. Bamboo is
a fast growing and renewable resource which can be used to make
mats, baskets and handicrafts which can be sold, bringing in a
legal income for people that otherwise may have turned to poaching.
This community development activity has numerous benefits. Villagers
gain direct financial benefit from having a healthy natural forest
area near their communities. Forest fires are prevented because
local people will stop fires being lit to prevent the loss of
the bamboo and a buffer zone between the healthy forest and the
park boundary is set up. The joint activity also establishes a
bond between the park and local people.
When the rangers patrol they also collect
wildlife data. This helps build a better understanding of where
wildlife is located and gives an indication on population trends.
Even though Bokor is the target of poaching, it still has a wide
variety of wildlife including; elephants, tigers, leopards, leopard
cats, several species of civets, two species of bears (Asiatic
Black Bear and Sun Bears), Gaur (wild cattle), deer, Pileated
gibbon, Pig-tailed macaque, Stump-tailed macaque, East-Asian Porcupine,
Sarus Cranes, Wreathed and Great hornbills. All of these species
were either directly observed, their tracks were identified and
recorded, or they were photographed using infra-red triggered
camera traps which are placed in the forest for a month at a time.
Bokor has been developed as the National
Protected Areas Training Center (NPATC) and to further the ability
of rangers to conduct their job, a bear research course was held
there in April. This course trained rangers from all over Cambodia
on how to differentiate between the sign of the two species of
bears. It also helped standardize the way the data is recorded,
enabling researchers to easily compare sign and data from different
parks.
Bokor is one of the last remaining stands
of mature evergreen trees in Southern Cambodia, and its proximity
to the Vietnam border means it's constantly under threat from
loggers and poachers. However, the diligence of park staff, with
support from the David Shepherd Wildlife Foundation (DSWF), means
elephants, tigers and their habitat can survive and remain a valuable
asset for Cambodia. Tourists can visit Bokor National Park quite
easily and there is accommodation available in the park at the
Ranger Training Center when it's not in use during ranger training
courses.
