train and equip park rangers to fight crimes against nature, improve the management of protected areas, support sustainable development initiatives, empower countries to enforce transboundary wildlife regulations
Key people
Dr. Suwanna Gauntlett, founder and Chief Executive Officer Nick Marx, Director of Wildlife Rescue and Care
Wildlife Alliance is an international non-profit forest and wildlife conservation organization with current programs in Cambodia. It is headquartered in New York City, with offices in Phnom Penh. The logo of the organization is the Asian elephant, an emblematic species and the namesake for the Southwest Elephant Corridor that Wildlife Alliance saved when it was under intense threat of poaching and habitat destruction in 2001. It is today one of the last remaining unfragmented elephant corridors in Asia. Due to Government rangers' and Wildlife Alliance's intensive anti-poaching efforts, there have been zero elephant killings since 2006. Dr. Suwanna Gauntlett is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Wildlife Alliance, and one of the original founders of WildAid.[1][2] The organization is governed by a board of directors and an international advisory board that provides guidance on strategy, fundraising, and outreach.
Wildlife Alliance was founded in 1995 under the name Global Survival Network, and reorganized in 1999 as WildAid. The organization restructured itself again in 2006, dividing the organization's programs between two organizations – a new separate WildAid conducting the Active Conservation Awareness Program, Shark Conservation, and Galapagos Islands programs and Wildlife Alliance conducting field operations in Southeast Asia and Russia.
Cardamom Forest Protection Program – Ministry of Environment rangers patrol 1,400,000 hectares of the Cardamom Rainforest Landscape in partnership with the Royal Government of Cambodia, making the Cardamom Mountains Rainforest the best protected rainforest in Southeast Asia.[3][4] Twelve ranger stations are manned with 14 rangers per station; 4 Ministry of Environment Judicial Police rangers, 8 Royal Gendarmerie Rangers, and 2 Wildlife Alliance staff. The rangers conduct daily patrols stopping land grabbing, dismantling illegal logger and poachers camps, seizing illegal timber and vehicles, stopping people clearing the forest, seizing bulldozers, excavators and other forest clearing vehicles, removing snares, saving live wildlife. Before the program started, 38 elephants and 29 tigers had been killed.[5] Thanks to successful ranger patrolling, there has been zero elephant poaching in the Cardamoms since 2006.[5][4]
Zoning and Demarcation – Wildlife Alliance facilitates clear delineation of strictly protected forest zones versus community land where farmers can develop agriculture. The combination of a participatory planning process and the installation of visible posts on the ground has greatly helped in reducing land grabbing and deforestation.
Wildlife Alliance protect 1.4 million hectares of the Cardamom Mountains.
Care for Rescued Wildlife – Since 2001, Wildlife Alliance's Care for Rescued Wildlife program has ensured that all rescued wildlife unfit for immediate release is given expert treatment, natural enclosures, a healthy diet, and trained veterinarian care for as long as necessary. Working at Phnom Tamao Wildlife Rescue Centre, the staff have built large natural enclosures and designed excellent care protocols for the now 1,500 animals in their care. Wildlife Alliance has also created a Wildlife Rehabilitation Station in Koh Kong Province where animals that are deemed suitable for release into the wild are relocated to a forested enclosure in an appropriate area of habitat. Utilizing a soft release method, when the animals are ready for release, the door to the enclosure is left open and the animals are free to leave at will. Wildlife Alliance continues to provide hands-off assistance and supplementary food at the enclosure location for as long as it is necessary. In 2013, Wildlife Alliance established its Angkor Wildlife Release Program in cooperation with Apsara Authority and the Forestry Administration. To-date several threatened and endangered species have been released into the forest around the temples: four pairs of endangered pileated gibbons who then gave birth to seven babies, Silver Langurs, red muntjacs, elongated tortoises, common palm civets, leopard cats, smooth-coated otters, green pea-fowl, oriental pied hornbills, great hornbills and red hornbills.
Wildlife Rapid Rescue Team (WRRT) – A law enforcement unit devoted solely to combating the illegal wildlife trade, led by the Cambodian Forestry Administration judicial officers, supported by the Royal Gendarmerie of Cambodia Military Police, with technical and financial support from Wildlife Alliance. The team has a national mandate to stop the illegal wildlife trade in all provinces, in urban centers, on roads, in markets and restaurants, and along the border. As of 2020, the Wildlife Rapid Rescue Team has rescued more than 77,000 live animals, arrested 3500 traffickers, and seized several tons of wildlife parts for traditional medicine and bushmeat for restaurants.[6] As a result, the work of WRRT has gained recognition as Asia's foremost wildlife law enforcement units, receiving the ''Best Wildlife Law Enforcement Unit in Asia Award'' from the United Nations Environment Programme in 2015.[7][8] WRRT also cracks down on the transnational illegal wildlife trade that involves Thailand, Vietnam and African countries.[9] In 2018, WRRT was involved in the seizure of a shipment of 3.4 tons of ivory originating from the Mozambique port of Nacala.[10] In 2020, in response to the COVID-19 outbreak and its links to the wildlife trade,[11] Wildlife Alliance launched the #StopEatingWildlife campaign to fight the supply, demand, and consumption of wildlife meat by making Cambodian consumers more aware of the health risks of eating wildlife and how the trade supports the brutal snaring crisis of Cambodia’s wildlife.[12]
Community Agriculture Development Project – The Community Agriculture Development Project in Sovanna Baitong focuses on improving the livelihoods of smuggled wildlife into /Vietnam and Chin220 families who were previously destroying the rainforest through slash-and-burn cultivation and hunting wildlife. With the technical and financial assistance of Wildlife Alliance, villagers are managing an Agriculture Store and Community Agriculture Association that oversees agriculture production, marketing of goods, health care, education, natural resource conservation, a savings program and a micro-credit system. More than 85% of the families now earn well above the initial goal of monthly revenues and many households have reached middle-income status.
Ministry of Environment rangers patrol the Cardamom Rainforest 24/7 365 days by boat, land, and by air.
Community Based Ecotourism – Wildlife Alliance has established Community-Based Ecotourism (CBET) projects in both Chi Phat and Steung Areng. The organization has provided technical assistance in facilitating the community’s planning process, design of the management system, decision-making processes, roles and responsibilities of the management committee and service groups, agreeing on procedures and how income will be allocated.[18] Wildlife Alliance has also provided the initial investment to retrofit and upgrade homestays and guesthouses, purchase trekking equipment, kayaks and mountain bikes, and create 200km of rainforest trekking trails with 4 night camps. It has built a community center with guest reception, bookings, cashier, restaurant, and rental service for trekking equipment. Families have stopped 100% forest slash-and-burn practices and are now earning sustainable income from international tourism.[13] Visitors come from all over the world to go on treks in the Cardamom rainforest, enjoy river kayaking or mountain biking, and stay at community guesthouses. Due to its success, the well-established Chi Phat CBET has won multiple international awards, including the Dubai International Award for Best Practices to Improve the Living Environment in 2014.[14]
Kouprey Express In 2001, Wildlife Alliance launched a national awareness campaign to stop Cambodian consumers from eating wildlife and buying wild animals for exotic pets. In 2005, the organization created the Kouprey Express Mobile Environmental Education Project (KE) [15] to address the lack of effective environmental education in Cambodia, raising awareness among communities living in and around protected areas, and providing guidance on how to live sustainably without depleting natural resources. The KE travels throughout the country to work with students, teachers and community adults. It delivers interactive educational classes in the mornings and provides edu-entertainment night shows in the evenings for the community. Consisting of a school-based curriculum that builds capacities of both students and teachers, a national awareness campaign, and whole community engagement, the KE highlights the many factors which threaten rainforests, wildlife and our climate: intense poaching, land grabbing, illegal logging. The education unit also addresses water quality, waste management and recycling.
In 2017, Wildlife Alliance seized more than 3 tonnes of Ivory from Mozambique in cooperation with the Cambodian Authorities. It is Cambodia's biggest ever ivory bust.
1995 – Founding of Global Survival Network;
1997 – Global Survival Network partners with Russian conservationists to launch the Phoenix Fund, a Vladivostok-based non-profit dedicated to protecting the Amur leopard, Siberian tiger, and their habitat and ecology;
2000 – Launch of Care for Rescued Wildlife program at Phnom Tamao Wildlife Rescue Centre, to provide veterinarian treatment, rehabilitation and lifetime care for animals rescued from the illegal wildlife trade;
2000 – The Cambodian Forestry Administration and Wildlife Alliance confiscate 7 tigers in a STING operation;
2001 – Wildlife Alliance creates the only full-time wildlife law enforcement unit in Asia, known as the Wildlife Rapid Rescue Team (WRRT) with judicial authority over all of Cambodia’s provinces, including national roads and urban centers. It has the legal mandate to arrest traffickers, seize trafficked wildlife, deliver penalties and take cases to the courts;
2002 – Establishment of the Cardamom Forest Protection Program;
2004 – Government of Thailand calls for regional wildlife law enforcement network to address Southeast Asia's role as a shipment hub for illegal wildlife products. The ultimate result is the creation of the ASEAN Wildlife Enforcement Network, of which Wildlife Alliance led the NGO support program from 2005 to 2008;
2005 – Initial assessment of wildlife and habitat threats in Gunung Leuser National Park, Indonesia. When the Boxing Day tsunami devastates the region weeks later, WildAid returns to conduct a post-tsunami assessment to help Indonesian government agencies respond to the crisis;
2006 – Phoenix Fund Director, Sergei Beruznuk, wins a £30,000 Whitley Award recognizing his "outstanding achievements in nature conservation" related to re-routing an oil pipeline away from the habitat of critically endangered Amur leopard;
2007 – Original WildAid changes name to Wildlife Alliance. CNN's Anderson Cooper 360° series, Planet in Peril, features Wildlife Alliance programs in Thailand and Cambodia, including Care for Rescued Wildlife, Bokor National Park, and efforts to stop the illegal wildlife trade in Asia;
2008 – Wildlife Alliance launches Community-Based Ecotourism program in the four villages of the commune of Chi Phat, Cambodia;
2008 – Launches reforestation project to reconnect the fragmented rainforest in the Cardamom Mountains;
2009 – MSNBC and Jeff Corwin visit Cambodia to film Wildlife Alliance field projects for the 100 Heartbeats documentary;
2010 – The Wildlife Rapid Rescue Team gains official recognition from ten Asian countries as Cambodia’s national-level wildlife crime taskforce when the Cambodian Forestry Administration actively implements the Association of South East Asian Nations Wildlife Enforcement Network (ASEAN-WEN) in Cambodia;
2011 – Cambodian government reverses plan to construct titanium mine in the Cardamom Mountains Rainforest, in light of online petitions and advocacy led by Wildlife Alliance;
2012 – Wildlife Alliance releases their iPhone app created in collaboration with TRAFFIC, and Jeff Corwin Connect to allow users learn more about Cambodia's endangered wildlife and help the Wildlife Rapid Rescue Team stop the wildlife trade;
2013 – Wildlife Alliance launches the ASEAN-WEN Wildlife Anti-Trafficking Campaign in Cambodian Airports;
2016 – Wildlife Alliance's fourteen years of work to protect the only swath of the Cardamom Rainforest Landscape that had so far remained without legal status (an area of rainforest of 443.134 hectares) resulted in the nomination of the Southern Cardamom National Park;
2017 – Wildlife Alliance launches Community-Based Ecotourism program in the eight villages of Chhay Areng Valley;
2017 – WRRT seizes 3 tonnes of Ivory from Mozambique;
2019 – Wildlife Alliance provides training and funds to support a 16-men community patrol team in Phnom Chongreak working to protect the endangered Bantengs;
2019 – The Southern Cardamom REDD+ (a partnership Ministry of Environment and Wildlife Alliance) starts sales of carbon credits (Verified Emissions Reductions, VERs) to companies in Europe and the United States;
2020 – 1.4 million hectares of the Cardamom Mountains Rainforest remain protected.
Related Research Articles
Cambodia is a country in mainland Southeast Asia. It borders Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, the Gulf of Thailand and covers a total area of approximately 181,035 km2 (69,898 sq mi). The country is situated in its entirety inside the tropical Indomalayan realm and the Indochina Time zone (ICT).
The pileated gibbon is a primate in the gibbon family, Hylobatidae.
The Dâmrei Mountains, refer to a mountain range situated in south-western Cambodia, traversing around 110 km (68 mi) north-south as a succession of the Cardamom Mountains, dropping abruptly to the sea near the town of Kampot. The Elephant Mountains represent the easternmost parts of the original extent of the wet evergreen forests that include Cambodia's south and the mountains east of Bangkok in Thailand.
The Cardamom Mountains, or the Krâvanh Mountains, is a mountain range in the southwest part of Cambodia and Eastern Thailand. The majority of the range is within Cambodia.
Fauna & Flora is an international nature conservation charity and non-governmental organization dedicated to protecting the planet's threatened wildlife and habitats. As the world’s first international conservation charity, Fauna & Flora has been shaping best practice in community-focused conservation for over 120 years. Today, the charity works closely with local conservation partners in almost 50 countries to protect habitats, revive the ocean, reduce extinctions, stop illegal wildlife trade, combat climate change and influence global policy and corporate sustainability.
Khemarak Phoumin, also Koh Kong, is the capital and largest city of Koh Kong Province in Cambodia. It is near the mouth of the Kah Bpow river in Smach Mean Chey District on the Gulf of Thailand. The city lies only 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) from the Thai border. It is 138 kilometres (86 mi) by Highway 48 to National Highway 4 at Sre Ambel and a further 133 kilometres (83 mi) to Phnom Penh. After completion of the bridges on Highway 48 in 2010 the land link to Phnom Penh and Sihanoukville has significantly improved.
The wildlife of Cambodia is very diverse with at least 162 mammal species, 600 bird species, 176 reptile species, 900 freshwater fish species, 670 invertebrate species, and more than 3000 plant species. A single protected area, Keo Seima Wildlife Sanctuary, is known to support more than 950 total species, including 75 species that are listed as globally threatened on the IUCN Red List. An unknown amount of species remains to be described by science, especially the insect group of butterflies and moths, collectively known as lepidopterans.
Botum Sakor National Park is the largest national park of Cambodia. Situated on the coast of the Gulf of Thailand, Botum Sakor is a peninsula projecting southwest from the Cardamom Mountains. The national park comprises an area of 1,825.85 km2 (704.96 sq mi) and spans three districts of Koh Kong Province: Kiri Sakor, Botum Sakor and Koh Kong. The park is under the administration of the Cambodian Ministry of Environment, and a small part of the park is included in the Southern Cardamom REDD+ Project (SCRP).
Phnom Samkos Wildlife Sanctuary is a wildlife sanctuary in western Cambodia, bordering Thailand. The sanctuary was established in 1993 and covers 3,307.56 km2 (1,277.06 sq mi). It is also designated as an Important Bird Area (IBA).
The Cardamom Mountains rain forests is a tropical moist broadleaf forest ecoregion in Southeast Asia, as identified by the WWF. The ecoregion covers the Cardamom Mountains and Elephant Mountains and the adjacent coastal lowlands in eastern Thailand and southwestern Cambodia, as well as the Vietnamese island of Dao Phu Quoc.
The Chi-Phat commune is located deep within the Cardamom Mountains at Koh Kong Province, south-west Cambodia. The commune consists of four villages: Chi-Phat, Komlot, Chom-Sla and T'k La'o.
The International Elephant Foundation (IEF) is a non-profit 501(c)(3) corporation. Formed by individuals and institutions, IEF is dedicated to the conservation of African and Asian elephants worldwide.
The Phnom Tamao Wildlife Rescue Centre is a wildlife centre located roughly 25 miles (40 km) by road south of Phnom Penh, Cambodia. The centre was established in 1995 and with an area of over 6,000 acres of protected regenerating forest, this is the largest zoo in Cambodia. Since 2001, PTWRC has been run by the government institution of Cambodian Forestry Administration in partnership with an environmental non-profit organization called Wildlife Alliance. Wildlife Alliance animal husbandry specialists, veterinarians, and care takers assist in the feeding and care of animals and operations. PTWRC currently houses over 1,200 rescued animals from 102 species including endangered Asian elephants, tigers, Pileated gibbon, Siamese crocodile, Malayan sun bears, among many others. Many of the species are listed as Endangered or Vulnerable by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
Kampot Zoo (Teuk Chhou Waterfall Crop Garden and Zoo) is about 10 km from the provincial town of Kampot, Cambodia. The Zoo was established in 1999, and opened in 2000 by senator Nhim Vanda, who as of 2014 owned it and Bayap Zoo in Prey Veng Province’s Kamchay Mear District.
Save Cambodia's Wildlife (SCW), founded in 1999 and registered in 2002, is a national NGO working for the protection and conservation of natural resources and wildlife habitats throughout Cambodia. The organization aims to raise awareness on climate change, wildlife protection and environmental issues in general. SCW has its head office in Phnom Penh and operates with three field offices in Banlung (Ratanakiri), Kratie (Kratie) and Siem Pang.
Wildlife SOS (WSOS) is a conservation non-profit organisation in India, established in 1995 with the primary objective of rescuing and rehabilitating wildlife in distress, and preserving India's natural heritage. It is currently one of the largest wildlife organisations in South Asia.
Keo Seima Wildlife Sanctuary is a 2,926.9 km2 (1,130.1 sq mi) protected area of mixed seasonal tropical forest in eastern Cambodia, located in Mondulkiri and Kratié provinces. The area was first established as Seima Biodiversity Conservation Area in 2002, later becoming Seima Protection Forest in 2009, finally becoming Keo Seima Wildlife Sanctuary in 2016. The site is of national, regional, and global importance for a range of biodiversity, with more than 950 species recorded within the protected area. It is also the ancestral and contemporary home of a large number of the Bunong ethnic group.
Southern Cardamom National Park is a national park in Cambodia. The protection was established on 9 May 2016 and covers 4,104 km2 (1,585 sq mi) in the southern parts of the Cardamom Mountains. The national park is administratively divided into three sectors; Western Sector, Central Sector and Eastern Sector.
Phnom Tbeng Natural Heritage Park is a protected area in Cambodia's Northern Plains Landscape, established in 2016 under Sub-decree No.189. The park was one of five sites considered for world heritage status, along with the Mekong Prek Kampi dolphin sanctuary management protected area, Phnom Nam Lear Rock in Phnom Nam Lyr Wildlife Sanctuary, the Prek Prasab Wildlife Sanctuary, and Southern Cardamom National Park. The protected area contains some of the last remaining evergreen and semi-evergreen forest habitats in northern Cambodia and is of high importance for wildlife conservation and is a key area of the upper watershed of the Steung Saen River, a tributary of the Tonlé Sap.
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