Facts and figures

As the last stronghold of Khmer Rouge, Southwest Cambodia’s Cardamom mountains have been off-limits to most people until recently. Consequently, the well-preserved mountains remain one of the largest and most intact wildernesses in Southeast Asia, covering an area of approximately one million hectares and rising as high as 1,813 meters (5,948 feet).

Wild animals and plants not yet recorded by science, and high densities of globally threatened species are found in the Cardamoms. This includes 41 large mammal species, 19 of which are on the IUCN Red List, i.e, the Asian elephant, Indochinese tiger, Malayan sun bear, Pileated gibbon, Irrawaddy and humpback dolphins. Further surveys reveal that the mountains are home to 173 bird species, 26 amphibian species, 41 reptile species and 42 fish species. The Cardamoms are also the last remaining habitat for the critically endangered Siamese crocodiles and the only habitat in Cambodia for the nearly extinct Royal turtle.

While Cambodia’s years of conflict protected the Cardamoms, new threats are now emerging. Many refugees had since returned, placing new pressures on Cardamom’s natural resources. The post-war quest for economic recovery is leading to unsustainable resource extraction and biodiversity needs are seen as secondary to human needs, particularly in the context of Cambodia’s tragic recent history.

Large and important areas outside the nature reserves are allocated to logging concessions and also facing problems of uncontrolled and illegal logging. Since the Cardamoms form a critical watershed for the rice bowl of the Mekong Basin to the east and the mangroves and fisheries of the Gulf of Thailand to the west, over-logging has the potential of causing an environmental and economic catastrophe.

Before the project, many people were unaware of its protected status as there were no management and environmental laws enforced and nature reserves were not marked.  Extreme poverty led to bushmeat hunting, poaching and encroachment. There is also an extensive illegal trade in endangered wildlife across the border into Thailand. Further, widespread corruption and lack of respect for the law in the government and the military are among the top impediments in introducing conservation.

Project description

The project’s goal was the long-term conservation and sustainable management of the Cardamon Mountains ecosystem. It focused on the consolidation of management activities in the region’s three protected areas, the Central Cardamom Protected Forest (CCPF), Phnom Aural Wildlife Sanctuary (PAWS) and Phnom Samkos Wildlife Sanctuary (PWSW). The project helped build national and local government capacity to manage these areas, and introduced sustainable development interventions designed to reduce pressure on these sites from local populations.

The project’s design was the result of a shared long-term vision by project partners Conservation International (CI) and Flora & Fauna International (FFI). It has two major components – the Central Cardamoms Protected Forest (CCPF) component which began in 2001, and was completed in 2004, with funding from the United Nations Foundation (UNF) and Conservation International (CI) and the Cardamom Mountain Wildlife Sanctuaries (CMWS) component, funded by UNF and GEF, which started in April 2003 and was concluded in 2007