WWF - Lower Mekong Dry Forests Ecoregion news

Global Tiger Day - spare a thought for tiger prey too!

2012-07-29

As tiger range countries today celebrate Global Tiger Day, WWF is urging the governments to raise efforts to work towards Zero Poaching of tiger prey as well as tigers.

With wild tiger numbers as low as 3,200, direct, targeted poaching of tigers is the most immediate danger for the species today. However, a serious contributing factor to the plight of the tiger is the widespread decline of its forest larder – the deer, wild pigs and wild cattle such as the Gaur.

One tiger needs to eat the equivalent of a medium size deer every week to survive and without adequate food, the tiger population declines very fast. Too many forests of Asia are classed as 'empty forests" – the trees are there but the animals are gone. Anti-poaching efforts therefore must be targeted at protecting both the tiger and its prey.

Poachers very often focus on tiger prey rather than tigers themselves. Prey animals are sought by local poachers to supply the local food market. Many of these prey species are also highly endangered and often neglected by conservation efforts. Yet, they can also benefit from the extra protection given to the tiger.

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"Without protecting the tiger's prey from poaching and forest degradation, achieving the target of doubling wild tiger numbers by 2022 is impossible," said Mike Baltzer, Leader of WWF's Tigers Alive Initiative. "The survival of the prey is key to the survival of the tiger."

Tackling poaching requires high levels of professionally managed security. But if the local community is against the park or the tigers, then the continued efforts of the poachers will overwhelm even the best-trained, motivated rangers who are at the frontline protecting tigers.

A long-term WWF project in southern Thailand, working intensively with the local communities living around Kuiburi National Park, has reduced poaching by four-fold and doubled tiger prey population. The project clearly demonstrates that when local communities are well mobilized, they can be a very powerful and essential force against poaching.

Working towards Zero Poaching requires serious government intervention. The WWF Wildlife Crime Scorecard released on Monday reported that more than 200 tiger carcasses are being seized from illegal trade each year and that most countries were very far from providing protection against poaching and illegal wildlife trade, particularly those countries like China and Vietnam, where illegal traders know there is a strong demand for tiger-based products.

WWF is today releasing a short film "Confessions of an ex-poacher" that highlights the destructive trade. Interviews with two former poachers turned tiger protectors give insights into this illicit world that drives forests to become lucrative hunting grounds for poachers and making tigers their livelihoods. The film also discusses steps needed to stem out poaching in the heartland areas of forests where tigers breed. One of these is to provide those at the frontlines protecting tigers – rangers, protected area officials and local communities – with the right tools to eradicate poaching.

Local communities and protected area staff, particularly rangers or specialized enforcement officers, are the frontline against poaching and the illegal wildlife trade. Rangers put their life on the line everyday to keep wild tigers and their prey safe. They are critical in achieving Zero Poaching, yet are not always fully appreciated for their important role. WWF will be launching a special action on International Rangers Day on 31 July to honour these unsung heroes.

Elsewhere, WWF offices in tiger range countries are also joining governments and civil society in a range of Global Tiger Day celebratory events.

Bhutan: A special community event will be held in line with the theme of this year's Global Tiger Day – "Tiger and community co-existing in harmony for mutual survival". It will be held in Trongsa in central Bhutan, with a community that has been working on tiger conservation. There will be a skid presented by the community and a poster competition for students.

China: WWF will launch a pilot deer reintroduction programme in Wangqing Nature Reserve in northeast China, at a site where tracks of both the Amur tiger and the Amur leopard have been discovered frequently. This is part of a bigger tiger conservation programme aimed at recovering tiger prey density and restoring the habitat. A special launch ceremony will be held with officials, representatives from partner organizations and media in attendance.

Nepal: A series of public service announcements will be launched to promote awareness of the need to stop wildlife trade. There will also be a formal declaration of the results of the tiger count conducted in Bardia National Park earlier in the year. WWF will also hold an art competition for students in the Terai Arc region.

For further information:

Soh-Koon Chng, WWF Tigers Alive Initiative, +65 9772 2552, skchng@wwf.org.my

Big investments needed in Asia-Pacific's dwindling natural capital

2012-06-05

Manila, Philippines – Booming economic development and per-capita consumption across the Asia-Pacific region is burning up more natural resources than are available, placing enormous pressure on the region's already heavily taxed forests, rivers and oceans, says a new WWF report on the value of Asia's natural capital.

Produced in partnership with the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the Ecological Footprint and Investment in Natural Capital in Asia and the Pacific report – a regional perspective on elements of the recently-released Living Planet Report – focuses on attainable methods of preserving key regional ecosystems including the unique forests of Borneo, the marine wealth of the Coral Triangle, the Mekong region's diverse habitats, as well as the mountainous Eastern Himalayas.

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"Across the Asia-Pacific region, the gap between human demand for natural resources and the environment's ability to replenish those resources is widening," said WWF's Director General Jim Leape. "In 2008, the natural resources available per person, in places as diverse as the Eastern Himalayas and Mekong river basin, shrunk by about two thirds compared to 1970. Tragically, the rate of species loss was about twice the global average over this period," he added.

The new report uses the Living Planet Index (LPI) to measure changes in the health of ecosystems across the Asia-Pacific region. The global index fell by 28 per cent from 1970 and 2008, while the Indo-Pacific region saw a shocking 64 per cent decline in key populations of species over the same period.

"The Indo-Pacific realm has undergone the most rapid economic and demographic transition of any region in the world since 1970," said Jonathan Loh from the Zoological Society of London (ZSL), the organization that keeps track of the index. "Across most of tropical Asia and the Pacific, the population grew from about 1.2 billion to 2.6 billion, which is alone enough to double the pressures placed on the area's natural resources. Coupled with the dramatic increase in per capita consumption across the entire Asia-Pacific region, it becomes clear that reversing this downward trend needs systemic changes to our economies and the way we produce and consume natural resources," he added.

Asia's biggest footprints: the individual and the nation

Australia, Singapore, Mongolia, South Korea, New Zealand, Japan, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, Thailand and China round out the top 10 Ecological Footprints per capita in the Asia-Pacific region.

Asia-Pacific residents still consume on average close to 60 per cent less than the global average of over one and half planets per person, but major disparities exist. The per-capita Ecological Footprint of Australia, for example, is the highest in the region – 14 times larger than Timor-Leste.

From a national level, China has the largest footprint of all the countries of Asia and the Pacific, due to its large population. China and India, the report says, are likely to experience the greatest increase in overall Ecological Footprint by 2015, representing 37 per cent of the projected global footprint.

"Over the next 20 years, hundreds of millions of new consumers will be added to those already living in Asia and the Pacific today – driving up demand for energy, food, metals, and water," said Jim Leape. "We need to create mechanisms that make protecting those resources the right economic choice for the communities that use and depend on them."

Regional solutions for the health of the planet

The Ecological Footprint and Investment in Natural Capital in Asia and the Pacific report outlines four key solutions that are working to reverse the declining Living Planet Index in four major regions: the Heart of Borneo, the Coral Triangle, the Greater Mekong sub-region and the Eastern Himalayas. All of these areas are extremely important as they provide millions of people with food, water and energy – and harbour countless valuable species of plants and animals.

Policies that recognize the importance of the environment early on in the planning process is one part of the equation, says the report, as are well-funded and monitored marine and terrestrial protected areas. Payment for ecosystem services under programmes such as REDD also play an important role, as do private-sector sustainability initiatives. For example, many businesses in the region are already showing how sustainably produced commodities – including cotton, soy, palm oil, fish and timber – bring big gains for people and also the environment.

"We must move toward deeper structural and systemic change in the way goods are manufactured and services provided," said ADB President Haruhiko Kuroda. "The green economy itself can become an engine of growth and the driver for a new generation of green jobs—bringing a higher quality of life."

Rio+20

Released on World Environment Day and only three weeks before the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, the Ecological Footprint and Investment in Natural Capital in Asia and the Pacific report presents a solution-oriented look at what leaders attending the Earth Summit need to focus on most – reconfirming their commitment to creating a sustainable future.

"The challenges presented in the Asia-Pacific footprint report show us that we are living beyond our means. But it also clearly identifies attainable solutions that build on the strength of partnerships at local, regional and international levels," said Leape. "Rio+20 offers governments, businesses and civil society a unique opportunity to develop even more innovative solutions to ensuring we preserve the natural wealth of our planet," he added.

ADB and WWF have worked in partnership since 2001 on mainstreaming environment in development and supporting the countries of Asia and the Pacific in conserving their natural capital.

Wild for a cure report highlights improved harvesting of wild medicines

2010-09-15

Berlin, Germany: Worldwide application of a new standard for sustainable harvesting of wild medicinal, aromatic, dye and food plants and trees is charting new ways to protect the species and their habitats and benefit the communities that depend on them, according to a new report from world wildlife trade monitoring network, TRAFFIC.

In Karnatka, India, it is now possible to collect the resin of the White Palle tree used in traditional Indian medicine and incense without removing the bark and killing the trees that provide it. In Cambodia, a new co-operative has boosted returns to medicinal plant harvesting communities through better harvesting, drying and marketing.

In Brazil, a women's co-operative in Amazonia State and a major natural cosmetics company are aiming to co-operate on the marketing of sustainably harvested products. In Lesotho and South Africa, a harvesting and management strategy for Kalwerbossie, whose tubers are used to treat digestive disorders, will ensure sustainable harvest of the plant, thus providing long term benefits to communities.

Guidelines a success from Bosnia to Brazil

Wild for a cure: ground-truthing a standard for sustainable management of wild plants in the field details projects ranging from South America to Southern Africa and South-East Asia where new methods were devised to protect key natural resources from the wild while improving the livelihoods and benefits for local people through application of guidelines on sustainable wild collection.

"With around 15,000 of the estimated 50,000–70,000 plant species used for medicine, cosmetics or dietary supplements threatened, the need for developing practical guidelines to ensure supplies are sustainable has never been more urgent," said Anastasiya Timoshyna, TRAFFIC's Global Medicinal Plants Programme Leader and co-author of the report.

The project demonstrated sufficient flexibility in the guidelines to allow them to be adapted to meet local conditions, including a variety of governance and land tenure systems in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Cambodia, India, Lesotho, Nepal, and South Africa.

The report notes the importance of ensuring all local stakeholders—from collectors to local organizations, resource management authorities, and businesses—are involved in partnership from the outset, and that clear and realistic market openings should be identified for harvested products and with ways devised to give "added value" to products and a fair share of benefits to the owners of traditional knowledge.

Adequate resources should be allocated for training of local project workers in wild plants' resource assessment, harvest monitoring, collection and processing techniques and most importantly for protection of their traditional knowledge and benefit-sharing.

"The BMZ-funded 'Saving Plants that Save Lives and Livelihoods' project has taken an important step in bridging the gap between words and action to manage wild plants for the future of humankind," said Dirk Niebel, Germany's Federal Minister for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ).

"We are glad to demonstrate just ahead to the forthcoming Convention on Biological Diversity that by supporting TRAFFIC, we were able to contribute to the conservation of key natural plant resources from the wild, while improving the livelihoods of and benefits of local people."

The International Standard for Sustainable Collection of Wild Medicinal and Aromatic Plants (ISSC-MAP), evaluated in this study has now been combined with an existing FairWild Foundation standard aimed at ensuring trade in medicinal and aromatic plants is conducted fairly. The new FairWild Standard version 2.0 for the sustainable management and trade in wild-collected natural ingredients came into effect on 8th September
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"Germany's continued commitment to helping guarantee the sustainable use of medicinal plant resources, particularly in countries that depend on them the most, is a model example for integration of conservation and development aid policies." said Dr Carlos Drews, Director of WWF's Global Species Programme.

"The newly developed FairWild guidelines are an invaluable tool to support sustainable harvesting and management regimes, a worldwide challenge facing the conservation community" says Jane Smart, Director, IUCN Biodiversity Conservation Group.

Further information:
Richard Thomas, Global Communications Co-ordinator, TRAFFIC, Richard.thomas@traffic.org +44 1223 279068.

Spotted and snapped: first photos of leopard with young in Cambodia

2007-05-03

Srepok, Cambodia – The first ever photographs of a wild leopard with young in Cambodia show that a pioneering project is helping to conserve wildlife and support local livelihoods there.

The photographs were taken by the animals themselves when they triggered camera traps that had been set up by wildlife biologists working with local community rangers.

"They are very secretive creatures and incredibly difficult to see, even with the best guides," says Nick Cox of WWF's Greater Mekong office.

"But in the Srepok Wilderness Area of the Mondulkiri protected forest in north-eastern Cambodia, our rangers have had recent encounters with leopards that would make big cat biologists green with envy."

The Srepok Wilderness Area Project (SWAP) aims to ensure that local people benefit from conservation in a part of Cambodia where forests are relatively intact, but threatened by illegal logging, conversion for agriculture and the unsustainable trade in wildlife products.

WWF is working with the Cambodian government and the International Institute for Environment and Development on the project, which is part funded by the Darwin Initiative.

The project partners are aware that conservation in a country as poor as Cambodia will only succeed if local people continue to benefit economically from the Mekong River and its surrounding forests. The area's wildlife has been struggling as a consequence of decades of war, colonial mismanagement of wildlife and civil strife.

The Srepok wilderness area was largely unprotected until WWF began working there in 2002. The rangers working in the forest have provided anecdotal evidence of their belief that the forest ecosystem is recovering, but nothing firm until now.

Leopards will only reproduce if the conditions are right and these photographs are an initial positive indicator of a healty ecosystem.

Under the Darwin Initiative funded project, Julia Chase-Grey is studying how local hunting and farming practices affect populations of the leopard and its prey species, such as the dog-like dhole.

"Very little information exists on the ecology or conservation of the leopard in Cambodia," says Chase-Grey, a PhD student at Durham University, United Kingdom.

Chase-Grey spent two months working with rangers from local communities, whose knowledge of the area and its wildlife meant they could advise her where to set up the camera traps.

The SWAP has trained the rangers in an effort to provide sustainable alternatives to hunting.

James MacGregor of the International Institute for Environment and Development says that the SWAP's innovative approach provides a practical lesson in best practice conservation management in genuine collaboration with local people.

"This project highlights the importance of involving local people in conservation and ensuring that they have a stake in protecting wildlife," says MacGregor.

"The Srepok Wilderness Area Project is helping to restore the natural wildlife populations and provide local people with pathways out of poverty."

Taking community participation beyond borders

2006-12-19

Throughout September and October, the Srepok Wilderness Area Project (SWAP) team conducted a series of workshops with around 50 local community representatives, informing and exchanging information about the different land uses, vegetation, physical structures, and commune boundaries in the Mondulkiri Protected Forest (MPF).

Collection of information started with participants identifying the traditional commune boundaries - a long process involving intense discussion among commune members and village leaders.

In the identification of their traditional boundaries, community participants reflected their inherent stake in the protected forest. The fact that the boundaries of several communes extended all the way up to the proposed 'core zone' is an indication of the strong traditional claims in this area.

This 'stake' in the region, was further highlighted by participants' remarkable familiarity with the terrain inside the protected forest, as they identified the names of every pond, stream, spring, mountain, and even hill in the area. Even the location and estimated numbers of resin trees in a given area were clearly depicted on their maps.

After completing the strenuous process of delineating commune boundaries (where possible), identifying land use, and putting all other necessary information such as number of houses, location of schools, health centers, commune centers, and spirit forests on the maps, the participants identified the different management zones - community, sustainable-use, conservation, and core zones - within their respective traditional areas.

The next step will be to overlay all this newly collected information with the Forestry Administration's proposed zones for the MPF. Only then can negotiations start and can delineation issues be reconciled through a series of consultations involving more stakeholders. Through this process, the project hopes to strengthen communities' ownership over these zones, which will lead to a stronger sense of responsibility over its management.

Issues of overlapping commune boundaries notwithstanding, these communities share the same objectives of the government when it comes to identifying the areas that need to be conserved, as these are important habitats and watersheds to the rivers and streams that they depend upon for their livelihoods.

In terms of strategies, education, and information dissemination, participants said this approach was the key to encouraging people to participate in sustainable management of natural resources. Recognizing the Herculean task of reaching all the people around the protected forest, they signified their commitment to helping the project in its education campaign.

"We would like to learn from WWF the proper way of using our natural resources and the relevant laws, and share these with our co-villagers," they said.

For more information, please contact: Amy Maling

A shock to the ecosystem as gold mining explodes across Cambodia

2006-12-17

Gold mining at two of WWF Cambodia's highest priority conservation sites, Phnom Prich Wildlife Sanctuary (PPWS) and the Srepok Wilderness Area Project (SWAP), is threatening the future of the areas' biodiversity values.

PPWS and SWAP harbor tiger, while PPWS is the core territory of what is probably the largest Asian elephant herd in the Lower Mekong Dry Forest Ecoregion – both animals are Lower Mekong Dry Forest flagship species.

Up to now, activities have been somewhat chaotic, with independent miners coordinated by local strongmen digging up new sites across the dry forest landscape. Such activities destroy fish spawning habitat, smother aquatic vegetation and fauna, and destroy ecotourism potential along pristine streams. The damage extends to ecosystems that help keep the water clean for downstream communities, including major cities along the Mekong River.

Processing of the ore produces effluent containing mercury, cyanide, strong acids, and other toxic pollutants. If processing is not regulated, the effluent can poison thousands of people in downstream communities who depend on fish for their protein.

The intention of the Cambodian government to regulate mining activity is welcome news, but the speed at which concessions are being granted is daunting. In September this year, WWF confirmed that at least four new mining concessions had recently been granted either in, or adjacent to PPWS, and one in the SWAP. If the available maps are accurate, mining concessions cover a staggering 33% of the total area of the wildlife sanctuary.

The new concessions are for exploration, which does not legally require an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), but the impacts can still be severe, with extensive digging and washing of soil causing massive erosion and sedimentation of local streams, particularly in the remote headwaters of scenic waterways like O Te.

To resolve mining issues in the long term requires strong technical input and, as mining is important for national economies, careful advocacy at the national and international levels.

WWF Greater Mekong is developing a broad multi-stakeholder project to address the policy problem at the regional scale, but results cannot come immediately.

WWF Cambodia's Dry Forest Species Project is desperately short of funds to combat the most serious impacts of mining. Funds are urgently required to maintain rangers on site to monitor the expanding mining activities, and where possible, crack down on unregulated activities.

Without action on the ground to ensure that exploration activities are safe, sustainable and regulated, globally significant biodiversity will be destroyed forever and along with it, the local resource base for indigenous Phnong people and the nation as a whole.

by Andy Maxwell

::: Learning Exchange :::
Cambodian conservationists take lessons from Namibian conservancies

2006-09-11

Five Cambodian community and government conservationists from the WWF-supported Srepok Wilderness Area Project (SWAP) project recently returned from Namibia, having spent three weeks learning how their southern African counterparts are successfully involving local communities in conservation for the benefit of biodiversity and local livelihoods.

The SWAP team's visit — supported by WWF International's EAP small grants programme, the Darwin Initiative and the International Institute for Environment and Development — was designed to facilitate the transfer of valuable community conservation lessons learned in Namibia to rural Cambodia.

In particular, the team learned about Namibia's conservancy communities and community-based wildlife monitoring systems, with the idea of replicating similar systems for communities living around Cambodia's Mondulkiri protected forest in the eastern part of the country.

"The team saw with their own eyes how previously disempowered community members have been employed as rangers, have gained a voice and are helping to channel revenue from tourism back into their communities," said Nick Cox, WWF Cambodia's Dry Forests Programme Coordinator and organizer of the visit.

The tour began with three days in Namibia's flagship wildlife conservation area, Etosha National Park. The time spent there was special for many reasons, not least of which was the amazing abundance of wildlife and the opportunity to see rare black rhino, lions and cheetahs, as well as experiencing the vastness of the landscape. An added bonus for Martin von Kaschke, SWAP's South African-born technical advisor, was to see his old home at Etosha's Namutoni camp, where he grew up in the 1970s. This was his first visit back in 30 years.

"What is amazing is that conservation issues in Cambodia and southern Africa are so similar," observed von Kaschke. "Equally amazing is that the approaches to solving the biggest problems are similar too, and we think we can take what has been successfully achieved with communities in Namibia and translocate many of the methods and techniques into the Cambodia context."

After Etosha, the team spent a week in Namibia's northern Caprivi region learning about a community-based wildlife monitoring system, which has been successfully operating for the past 13 years. The team met community and government representatives in a number of conservancies, challenging them with difficult questions about the effectiveness of local conservation initiatives and how communities have benefited. The experience provided the Cambodian team with a number of valuable lessons on how best to engage local communities. Initial discussions were had within the team on how the Caprivi successes could be replicated in Cambodia.

Taking the opportunity to see other national parks, the Cambodian's spent a week in Waterberg National Park under the expert guidance of Chief Warden, Boas Erckie. Taking time out from his studies on small mammals, Boas guided the team around the park showing them how Waterberg had become one of the top protected areas for producing excess wildlife for restocking other conservation areas. This allows the government to generate income from the sale of wildlife to other areas in Namibia (and other parts of Africa) to cover part of the cost of conservation.

A highlight of the Waterberg visit was two days spent shadowing Namibian park rangers as they tracked black rhinos, a skilful but dangerous activity that provided many lessons for the visitors. It was also a very practical opportunity for the Cambodian team's poacher-turned-ranger Lean Kha to learn what to do when tracking large mammals that suddenly turn around and become aggressive.

"I never used to have problem during my hunting days when faced with an angry elephant that I had been tracking in the forest," he explained. "I would simply shoot it. Of course, we don't do that anymore so now we need to learn how to get out of the way!"

Now that the team is back in the field in Cambodia's Dry Forests, the next few months will be spent planning the appropriate methodology and designing the materials needed to get the project's community members involved in monitoring wildlife and local community use of natural resources. Having seen what has been achieved in Namibia, the team is fired up and ready for action.

"We are all very excited at the prospect of getting back to the Dry Forests in Cambodia and testing out a locally designed community-based wildlife monitoring system as soon as possible," von Kaschke said.

END NOTES:

• The Srepok Wilderness Area — in Cambodia's eastern Mondulkiri Province — is part of the Lower Mekong Dry Forests Ecoregion, one of 200 large landscapes identified by WWF as being of global importance. The largest contiguous area of dry forest in all of mainland Southeast Asia, it is dominated by deciduous trees with patches of evergreens. Mixed in with these forests are seasonal meadows and ponds, as well as wetlands associated with the Mekong River. The area is also home to rich wildlife, including tiger, Asian elephant, wild water buffalo, banteng, gaur, Eld's deer and numerous bird species.

• The Srepok Wilderness Area Project (SWAP) is a partnership between WWF and the Cambodian Forestry Administration.

Cambodia inaugurates two protected areas

2005-12-14

Mondulkiri Province, Cambodia – The Cambodian government has inaugurated two protected areas, highlighting the global significance of the country's unique dry forest habitats.

The two protected areas — Phnom Prich Wildlife Sanctuary and Mondulkiri Protected Forest — form part of one of the largest complexes of connected protected areas in Southeast Asia, covering more than one million hectares in a region referred to as the Eastern Plains.

"Despite the massive toll that Cambodia's recent history has taken on the dry forests, there is still hope for the incredible and globally significant biodiversity found here," said Dr Chris Hails, WWF International's Conservation Programme Director. "Taking action to protect this area now, will allow wildlife populations to recover and return the Eastern Plains Landscape to its former glory."

The Eastern Plains Landscape of Cambodia is home to many rare and endangered animal species, and is considered one of the last refuges for populations of several large mammal species in the Dry Forests of Southeast Asia, such as tiger, Asian elephant, wild water buffalo, banteng, gaur, Eld's deer, and endangered large birds including the sarus crane, and white-shouldered and giant ibises. All these species require large amounts of space and migrate freely throughout the landscape, and often cross into Vietnam, where hunting and trade threats are considered to be more serious.

The Eastern Plains has high potential for sustainable wildlife tourism. Due to the intact nature of the Dry Forest habitat, WWF, in partnership with Cambodia's Forestry Administration, has recently initiated a pilot project that aims to develop wildlife tourism similar to the safari-style tourism in parts of Africa. Income generated from the project will pay for ongoing conservation initiatives, as well as provide income for local communities and the government.

"Effective protection and conservation of wildlife species will help to make this area become a major tourist destination, second only to Angkor," said Cambodian Environment Minister Dr Mok Moreth. "Such ecotourism can help to reduce poverty within local communities."

WWF believes that sustainable tourism development, as one component of effective management of the protected area complex in the Dry Forests, is one of the most viable options for the Eastern Plains, as there is limited potential for other development activities such as agricultural development, for example, because of poor soil fertility and limited water resources.

WWF hopes that the declaration of the two protected areas will help usher in even greater commitment from the government in addressing key threats to the country's biodiversity and greater cooperation between key environmental ministries.

END NOTES:

• The term Dry Forests refers to a habitat characterized by open deciduous forest, and the associated mosaic of mixed, denser deciduous forest, and semi-evergreen forest.

• WWF has worked in Cambodia since the mid 1990s and is part of the WWF Greater Mekong Programme. The WWF Cambodia programme runs projects mainly in Mondulkiri province through the Srepok Wilderness Area Project (SWAP), Species project in Phnom Prich Wildlife Sanctuary, and MOSAIC (Management of Strategic Areas for Integrated Conservation), and has a staff of more than 75 including field rangers.

• WWF is calling for concerted efforts in raising funds and developing partnerships with a wide range of stakeholders in order to secure biodiversity conservation on a large scale and over the long term. In the short-term, a key goal of WWF is to achieve protection and effective management of an entire landscape within the Lower Mekong Dry Forests Ecoregion; the Eastern Plains. This will contribute considerably to conserving globally significant biodiversity and essential natural resources that support the livelihoods of local communities.

For further information:
Nick Cox, Coordinator
WWF Dry Forests Ecoregion Programme
Tel : +855 23 218 034
E-mail: nick-wwf@everyday.com.kh

Camera trap catches wild buffalo in Cambodia

2005-06-27

After establishing a protected area in eastern Cambodia a year and a half ago, the WWF Srepok Wilderness Area Project (SWAP) is proving that the area is an exceptional refuge for endangered wildlife.

Camera traps set up in the wilderness area recently recorded a series of photos of the critically endangered wild water buffalo. The images are the first since a single photo was taken in 2001 by a joint survey conducted by the Wildlife Conservation Society and the Cat Action Treasury.

The recent photos reveal at least three adults – three sub-adults and one calf – indicating that there is hope for recruitment in the population, despite a standing bounty on buffalo horns where they can fetch as much as US$2,000 at wildlife trade markets in Vietnam.

The wild water buffaloes in Srepok comprise the last remaining population in all of Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, and eastern Thailand. Although the situation is serious in terms of population numbers, it is believed that the resident population – estimated at 30-50 animals – now at least stands a chance of survival.

Future work will include further strengthening the protection of the animals and intensifying monitoring at the site where the buffalo were caught on film. Additionally, efforts will be made to obtain dung and hair samples so that DNA analysis can determine whether this population has any relation to nearby domestic buffalo stock.

Camera traps have also confirmed that the Srepok Wilderness Area harbours several other threatened species of which only tracks and dung have been found. This includes: gaur, banteng, Eld's deer, leopard, dhole, and Asiatic jackal.

Some species not yet photographed, but are known to exist in the area include tiger, Asian elephant, Siamese crocodile, and Malayan sun bear.

Swimming the Mekong

2005-04-03

Phnom Penh, Cambodia – Around 200 participants from as far away as England, Japan, New Zealand and the United States competed in a race across the Mekong to raise awareness of the river's biological and social importance.

The 10th Annual Mekong River Swim, sponsored by WWF, was held just outside the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh. Cheered on by large crowds along the river's shore, the swimmers – ranging from professionals and amateurs to the members of the Cambodian National Swim Team – competed in the approximately 700m crossing.

Greg Hallen (9 minutes 13 seconds) and Bae Soo Jin (12 minutes 43 seconds) won the men's and woman's classifications respectively.

"We hope that the participants and spectators that came out for today's event will have a better understanding of how important maintaining the health of this river system is for the millions of people, and thousands of other species, that depend upon it," said Rob Shore of WWF's Living Mekong Programme.

The Mekong River is home to over 1,300 species of fish, including the giant Mekong catfish (Pangasianodon gigas), which can grow to over 300 kilograms and may have historically migrated up to 2000 kilometers. The river's annual fishery is worth in excess of US$1.5 billion.

Despite concerns about competiting in the Mekong's murky waters, organizers were keen to point out that while there is always a slight risk associated with swimming in rivers, the cloudy waters of the Mekong are a result of fine sediment floating in the water, rather than high levels of pollution.

"A key message of this year's swim is how intact and clean the Mekong River is compared to many other very large rivers around the world," Shore added.

For further information:
Rob Shore, Programme Officer
Living Mekong Programme
Tel: +855 23 218 034 (ext. 106)
E-mail: rob@everyday.com.kh