Raise Awareness to Protect Wildlife in Cambodia

In February, the Kouprey Express (KE) environmental education unit travelled to Kampot Province, Cambodia in collaboration with BirdLife International to urge people and students to aid in the protection of Sarus Cranes. Sarus Cranes, one widely distributed across South and Southeast Asia, have undergone rapid population declines due to widespread hunting, egg collection, and habitat loss. Sarus Cranes in Cambodia are particularly vulnerable to habitat loss because they are dependent on two distinct wetland habitats: seasonally flooded grasslands for breeding in the wet season, and permanent marshlands during the non-breeding dry season.

The KE team provided lessons and activities focused on Sarus Crane protection to a total of 478 (213 girls) in four schools in Kampot province, Cambodia. These activities consisted of an interactive presentation, wildlife-themed games, a Q&A session, and wildlife-themed art. Laughter and fun is an effective way of conveying important messages and building understanding of the threats to and ways to protect wildlife and this collaboration was no exception. Several lucky students won wildlife t-shirts and backpacks by answering tough questions correctly during the Q&A session and at the end of lessons everyone received pens, wildlife-themed notebooks, and a sticker and card that has Wildlife Alliance’s 24-hour nationwide wildlife rescue number, 012-500-094.

Thank you for your support of our environmental education team and helping us raise the next generation of environmentally conscious citizens and helping preserve Southeast Asia’s precious wildlife and habitat.

P.S. This week GlobalGiving is matching all donations up to $50 at 50% and all new recurring donations at 100%! 

As the year came to a close, the Kouprey Express environmental education team brought 50 students on a field trip to the Phnom Tamao Wildlife Rescue Center on December 12. The primary school students from Tbong Khmum province had just learned about wildlife and habitat conservation from the KE a day prior. Visiting the rescue center gives teachers and students a hands on experience that encourages them to protect their natural heritage, wildlife and forests. The teachers were very excited to see their students to explore and expand on their new knowledge outside the classroom.

The rescue center’s guides gave the teachers and students an interactive tour and taught them about the biology and behavior of wild animals. Many students were seeing some of these animals for the very first time and it prompted students to be very excited to learn more about wildlife. The experience seemed to spark a curiosity in the students and they asked their guides countless questions about the animals they were meeting. Both the students and their teachers left the trip with a new awareness and value of wildlife and forest protection.

Thank you for your support of our environmentat education efforts and helping us foster the next generation of environemtal advocates! 

The Kouprey Express (KE) mobile education recently returned from their second ever international trip to Thailand! The KE team spent a week in Thailand, near the Thai-Cambodian border, working with four Thai National Park Rangers to provide environmental lessons to 257 primary and secondary school students. This cross-border collaboration is helping to preserve Thailand and Cambodia’s natural heritage in a region where the two cultures meld and the wildlife is not confined by international borders. In this southeastern region of Thailand, not only are the landscape and wildlife very similar to that in Cambodia, but around 30% of the people also speak the Cambodian language of Khmer. The KE team translated all of their educational materials into Thai to ensure the same message of conservation is being spread on both sides of the border. These lessons inspire students and community members to love wildlife and to preserve their natural environment as well as understand the impacts of climate change. As a special treat for the students, rangers and staff from Ta Phraya National Park accompanied the KE team to provide students in depth information about the forestry and wildlife laws of Thailand. They also helped teach the students the forestry and wildlife crime hotline numbers for both Thailand and Cambodia.

This international collaboration is ensuring that conservation efforts are not restrained by borders and is helping students to understand that it does not matter where you come from but that we all need to work together to protect nature and our planet. As we raise a new generation of conservationists, we hope they will grow up with a new mindset towards natural resources and they will avoid damaging forests and poaching wildlife. 

Thank you for your crucial support of the Kouprey Express! Your donations help make trips like this possible and allow us to spread our conservation message across international borders. 

A recurring problem in Cambodia and throughout Southeast Asia is the unsustainable levels of illegal hunting that contributes to biodiversity loss. Despite the dedicated anti-poaching teams WA has in place, illegal hunting is appearing more regularly in the forest around Phnom Tamao Wildlife Rescue Center. Illegal hunting is common throughout Cambodia despite the laws and regulations against it, but the increasing prevalence in the Phnom Tamao Forest is particularly worrisome because we release many rescued animals there. Local hardware stores tell us that their sales of short length steel piping have been soaring, indicating that homemade firearms are on the rise. These homemade guns are used for one purpose: hunting.

Sometimes the temptation of fast cash is just too great to resist for many families and individuals, especially those living in poverty. To protect the animals in Phnom Tamao Forest, we have trained and employed local community rangers to patrol the forest around the rescue center. A reliable team of rangers is vital because they are the first to notice and respond to any illegal activity in the area. Many of the animals that we rescue and rehabilitate are released and given their second chance at life in the Phnom Tamao Forest and it is our mission to ensure that they can live out the rest of their lives free in the wild. Illegal hunting at unsustainable levels is a fast way to bring a species to extinction. Unfortunately, wildlife in Cambodia is threatened by both subsistence hunters, who target animals for their meat, and by poachers, who aim to sell animals in the illegal wildlife trade.

In response to the increase of hunting and poaching in the Phnom Tamao Forest, Wildlife Alliance’s Kouprey Express mobile environmental education team has conducted outreach and education efforts with the communities in the surrounding areas. The Kouprey Express worked with over 400 students from different villages near Phnom Tamao at Thmor Sor Secondary School. In these sessions, they talked about the advantages of wildlife and habitat conservation and the disadvantages of wildlife and habitat extinction.

These lessons are valuable to the survival of the wildlife and forests in the area because they aim to prevent and stop people from illegal hunting. Many times, people act without understanding the effect they are causing. These lessons are helping to bring awareness and purpose to the communities and showing them that their actions have consequences and they can make a difference. 

Thank you for your generous support of the Kouprey Express which is helping empower the next generation of conservation advocates in Cambodia. So far this year, the Kouprey Express has given lessons to 2,657 students and 1,042 community members, donated 288,740 notebooks to schools, and have distributed 1,672 Wildlfie Crime Hotline stickers. 

Wildlife Alliance’s Kouprey Express Mobile Education Unit has partnered with the Cambodian Fishing Cat Project to raise awareness and educate villagers in the far reaches of the mangroves of Koh Kong province about fishing cats and how to protect them. Classified as Vulnerable, these cats are very rare in Cambodia and have only been seen on camera traps once in the country since 2003. Fishing cat populations are believed to be declining at an alarming rate across all range countries, but especially in Southeast Asia. They are even believed to be the most vulnerable of small and medium sized cats in Southeast Asia because there is little overlap of their wetland habitat with other protected landscapes. Fishing cats are mainly threatened by habitat loss and fragmentation, but are also hunted for their meat and as retaliation for damaging fishing nets.

In February, the Kouprey Express traveled with the Fishing Cat Project to two schools in Koh Kong province, giving lessons to 147 students and 38 community members. In the workshops, students and community members were given informational posters about fishing cats (see the poster in English below), created artwork, and played educational games. Through this partnership, we hope to raise awareness of the unique fishing cat in communities in their range in order to prevent them from being killed or their habitat destroyed.

Thank you for helping spread awareness of pressing environmental issues to the communities that are most affected. So far in 2017, the Kouprey Express has given environmental lessons to 1,167 students and have brought 201 people to Phnom Tamao Wildlife Rescue Center to meet rescued wildlife. Your support has been vital to the success of this program! 

• Fishing Cat educational poster (PDF)