Raise Awareness to Protect Wildlife in Cambodia

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.