On Minefields of Khmer Rouge, Wilderness Is Preserved

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Science Desk; Section F

On Minefields of Khmer Rouge, Wilderness Is Preserved

By ANDREW C. REVKIN

 

06/18/2002

The New York Times

Page 3, Column 2

c. 2002 New York Times Company

 

The Cambodian mountains that were the last stronghold of the Khmer

Rouge may be turned into a preserve, forming a vital link in a chain of

protected areas that would make up the largest green corridor in

mainland Southeast Asia.

 

The central Cardamom Mountains, named for the sweet spice that grows

along their slopes, had been avoided by timber companies and settlers

because of the rebels who controlled the region through the 1990's,

laying minefields and kidnapping or killing interlopers.

But with the Khmer Rouge largely subdued, logging roads have begun

advancing into the cascade-laced highlands, which lie along the

country's western flank, and thousands of refugees seeking patches of

land have been following them.

 

Pressure to prevent logging in the Cardamoms has been coming from

international aid agencies and development banks, which provide Cambodia

with about $500 million in assistance each year.

 

In 1993, a decree by King Norodom Sihanouk gave some protection to

the western and eastern ends of the range, but the central mountains

have remained open to development. Now the Cambodian prime minister, Hun

Sen, and his council of ministers are considering a decree of protection

for the one-million-acre region.

 

But the ministers are under pressure not just from the international

lenders that want to preserve the land but also from Asian timber

companies, some of which already hold logging concessions in the

mountain range.

 

If the preserve is created, the adjacent protected areas would form a

2.44-million-acre path for wildlife in a part of Asia where rain forests

have largely been diced into ever-shrinking fragments.

 

The biological bounty in the Cardamoms became evident in 2000, after

Flora and Fauna International, a private conservation group in London,

conducted surveys that turned up dozens of threatened plants and

animals, including Siamese crocodiles, tigers and a rare gibbon species.

 

But the mountains are important to more than wildlife. The steep

slopes of the Cardamoms drain into the Tonle Sap, a lake and river

system that supplies perhaps half the annual fish catch in Cambodia,

said David Mead, Conservation International's project manager for

Cambodia. The private group, based in Washington, partly paid for the

survey in 2000 and Mr. Mead is running a program conducting patrols

against poaching and illegal logging.

 

Significant clearing of the slopes, combined with the region's

enormous rainfall, would result in severe erosion, Mr. Mead said. ''If

you silt that lake up, you'll have a real problem on your hands,'' he

said. ''Just the watershed factor alone should be enough to say that

logging shouldn't occur there.''

 

In fact, all of the protected areas -- those created in 1993 and the

new one -- exist mainly on paper. The cash-poor country is rife with

illegal cutting of valuable hardwood trees and poaching of wildlife.

 

Conservation International started helping to organize and equip

forest patrols in 2001, and will continue providing $500,000 a year for

the effort, group officials said.

 

''You can't just create these areas and say thanks and take off,''

said Dr. Russell A. Mittermeier, a biologist and president of

Conservation International. ''If you're not in there with patrols, in

five years it'll be sucked dry of wildlife and chopped in pieces like

the rest of Indochina.''

 

Photos: A bountiful array of wildlife, including the threatened pileated

gibbon at top and the sun bear, would be protected under plans for a

preserve in the cascade-laced central Cardamom Mountains of Cambodia.; A

thriving wildlife trade in Cambodia imperils animals like the

Indochinese tiger, above. At left, the skin of a clouded

<WCHL>leopard</WCHL>, a

threatened species, is for sale at a wildlife shop in Phnom Penh.

(Photographs from Conservation International)

Map of Cambodia highlighting the Central Cardamom Forest.

 

 

 

Folder Name: Asia Conservation Leopard

Relevance Score on Scale of 100: 81

 

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