Wildlife Alliance Partners with Governments of Cambodia & India to Reintroduce Tigers to Cambodia

First Project to Bring Tigers Back to the Cardamom Rainforest

PHNOM PENH, CAMBODIA, May 30, 2024 /EINPresswire.com/ — Wildlife Alliance, in partnership with Cambodia’s Ministry of Environment, India’s National Tiger Conservation Authority, and the Wildlife Institute of India, is reintroducing 11 tigers to Cambodia. This project aims to repopulate wild tigers in Cambodia, where they have been extinct for over 15 years due to illegal poaching driven by the international black market.

Dr. Suwanna Gauntlett, Chief Executive Officer of Wildlife Alliance, said, “Tigers play a key role in maintaining healthy ecosystems. Four adolescent tigers – one male and three females from the Western Ghats Mountain range in India – will be relocated to the Cardamom Rainforest to restore Cambodia’s native tiger population. We are bringing back the tigers, and they will call the Cardamoms their home.”

Southeast Asia is at the epicenter of the global extinction crisis. Tigers need a large, continuous range with abundant prey and protection from hunting. The network of protected areas in the Cardamom Rainforest landscape offers a vast expanse of forest cover, grasslands, and wetlands that are ideal for tiger reintroduction. These protected areas include the Southern Cardamom National Park, Tatai Wildlife Sanctuary, and Phnom Samkos Wildlife Sanctuary.

Cambodia’s Cardamom Rainforest landscape benefits from legal protection and effective law enforcement by joint Ministry of Environment and Wildlife Alliance park ranger patrols. Together, they address threats through hands-on protection of some 1.2 million hectares of dense rainforest in the Cardamoms.

In 2002, the Royal Government of Cambodia signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Republic of India to help repopulate the tigers, as India is home to the largest remaining population of tigers in the world.

The wild tigers captured in India will be transported by air to Cambodia and then driven to the Tiger Reintroduction Station in Koh Kong province, their new home in the Cardamoms, which has been successfully protected for two decades by rigorous work from the Ministry of Environment and Wildlife Alliance.

H. E. Dr. Chea Sam Ang, Secretary of State of the Ministry of Environment in Cambodia, said, “The presence of tigers will symbolize a clean and sustainable environment, reflecting the harmonious coexistence of humans and wildlife. The Cardamoms is a lush green forest landscape area that has the capacity to support a population of up to 100 tigers, making it a standout natural habitat compared to other such landscapes across Asia.”

Also attending the announcement was India’s Ambassador to the Kingdom of Cambodia, H. E. Dr. Devyani Khobragade, who said, “India and Cambodia will create history together with the successful first-ever translocation of tigers in the world! Let us commit ourselves to realizing this dream!”

In closing remarks at the tiger reintroduction announcement, H. E. Dr. Chea Sam Ang added, “Bringing back wild tigers to the Cambodian forest has been a long, diligent process through many years. We are all excited for the tigers to come. However, there is lots of hard work remaining even after they arrive. We all need to protect them so they can live in harmony in their natural habitat in the Cardamoms.”

For more information please visit: https://www.wildlifealliance.org/tiger-reintroduction/

About Wildlife Alliance

The international NGO Wildlife Alliance was founded by Dr Suwanna Gauntlett to offer direct protection to forests and wildlife through cutting-edge conservation programs. Wildlife Alliance provides technical assistance and critical thinking to governments, and strives for stakeholder consensus in achieving solutions to multiple environmental threats, including animal trafficking, economic land concessions for agro-industrial plantations and mining, and community encroachment on forestland. Wildlife Alliance is the leader in direct action in the Southeast Asian tropical belt.

Scarlett Green
Wildlife Alliance
+855 86 769 370
[email protected]
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