Volume 10: Protected Areas and Sustainable Tourism 53 Developing Partnerships for Conservation in the Cardamom Mountains, Cambodia P. Dearden1, S. Gauntlet2 and B. Nollen3 1University of Victoria, Victoria, Canada 2Wildlife Alliance, Phnom Penh, Cambodia 3 International Consultancy Europe, Bangkok, Thailand Abstract Protected areas owned and operated by national agencies have long been the mainstay of global conservation planning. However much more needs to be done to conserve the biodiversity of the broader landscape than can be achieved solely within the confines of protected area systems run by national governments. This paper describes an initiative in the Cardamom Mountains, Cambodia, where conservation planning embraces a large number of stakeholders using a variety of approaches to achieve conservation goals. The Cardamom Mountains cover some 880 000 ha of seasonal rainforest in SW Cambodia and are thought to be the largest contiguous extent of this forest formation remaining in mainland SE Asia. Many species, such as elephants, tigers, banteng and dhole that are regionally rare can still be found in the forests. The area is also home to the world’s largest population of Siamese crocodiles and various other critically endangered species, especially turtles. The area is coming under increasing pressure from both legal and illegal activities and conservation groups have been pro- active in designing and implementing a variety of approaches that accept the needs for economic development, but strive to achieve this in a sustainable manner. In the South West Cardamoms Wildlife Alliance, a US-based NGO has partnered with the private sector to access funds that allow such plans to be implemented in a manner consistent with government policy. The plans operate over a landscape that embraces Proceedings of the FORTROP II: Tropical Forestry Change in a Changing World 17-20 November 2008, Kasetsart University, Bangkok, Thailand 54 FORTROP II: Tropical Forestry Change in a Changing World protected areas such as national parks and wildlife sanctuaries, but also less formally-protected lands in forest use and also in agricultural development. This paper describes some of the activities being undertaken to sustain communities in the area while ensuring that conservation values are maintained. Keywords: forest conservation, protected area, partnership, Cardamon Mountain, rainforest Introduction Southeast Asia is of global significance in terms of biodiversity (Myers et al., 2000) but has suffered large-scale deforestation and hunting pressures over the past couple of decades. The region has the highest relative rate of deforestation of any region in the tropics and could lose three quarters of its original forests by 2100 and up to 42% of its biodiversity (Sodhi et al., 2004). Large areas of contiguous forest are rare. The Cardamom Mountains area in southwest Cambodia, at 1 870 316 ha, is one of the largest relatively intact forest landscapes remaining and it conserves significant biodiversity with many rare and endangered species including the largest of only three remaining populations of the critically endangered Siamese crocodile. The area remained largely intact as one of the last strongholds of the Khmer Rouge but now the area is seeing rapid encroachment spurred by profits to be made from logging, land shortages elsewhere in Cambodia bringing high immigration, land speculation and the paving of Route 48 from the Thai border up to Phnom Penh. The Royal Government of Cambodia (RGC) had divided much of the area into logging concessions, but these were cancelled in 2002, as a result of concern over excessive deforestation occurring in the rest of the country. The southern part of the area was designated as Botum Sakor National Park under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Environment (MoE). The remainder of the area is under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF) and its forestry branch, the Forestry Administration (FA), under a variety of categories of land having various amounts of protection with differing degrees of permanence. The government recognised the value of the area for conservation, but also recognised the need to provide some development opportunities. Unfortunately, Volume 10: Protected Areas and Sustainable Tourism 55 the data suggests that there is a strong inverse relationship between forest cover and level of development in Southeast Asia (Sodhi et al., 2004) and one of the main challenges is to achieve higher levels of economic growth without incurring the costs of deforestation. In Cambodia, land speculation became a main driver for deforestation in the early years of the 21st century. In 2002, the high level of illegal forest activities coupled with little capacity within government institutions prompted the FA to seek assistance from several NGOs to protect the area, including Wildlife Alliance. Together the FA and Wildlife Alliance created the Southwest Elephant Corridor program (SWEC) aiming to protect the forest between Botum Sakor National Park and the Central Cardamoms Protected Forest as a wildlife corridor (Figure 1). An innovative partnership was born out of need, and the purpose of this paper was to outline the nature of this partnership for this area, now known as the South Cardamoms Coastal (SCC) Project, and also the way in which it has since broadened to include other partners. Phnom Samkos Central Cardamoms Phnom Aural - Peam Krasop MAFF & FA Southern Cardamoms Kirirom MoE Kirirom Extension Botum Sakor Dong Peng Bokor Figure 1 Map showing location and administrative boundaries in Cardamom Mountains. The red line shows the boundary of the South Coastal Cardamoms (SCC). 56 FORTROP II: Tropical Forestry Change in a Changing World Background The Cardamom Mountain Range rises from the Gulf of Thailand to the highest point in Cambodia, Mount Aural, at 1771 m above sea level. The mountains are characterized by high rainfall for much of the year, with some parts receiving more than 5000 mm annually, particularly on the south- western slopes, which catch the saturated southwest monsoon from May to October. This high rainfall gives rise to numerous rivers, which in turn feed into the Gulf of Thailand to the south and the Mekong basin and the Tonle Sap to the northwest. The area forms the largest contiguous rainforest in mainland Southeast Asia and is considered one of the main biodiversity hotspots on the planet (Myers et al., 2000). There is a wide variety of natural habitats depending on variation in altitude, geology and hydrology. The most abundant formation is tropical, lowland, evergreen forest, much of which is still in primary condition. This formation is very rare in Southeast Asia, as most of it has been cleared for agricultural activities. It is also the richest formation in Southeast Asia (and one of the richest in the world) for biodiversity. Sixteen different eco-systems have been recognised including 14 globally endangered and threatened species. The Southern Coastal Cardamoms (SCC) encompasses an area of 881 316 ha including semi-alpine forest, hill evergreen forest, lowland evergreen forest, open forest, melaleuca forest, mangrove forest, grassland and wetlands. Approximately 720 000 ha (80%) of the ecosystem is under forest cover. The Cardamoms host over half of Cambodia’s known 2300 species of plants. About 230 of these species are endemic to Cambodia and more than 100 of these endemic species are from the Cardamom forests. New varieties of ginger and orchids, which have never been catalogued before, have been found in the Cardamoms. During the wet season of July-September 2002, WildAid (now Wildlife Alliance) supported the FA to conduct a biodiversity survey of the core zone in the SCC. During the following dry season of November 2002-May 2003, WildAid and FA conducted a biodiversity survey of the entire SCC (Daltry and Traeholt, 2003). As a result of these surveys, along with previous biodiversity surveys conducted in 1998-2002 by Fauna and Flora International (FFI) and Conservation International (CI), the Cardamoms were identified as one of the last seven elephant corridors in Southeast Asia and a major biodiversity hotspot on the planet. FFI, CI, CAT Treasury and Volume 10: Protected Areas and Sustainable Tourism 57 medications, medical equipment, nurses, and general practitioners or doctors to ensure adequate health care. A large number of villages and communes do not have health centres, and continue to depend on traditional medicines found in the forest. Population growth is expected to have a significant influence on the Southern Cardamoms. Koh Kong has been identified as the province with the highest expected population growth in all of Cambodia, with an average annual growth rate between 2001 and 2021 of 4% (National Institute of Statistics, 2000). Koh Kong province has a number of features, which make it especially attractive for development: a close proximity to Thailand, a large coastal area, and a newly constructed highway connecting Phnom Penh with Bangkok. Land prices in Koh Kong have had an average growth rate of 14.4% per year since 1995, with the current price of agricultural land approximately 4000 US$/ha (Ministry of Commerce, 2002; Grogan et al., 2008). This price increase, together with the government’s plans to develop the area around Koh Kong town further into a Special Economic Zone (SEZ), has sparked widespread land speculation in the region, with people encroaching on the land to claim ownership, so thereafter it can be sold (Cambodia Mirror, 2008). Furthermore, 13 hydropower sites have been identified in the project area, one of which has already been approved. A further six sites have been identified as priority projects by the Ministry of Industry, Mines and Energy in 2003 (Middleton, 2008). Without heavy incentives to protect the forest, it is likely that these six projects will be realised within the next 10 years and thousands of hectares of forested land and several villages will be inundated. If people lose their land to development, or if crop yields decline due to changes in water quantity or quality, the affected people will inevitably have to settle somewhere else.