Funding Cuts Leave a Forest at Risk

One of the world’s most important places for nature is a small strip of mountainous forest no more than about 40 miles wide.

And for want of a relatively small amount of money, its long-term health is in doubt.

Not many people have heard of Cambodia’s Cardamom Mountains, home to one of the last large areas of intact tropical forest in Southeast Asia. This unheralded mountain range pales in size to the rainforests of the Amazon or Central Africa, yet acre for acre, its value rivals nearly any terrestrial ecosystem on Earth.

Most notably, the Cardamoms pulse with rare wildlife: A recent survey of the region uncovered elephants, clouded leopards, pileated gibbons and more — a testament to how healthy the ecosystem remains despite recent pressures.

Unfortunately, those pressures are building.

As Cambodia has developed, these forests — once so inaccessible that they remained basically untouched for centuries — are no longer safe from illegal logging and poaching, revenues from which are known to fund human trafficking and the drug trade across Southeast Asia. The 22 communities in and around the Cardamoms that depend on the forest, meanwhile, are increasingly caught in the currents of global markets pushing them to convert these forests to lucrative plantations and logging.

So critical is this region for nature and people that Conservation International has been working there for decades — and is this close to fulfilling a commitment to secure forests there for decades more.