How you can help save the world's most trafficked mammal
Unaware of the price on its head, the hapless pangolin scurried across the jungle floor; most likely it was looking for ants, which the creatures gleefully scoop up with their long, sticky tongues. But Cambodia’s forests can spring nasty surprises on unsuspecting animals and the pangolin’s foraging trip was cut violently short when a poacher’s snare snagged its scaly feet.
“By the time we arrived the poor thing was a mess,” recalls Suwanna Gauntlett, CEO of the Wildlife Alliance, which runs conservation projects all over the world, including Cardamom Tented Camp, an eco-lodge in Cambodia – one of three organisations shortlisted for Tourism for Tomorrow’s Changemakers award, which acknowledges organisations using tourism to tackle the illegal wildlife trade.
The tangled pangolin was freed from the snare and taken to a rehabilitation centre run by the alliance, where it now hobbles around, “as happy as a clam”, with a new partner. “She’s mothering her third litter now and doing just great,” reports Gauntlett. “When the baby pangolins are old enough, we’ll release them into the forest.”
Although the African elephant is often held up as the poster child of the anti-poaching movement, the pangolin is perhaps a more appropriate symbol. Believed to be the most trafficked animal on Earth, this creature has been mercilessly hunted for its scales, which are used in Chinese medicine to treat various ills, despite scientists insisting they have no health benefits.
Those scales, little plates of armour that are supposed to protect pangolins from predators, fetch up to ￡360 per kilo on the black market, a sizeable sum anywhere, and especially in poor countries like Cambodia. Consequently, numbers of the once-abundant creatures have plummeted in Asia, as poachers attempt to cash in on the illegal wildlife trade, a global industry worth around ￡15 billion annually.
The sad reality is that you could make a case for any number of species to be chosen to front the anti-poaching campaign: from elephants to sharks, parrots to pangolins, the illegal wildlife trade has thousands of victims. As a result, many species are on the brink.
But against this bleak backdrop there are reasons to be hopeful. The booming global tourist industry and greater public awareness about conservation is fuelling the growing trend for responsible travel.
More than ever, holidaymakers are demanding trips that not only have minimal impact on the environment, but also help to preserve it. And they have a growing number of responsible tour operators, accommodation providers and destinations to choose from, which between them have an important role to play in conservation.
This is something that deserves to be commended, because fighting poaching can be a dangerous game. Cambodian wildlife ranger, Kheng Sokheng Chum, will attest to that. Many years ago, he and some colleagues were shot at by poachers as they slept in hammocks in the jungle.
“One of the team was killed,” he explains, gravely. “Afterwards we found holes in our hammocks – we were lucky more of us were not killed or seriously injured.” Chum, for whom shoot-outs are a thing of the past, now works as a ranger at Cardamom Tented Camp.
The lodge occupies a 44,478 acre concession in Botum Sakor National Park. Cardamom Tented Camp comprises nine luxury glamping tents, which are scattered through the jungle and wouldn’t look out of place in more established safari destinations such as South Africa and Kenya.
But Cardamom Tented Camp isn’t just a place to observe wildlife. Guests also have the opportunity to participate in boots-on-the-ground conservation work, by going on (peaceful) patrols with rangers like Chum. A cross between a safari and an anti-poaching exercise, the patrols happen night and day – on foot and by kayak – and involve removing snares and nets, which poachers use to catch unsuspecting creatures, chiefly pangolins.
“This year alone rangers have taken several miles of netting from the forest and rescued six pangolins,” explains Allan Michaud, the lodge’s manager, indicating the scale of the problem. “We pulled out and destroyed 500 yards of netting in just one night with some guests.”
Wildlife sightings during patrols are common and creatures to look out for – other than pangolins, of course – include macaques, gibbons, hornbills, slow lorises and Asian elephants, which suffered horrendous losses at the turn of the century due to poaching.
“They were killed for their bones, which were sent to Thailand as fake ivory,” explains San Francisco-born Gauntlett, who has worked all over the world. “Their meat was also eaten and their tails sold as aphrodisiacs.”
Gauntlett claims elephant poaching has fallen by 98 per cent in the region since Wildlife Alliance arrived in 2002. She attributes this to a combination of tougher sentences for hunters, a government-sponsored anti-poaching campaign and her hardworking rangers.
“[The elephants] are rebuilding their population,” adds Gauntlett. “Our camera traps have picked up herds with many calves.”
By employing locals at the lodge, which opened in 2017, Wildlife Alliance has underpinned its conservation work by providing families with alternatives to logging and poaching. Chum, one of 12 rangers employed by the lodge – and one of 120 employed by Wildlife Alliance in the region – is a prime example of how tourism can help change attitudes towards conservation.
“When I was younger, I was an illegal logger,” he explains, candidly. “I was caught by Chut Wutty, a famous environmentalist in Cambodia (Wutty was murdered in 2012 while investigating illegal logging). He gave me a choice to work with him or to be arrested – I chose to work with him.”
Kheng has become a proud custodian of Cambodia’s wildlife – “I like that I am able to protect the forest and the animals,” he says – though, like the rest of his comrades, he has his work cut out.
“It’s a constant challenge,” explains Romica Grosu, another ranger, who moved to Cambodia from Romania. Grosu says he never ceases to be surprised at how resourceful traffickers can be when it comes to bundling wildlife out of the park.
“We caught one poacher trying to smuggle pangolins in a television set strapped to his motorbike,” he recalls. “That gives you an idea of how inventive smugglers can be.”
Despite an estimated 18 per cent of Cambodia being officially protected – including Botum Sakor National Park – the corruption-blighted country has one of the highest rates of deforestation in the world, due to a combination of illegal logging, slash-and-burn agriculture and development. This piles more pressure on the country’s wildlife.
Cardamom Tented Camp, therefore, has become something of a refuge for beleaguered creatures like the pangolin. “Given that the government has sold off 72 per cent of the national park to commercial interests,” reflects Michaud, “we are absolutely vital to the survival of the animal in this park.”
Another creature seemingly with the odds stacked against it is the sea turtle. Populations are plummeting globally due to a range of factors, including pollution, entanglement in fishing gear and construction on beaches where turtles nest. Poaching also poses a threat to the creatures, which are hunted for their meat and shells; some people also eat their eggs.
Consequently, six out of seven of the world’s sea turtle species are considered endangered, with hatchlings now estimated to have just a one in 10,000 chance of making it to adulthood. Trying to improve those odds is See Turtle, a US-based not-for-profit, which has also been nominated for the Changemakers award.
Founded in 2008, See Turtle sends paying volunteers to community-led conservation projects across Latin America, as well as vital funding. It claims to have protected 1.2 million hatchings from poachers, and educated millions of people about sea turtles and the importance of protecting them.
The third and final shortlisted organisation is the Belitung Coastal Community Group in Indonesia, a local enterprise that runs eco-lodges and small-scale nature experiences on the Indonesian archipelago of Belitung, off the coast of Sumatra.
The community group has taken on the considerable challenge of restoring the native ecosystem, which, like much of Indonesia, has been destroyed by palm oil plantations and tin mining. Tourism there now provides an alternative source of income for local people, half of whom were reportedly employed in palm oil or mining.
The group also uses tourism revenue to fund conservation initiatives, including one to prevent turtle poaching and another to stop industrial development encroaching on the jungle. An ambitious reforestation project is also under way, with Belitung Coastal Community Group claiming to have planted 45,000 mangrove trees so far.
The challenges facing the world’s wildlife are considerable, but well-managed tourism initiatives place an economic value on endangered species and help provide viable alternatives to poaching. The three nominated candidates exemplify this and bring hope to some of the planet’s most vulnerable species.
The essentials
For more information about the Tourism for Tomorrow Changemakers award, see: wttc.org/priorities/sustainable-growth/illegal-wildlife-trade
