Help Rangers Protect Endangered Cambodian Wildlife

The multi-million dollar illegal luxury timber trade poses a relentless threat to Cambodia’s rainforests. In fact, an estimated 85% of Cambodia’s timber exports end up in China, feeding the craze for Hongmu furniture – a highly-sought-after type of luxury furniture. In the Cardamom Mountains rainforest, luxury timber is cut by illegal loggers before being trafficked inconspicuously on National Roads to middlemen in urban centres. As a GlobalGiving donor who helps equip rangers for their patrols of protected areas in the Cardamoms, your contributions enable us to keep battling the illegal trade in luxury timber.  

In July, Wildlife Alliance rangers from Osom and Roveang stations, in coordination with the Ministry of Environment, ambushed a truck on a National Roadtrafficking an inordinate amount of illegal timber. The truck containing an enormous 670 cubic feet of illegal timber was ambushed based on information provided to the rangers by an informant.

A few weeks later, Chambok station rangers seized more than 3 tonnes of illegal luxury timber from a house within their patrol quadrant. A total of 227 pieces of Siamese rosewood (Dalbergia cochinchinensis), known as ‘Krak kranhoong’ locally, were seized in the raid. Siamese rosewood is listed as Vulnerable by the IUCN Red List and is becoming increasingly rare because of demand for the illegal timber industry. The rangers also seized small amounts of ‘Nangnuon’, another type of luxury timber, as well as the skin of a serow and 1 dead red muntjac.