Suwanna Gauntlett, co-founder and executive director of Wildlife Alliance, talks about protecting wildlife in Cambodia. Cambodia has long been one of Asia’s five main source countries for wildlife exported for traditional Asian medicine, exotic pets, and meats. Suwanna tells “The WildLife” host Laurel Neme that when she first arrived in this southeast Asian country in the late 1990s, “you could hardly see any signs of wildlife because of the destruction.” Wildlife was sold everywhere. But that’s changing. Illegal wildlife trade has declined by about 70% in the last 10 years due to a multi-pronged approach working directly with communities and governments both to combat the illegal wildlife trade and to improve forest management. Suwanna and Wildlife Alliance often focus on fighting land development/forest conversions and instead providing alternative and more diversified and sustainable means of making a living. Already, as a result of this work, the government has avoided 28 economic land concessions and saved over 2 million acres of forestland. One of those that Suwanna talks about in this interview are her efforts in the southern Cardamom mountain range, one of Asia’s last seven elephant corridors and Cambodia’s largest remaining intact forest, where her program has reduced elephant poaching there by 95 percent, tiger poaching by 50 percent and forest fires by 80 percent. However, those successes are now under threat due to the recent approval of a land concession for a proposed titanium mine. This episode of “The WildLife” aired on The Radiator, WOMM-LP, 105.9 FM in Burlington, Vermont on March 21, 2011.
The WildLife: Pangolin Rescue with Save Vietnam's Wildlife, Thai Van Nguyen and Gillian Fuller
The WildLife: From bats to humans - echolocation for the blind, Carol Foster
The WildLife: Madison Vorva, Girl Scout and Teen Activist for Orangutans
The WildLife: Rhiannon Tomtishen, Girl Scout and Teen Activist for sustainable palm oil
The WildLife: Kevin Bewick, Anti-Poaching Intelligence Group of Southern Africa (APIGSA)
The WildLife: CITES CoP16 Outcomes, CITES Secretary-General John Scanlon
The WildLife: Polar Bears, Global Warming and CITES Decision, Steven Amstrup
The WildLife: CITES Secretary-General John Scanlon
The WildLife: A Lifetime with Elephants, Iain Douglas-Hamilton
The WildLife: Celia's Campaign Against the Elephant Ivory Trade, Celia Ho
The WildLife: Carbofuran impacts and forensic considerations, Ngaio Richards
The WildLife: The Rhino DNA Index System and it's Role in Anti-Poaching Efforts, Cindy Harper
The WildLife: Nature Walks and Backyard Wildlife, Mark Fraser
The WildLife: Detection Dogs and Wildlife Conservation, Megan Parker
The WildLife: Wildlife documentaries, Carol Foster
The WildLife: Nature Iraq, Anna Bachmann and Hana Ahmed Raza
The WildLife: New Frog Species Discovery in Ecuador, Alejandro Arteaga
The WildLife: The Secret Life of Seahorses, Helen Scales
The WildLife: Primate Smuggling and Tarantula Trade, David Kirkby
The WildLife: Commercial Porcupine Farming in Vietnam, Emma Brooks
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