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: Sounds of Orca Whales, Ari Daniel Shapiro
The WildLife: Once and Future Giants, Sharon Levy
The WildLife: Thailand's Domestic Elephants, John Roberts
The WildLife: Geoducks and Shell Games, Craig Welch
The WildLife: Unlikely Friendships, Jennifer Holland
The WildLife: Biology of Coral Reefs, Kristian Teleki
The WildLife: Howler Monkeys, Robin Brockett
The WildLife: Bear Bile Trade in Asia, Kaitlyn Foley
The WildLife: Dung Beetles, Doug Emlen
The WildLife: Common Terns, Chris Boget
The WildLife: Sun Bears, Siew Te Wong
The WildLife: Vermont Wildlife Stories, Megan Price
The WildLife: Florida State Game Warden, Bob Lee
The WildLife: World Without Fish, Mark Kurlansky (and Talia)
The WildLife: Wildlife Rescue in Cambodia, Nick Marx
The WildLife: Lead Toxicity in Patagonia's Waterfowl, Marcela Uhart
The WildLife: Filmmaking from Jungle Studio in Belize, Carol Foster
The WildLife: Elephant Poaching in Chad, Stephanie Vergniault
The WildLife: Winged Obsession, Jessica Speart
The WildLife: Nature in Iraq, Anna Bachmann & Hana Ahmed Raza
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