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(May 26, 2020) Located inside Keo Seima Wildlife Sanctuary, Sre Preah community protected area (CPA) was established in January 2019. Over 200 families from across three villages in Sre Preah commune—O Chra, Pu Char, and Pu Kong—are members of the CPA. People in these villages traditionally rely heavily on rice cultivation and chamkar, but these activities generate insufficient income to support a household throughout an entire year. The USAID Keo Seima Conservation Project (USAID KSCP), implemente...

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(May 26, 2020) Koh Kong—On May 24, 2020, H.E Veng Sakhon, Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF) led a delegation to visit Koh Kong Reptile Conservation Center located in Tuol Koki village of Koh Kong province. The purpose was to learn about WCS’s Royal Turtle Conservation Project which has been implementing since 2001 in collaboration with MAFF’s Fisheries Administration (FiA) and local community along the Sre Ambel River System in Sre Amble district in Koh Kong and Preah Sih...

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(May 23, 2020) Phnom Penh—To mark World Turtle Day, Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) celebrates the conservation of the Critically Endangered Cantor’s Giant Softshell Turtles in Cambodia. “With continuous support from our donors and good cooperation from the Fisheries Administration (FiA), plus strong commitments of our field staff and community nest protection team, WCS has made significant progress in implementing its project over the past years,” said Ken Sereyrotha, Country Progr...

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(May 19, 2020) Koh Kong – Twenty-three Royal Turtles hatched from nests on the Sre Ambel River this year. This is more than the total number hatched in the previous three years combined. The 23 hatchlings were from three Royal Turtle nests found and protected by a community nest protection team on two sand beaches along Sre Ambel River system in Koh Kong Province. One of the nests was found on a beach used every year by the turtles, while the other two nests were found on a beach not used by turtles...

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(April 30, 2020) (April 30, 2020) - Environment Minister Say Samal on Tuesday said upon inspection on the conservation work in Keo Seima Wildlife Sanctuary, authorities reported the sanctuary is home to 60 species of rare and critically endangered animals and 25 species of carnivorous animals. The place was also recognised for its conservation of Asian elephants. “We would like to acknowledge the efforts of rangers and officials of the Wildlife Conservation Society who have strived to patrol and protect th...

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(April 16, 2020) COVID-19 is giving poachers free reign – hurting species and hurting local economies. Less than 300 ibises now remain in the wild. In a single deliberate poisoning event, three Giant Ibis, equivalent to 1-2 percent of the global population, have been killed – part of a disturbing global trend where conservationists are noticing increases in hunting of protected species since the spread of coronavirus began to disrupt traditional economic and social systems in rural areas. The inciden...

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(March 12, 2020) The Keo Seima REDD+ project is undertaking its 3rd verification. During this process, the project is opening for public comment on the Monitoring and Implementing Report from March 2 to April 1, 2020. Please download the report via the link below:CCB_MON_REP_ENG_DRAFT_1650_01JAN2018_31DEC2019.pdf (English)CCB_MON_REP_KH_DRAFT_562_01JAN2018_31DEC2019.pdf (Khmer)Any comments can be made via VERRA website at https://vcsprojectdatabase.org/#/project_details/1650, or email to: cambodiainfo@...

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(March 02, 2020) Untitled Document On 2nd March 2020, WCS met with representatives of Customs, Police, Forestry Administration, Phnom Penh Court and Wildlife Alliance, to discuss technical support to a case of suspected lion bone trafficking. The meeting followed a seizure of >280kg big cat bones made by the Ministry of Interior’s Counter-Counterfeit Committee, Ministry of Commerce, and Phnom Penh Customs in late December, which resulted in the arrest of two Vietnamese nationals in conn...

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(February 12, 2020) Koh Kong (Feb 12, 2020) – As of January 2020, conservationists from the local communities, Fisheries Administration and WCS found three nests of Royal Turtle with a total of 51 eggs in the Sre Ambel River System. During the previous four years only one nest was found each year. This success comes after the release of the circular and Prakas (announcement) dated July 10, 2017 by the Ministry of Mines and Energy on the resolution to stop all sand dredging business along the Sre Ambel River S...

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(January 10, 2020) Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), the Department of Fisheries Conservation of Fisheries Administration, Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, ​​in collaboration with Wildlife Reserves Singapore (WRS), today released 20 Critically Endangered Royal Turtles (Batagur affinis) into the Sre Ambel River system in Dong Peng commune, Sre Ambel district of Koh Kong province. The release was made under a jointly funded project supported by the European Union (EU), WRS, Rainforest Trust, US Fo...

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(July 23, 2019) Untitled Document In July 2019 WCS in collaboration with the Club of Cambodian Journalists, organized a workshop on "the role of the media in responding to the wildlife trafficking”, to increase the interest of journalists and the coverage of wildlife trafficking issues in the Cambodian media. Seventy-nine Cambodian journalists participated and national media (print, online and tv) covered the event. The workshop was funded by the UK Government through the Illegal Wildlife...

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(June 14, 2019) Sre Ambel, Koh Kong - Conservationists from the Fisheries Administration (FiA), Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and local nest protection team found two nests with 48 eggs of the Critically Endangered Siamese Crocodile at two wetlands in the Sre Ambel River system in Koh Kong Province early this week. Siamese Crocodile (Crocodylus siamensis) is listed on the IUCN Red List as Critically Endangered, because its global population is declining at alarming rate. This species lives only in Ca...

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(June 10, 2019) Cambodia’s population of Bengal florican has sharply declined since 2012, according to a recent survey conducted by Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and Cambodia’s and Ministry of Environment. The findings, which were recently published in the journal Bird Conservation International, showed that the population of Bengal florican in Southeast Asia has declined by 55 percent since 2012. Conservationists now estimate that the number of displaying males in 2018 was only 104, down fro...

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(May 25, 2019) To celebrate World Turtle Day, Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and the Department of Fisheries Conservation of Fisheries Administration, Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries released 200 Endangered Cantor’s Giant Softshell Turtle Hatchlings into the Mekong River on May 25. This is the fourth release of Cantor’s Giant Softshell Turtle Hatchlings into the ​Mekong River in 2019, following the second and third event last March and April in the same district where 654&...

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(May 09, 2019) Five Lesser Adjutants (Leptoptilos javanicus) were successfully transferred from Mundol Kiri province to the wildlife rehabilitation center at the Angkor Centre for Conservation of Biodiversity in Banteay Srey district of Siem Reap province last April. Some of these birds were confiscated by the Royal Government of Cambodia’s Mundol Kiri Provincial Department of Environment rangers (PDoE) in April and some were handed in by local communities after being kept as pets. With good collaboratio...

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(May 02, 2019) Four new Royal Turtle hatchlings hatched and were taken late last month to Koh Kong Reptile Conservation Centre (KKRCC) in Koh Kong Province, for feeding, raising and possibly breeding in the future. The four hatchlings emerged from a nest of seven Royal Turtle eggs found by a WCS Community nest protection team on a nesting beach along the Kampong Leu River in Preah Angkeo village, Dangpeng commune, Sre Ambel district in January 2019. Unfortunately, only four eggs successfully hatched, while the...

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(April 26, 2019) Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and the Department of Fisheries Conservation of Fisheries Administration, Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries released today 20 Critically Endangered Royal Turtles into the Sre Ambel River system, in Boeng Trach village, Chamkar Luong commune in Kampong Seila district of Preah Sihanouk province. The release was made under the EU-funded project implemented by WCS in partnership with Wildlife Alliance, Cambodian Rural Development Team (CRDT) and the ...

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(April 04, 2019) Phnom Penh – Members of working group for zonation of Keo Seima Wildlife Sanctuary (KSWS) received the first capacity building on “Process and Procedure of Zonation and Management Plan for KSWS” after the group was formed in August last year.   Funded by US Agency for International Development (USAID) and Agence Française de Développement (AFD) and co-organized by the Ministry of Environment (MoE) and WCS, the two-day training, commencing on March 28, aimed t...

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(March 26, 2019) Da Nang, March 25-26, 2019 -- Representatives from Customs of Viet Nam and Cambodia and Cambodian National Police met to discuss cross-border collaboration to combat wildlife trafficking in a two-day meeting in Da Nang, Viet Nam on 25-26 March. The meeting provided an opportunity for participants to share information on the roles of each agency, typical cases of cross-border wildlife trafficking, and sophisticated tactics of traders, highlighting that intelligence sharing between Customs an...

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(March 13, 2019) Phnom Penh -- In March 2019 the Ministry of Justice and WCS jointly organized a workshop on transnational wildlife trafficking at Phnom Penh Hotel. Seventy-six participants including Judges and Prosecutors from each of the 24 provinces and staff from the Ministry of Justice participated in the workshop to discuss and develop recommendations on how to strengthen efforts to combat wildlife trafficking in Cambodia. The meeting focused on key issues including investigations of trafficking and the ma...

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