Cardamom National Park, Cambodia \u2013 Pan Sok still remembers his relative screaming as a tiger dragged him away one night, deep inside the Cambodian rainforest where they were tapping trees for resin.<\/p>\n
So he is \u201cnot happy\u201d about a plan to reintroduce the big cats, a decade after they were declared extinct in Cambodia.<\/p>\n
\u201cI saw the tiger take him with my own eyes,\u201d he said, describing the attack that took place over 30 years ago.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was screaming but we couldn\u2019t help him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cambodia\u2019s last confirmed tiger sighting was in 2007 camera trap footage but conservationists say they may soon be able to reintroduce the big cats.<\/p>\n
The plan would see India send several of its more than 3,600 tigers to southwestern Cambodia\u2019s Cardamom Mountains, a protected expanse of lush rainforest stretching over a million hectares.<\/p>\n
Reintroducing tigers could boost protection of Cambodia\u2019s landscapes, restore an iconic apex predator and even boost tourism, said Jimmy Borah of Indian environmental group Aaranyak, who serves as a consultant to Cambodia\u2019s government on the reintroduction.<\/p>\n
It \u201cwould be a conservation message to the world, that this can be done,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
But there are risks.<\/p>\n
Poaching has decimated Cambodian wildlife, creating doubts about about whether the Cardamoms has enough prey for tigers to eat.<\/p>\n
Deforestation continues to erode their proposed new habitat, driven particularly by dam projects \u2014 and local residents say they have not been consulted.<\/p>\n
Indian tiger biologist Ullas Karanth once led surveys of Cambodia\u2019s tigers, and said the big cats and their prey \u201cwent extinct as we watched.\u201d<\/p>\n
He fears prey availability has not recovered enough to support tigers, who could starve.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe tiger diplomacy of the last 10 years to dump tigers from India into that rampant hunting culture is doomed, I believe,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Borah argues camera trapping shows enough prey for initial arrivals and that \u201cthe conservation message is more important right now than worrying about prey availability.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tigers were supposed to start arriving in 2024.<\/p>\n
But concerns about their new habitat, and the suspension of a carbon credit project that had been expected to contribute funding delayed the plan, sources said.<\/p>\n
In May, Cambodia\u2019s environment ministry approved a new roadmap. According to a copy of the roapmap seen for this article, it proposes tigers begin arriving from next year, though funding is still being negotiated, sources said.<\/p>\n
The tigers would start their new lives in a 40-hectare enclosure at the end of a red dirt track, some four kilometers from the nearest main road and local resident Lin Meng Ma\u2019s home.<\/p>\n
The 49-year-old lives with her daughter in an open-front wooden home meters from a dilapidated sign reading \u201cTiger Reintroduction Project.\u201d<\/p>\n
She only learned about the reintroduction plan after asking rangers about discussions she had overheard.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were afraid, my house is very close, but they told us they would be in a fenced area and then move deep inside the forest,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Her main objection now is the cost: just under $43 million until 2030, according to a draft budget.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think it is useful to spend this money on tigers,\u201d she said, working on a yellow piece of crochet.<\/p>\n
Most residents said they were ambivalent about the plan, but most also believe the tigers will remain in an enclosure. In fact, they will be released into the wild after acclimatization.<\/p>\n
Locals were also skeptical of claims in a recent study that tiger reintroduction will bring economic benefits from tourism.<\/p>\n
The study itself acknowledges that thick local rainforest would make \u201csafari-style\u201d encounters unlikely.<\/p>\n
There are other potential benefits though for a country that has lost a third of its forest cover in the last 25 years.<\/p>\n
Reintroducing tigers could put \u201ca bit of a brake\u201d on unsustainable development in the Cardamoms, said Tom Gray, of WWF\u2019s global tiger program.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is going to be a limited contribution to global tiger numbers, but as a mechanism and as a way to secure fantastic landscapes in Cambodia, that\u2019s the goal.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said food shortages could be addressed with prey releases, as neighboring Thailand does.<\/p>\n
There are few homes immediately around the proposed release site, but villages, roads and dams all fall within the broader area tigers might one day roam.<\/p>\n
So a plan is needed to track and potentially intercept tigers, said Axel Moehrenschlager, conservation translocation director for wild cat protection organization Panthera.<\/p>\n
\u201cTranslocated animals tend to range widely,\u201d seeking prey, territory and mates, he warned.<\/p>\n
For all the risks, several conservationists said the potential reward of reestablishing an iconic species might be worth it.<\/p>\n
\u201cSometimes in conservation, you need small wins … to ignite a movement,\u201d said Phillip Kuvawoga, senior director of conservation at the International Fund for Animal Welfare.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cardamom National Park, Cambodia \u2013 Pan Sok still remembers his relative screaming as a tiger dragged him away…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":55919,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[15990,9450,290,8,33,36903,11547],"class_list":["post-55918","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-japan","tag-cambodia","tag-conservation","tag-india","tag-japan","tag-nihon","tag-tigers","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55918","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55918"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55918\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55919"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55918"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55918"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55918"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}