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Building Cambodia's New Generation of Ecologists, Cambodia

Cambodia has an incredible diversity of wildlife and many of the least spoiled habitats remaining in tropical Asia. However, efforts to conserve this rich natural heritage - and ensure that Cambodia's economic recovery is environmentally sustainable - are severely constrained by the lack of capable conservationists, trainers and scientists. The tragic loss of many teachers and scientists under the Pol Pot Regime, coupled with chronic under-investment in education and research, has left Cambodia unable to solve this problem without well-placed international assistance.

Building national capacity and promoting international collaboration

The Centre for Biodiversity Conservation (CBC) at the Royal University of Phnom Penh (RUPP), is working to solve the lack of technical capacity in conservation. The CBC runs Cambodia’s first Masters degree course in Biodiversity Conservation. The program has also founded a library and national reference collection for Cambodian scholars and visiting scientists. The CBC currently hosts a small number of lecturers and research associates from Europe, Australia, and the United States.

In 2007 an ADMCF investing partner, Joe Draper, provided funding to CBC to assist the centre in enabling more effective conservation and sustainable development through promoting international collaboration. The idea is to and produce a new generation of highly qualified and experienced conservation leaders and biologists for the governmental, non-governmental and academic sectors.

Progress has been made on furnishing and equipping the reference collection and library at RUPP. The reference library which covers the themes of biodiversity conservation, biological research and sustainable development has been expanded. It now contains more than 200 titles, and a library database established and populated. The centre has also arranged more access to the internet so students can read a large number of online journals and archives.

Staff and Research Scholars have also been facilitating research by visiting scientists, including a team of American biologists who visited the Cardamom Mountains in May 2007. These trips culminated in the discovery of several amphibians new to science. Additional linkages with United States organisations are ongoing with official links to La Sierra University and more sought with Texas State University as well as the American Natural History Museum.

Status

Additional funding has been extended to CBC for 2008 to continue supporting the Centre’s work. A continuing emphasis during this period will be on continuing to strengthen the collaborations highlighted above and new linkages with other organisations from North America.

Amphibian Research

Amphibians are one of the most highly threatened groups of animals. One-third of all amphibian species are listed as globally threatened and almost half are known to be experiencing population declines. This means that amphibians are more highly threatened and declining faster than either birds or mammals.

Within Asia, the Indo-Burma region represents an area of high amphibian diversity, great human pressures and relatively little information regarding the status of the species or their conservation. Threats facing the amphibians of Indo-Burma include disease, over-harvesting, habitat loss and climate change. Amphibians appear particularly vulnerable to climate change, and are among the first groups of organisms to respond to this phenomenom. Habitat loss is particularly important for the large number of amphibian species that are restricted to very small geographic areas or very specific habitat types. These species can be completely eliminated by relatively small-scale human activities. There is an urgent need to identify and protect amphibians.

In April 2007 we made a commitment to fund one of Conservation International's pioneering amphibian researchers. The funding will cover costs for Jodi Rowley to continue her research for three years in the Indo-Burma corridor. The overall objective is to map local amphibian populations and train local early-career conservationists in amphibian biology and conservation.

The research will assist in detecting any declines in amphibian populations by using amphibians as "bio-indicators" (canaries in the coal mine) as well as enabling monitoring of general ecosystem health in Indo-Burma.

Status

Amphibian surverys: Jodi worked tirelessly over the summer months in 2007 and completed the following amphibian surveys:

  • Prey Long, Cambodia
  • Daxueshan, China
  • Song Thanh, central Vietnam
  • Phnom Nam Lyr, Cambodia
  • Van Ban, northern Vietnam
  • Virachey NP, Cambodia

Amphibian surveys: A number of amphibian and reptile species collected on these trips are thought to be undescribed species and previously unknown data has been collected. This will be submitted for publication in scientific papers. The amphibian specimens collected in 2007 are currently in the process of being formally identified, or are waiting for export to museums for this purpose.

In the first quarter of 2008 Jodi conducted a further survey in the forests of Liang Biang Plateau in southern Vietnam. There, 21 amphibian species were recorded including a significant amount of previously unrecorded information. She also recorded species that have not been recorded as seen by biologists for almost 100 years, since their original description. Several of the species are of high conservation value, being threatened species. Detailed examination of genetic material will determine whether any new species have been identified.

The results of these surveys will contribute to reducing the number of data deficient amphibian species in the region, assessing the conservation status of the species and highlighting the conservation value of important amphibian habitat.

Capacity building: An amphibian biodiversity and conservation workshop was conducted in Vietnam in September 2007. Following-up training and mentoring of the participants is planned for 2008.

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