Note-From-The-Fields
Joint Cambodian-Thai Ranger Training Workshop
By Stephan Bognar, MJP CEO
March 2011
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Building on the success of the first Thai-Cambodian transboundary protected area workshop in Trat City (March 2010), the Maddox Jolie-Pitt Foundation (MJP) hosted the first ever park management training workshop in Samlout, Cambodia, in December 2010. The United States National Park Service rangers from Sequoia/Kings Canyon National Park and the IUCN participated as trainers in the workshop. Thai and Cambodian park rangers, law enforcement officers and regional directors representing the three protected areas (Samlout Protected Area in Cambodia; Kreua Wai Wildlife Sanctuary and Namtok Khlong Kaew National Park in Thailand) practiced their ranger skills as one ranger unit for two weeks. At the conclusion of the training, the rangers requested more joint transboundary projects such as joint biodiversity surveys and wildlife monitoring training on Asian elephants and tigers.
The Samlout/Thai ecoregion covers approximately 110,000 hectares of relatively in-tact tropical forests and still hosts the Asian elephant and the Indochinese tiger. The three protected areas together constitute a potential Peace Park where cooperation between the Thai and Cambodian governments could work toward tighter control over illegal activities that are currently ravaging these protected areas, regional sustainable development interventions and conflict resolution.
MJP began its conservation programme in Samlout in 2003, and in 2008 it offered its assistance to the Cambodian and Thai Governments in designing a transboundary Peace Park to promote peace and cooperation between the two countries. National Security is no longer only about armed forces or national guards. It is about maintaining healthy green environments to secure water and food for all populations, especially in rural, low income countries where the destruction of forests and natural habitats to feed the demands of wealthy urban dwellers is creating more internal and cross border conflicts. It is time that we add environmental security to our lexicon and place trust in an old faithful medium.
Original news: http://www.tbpa.net/