52 Weeks to Save the Cardamoms: Suwanna's Blog--Week 3

This is a series in which Suwanna Gauntlett, Founder and CEO of Wildlife Alliance, tries to push forward new legislation that will provide protection for 1 million acres of rainforest in the Southern Cardamoms. We are now in our third week out of 52 weeks.

Suwanna presents a magazine to the Vice Prime Minister with maps and photos that highlight the urgent need for the new Protected Forest legislation After debates between pro-development and pro-conservation agencies reached a screeching halt last week, it seems that the idea of a new Protected Forest is facing greater obstacles than anticipated.  The project could even be indefinitely delayed…. if we don’t find greater leverage to move it forward.

We absolutely need a breakthrough to get us over this difficult situation.  Resistance to the proposed sub-decree has come mainly from the pro-development Licensing Office.

I have become quite familiar with this agency over the past years.  I know the officers, I am accustomed to their economic justifications for converting rainforest to agro-industrial plantations and I have witnessed over time an unwavering drive to process commercial requests. But nevertheless, there is mutual respect. They know me well, they see me as a strong woman and they let me carry on with my activities to keep the rainforest standing.  But now a page has been turned and we are all in a new, tenser situation. We have proposed Protected Forest legislation.  Future economic gains are at stake. If a protection sub-decree were to be passed, no more requests for rainforest land would be allowed, depriving some people from hefty revenues. The fight is going to be different now….

That’s why it is crucial to find a way as soon as possible to rally support from someone above the Licensing Office.  But who?  We focused on this issue completely for an entire day with the whole Southern Cardamom program team. We started brainstorming and problem-solving right after the agencies’ debate had ended last week.  We had a deck of cards in our hands that we had not yet fully analyzed: 33 requests for land in the Southern Cardamoms by large-scale industrial companies over the last 9 years had been either avoided, rejected, reduced or their permits cancelled.  At Wildlife Alliance we had written our share of letters and taken our share of meetings with government officials to prevent these companies from coming into the Cardamoms and destroying vast stretches of rainforest. At all levels of government, officers had weighed in, putting time and effort to over the years to disallow unjustifiable permits in the middle of “dense evergreen forest”  that would also damage the hydrology system of the watershed.

So, the team reviewed one by one all of the 33 requests for Southern Cardamom rainforest land that had been submitted by commercial companies since 2004. We looked at whether the applications had been submitted to the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries or to the Council of Ministers or directly to the Prime Minister’s cabinet. We tried to recall who exactly had worked on these cases and had been instrumental in obtaining rejection of those company requests. We listed all the officers that had played a key role and had been influential over the years. In this process, we found that the highest ranking and most forthcoming official had been the Vice Prime Minister. Could he be the person that we were searching for?  Would he have the power and the drive to make things happen and move the idea of a new Protected Forest towards approval? Whatever happened, we had to try.

So we immediately contacted the Vice Prime Minister’s cabinet and requested a meeting to present the proposed legislation. Obtaining time for an appointment at this level of government can sometimes take months but we prepared to be ready within just a few days.  The team and I carefully planned our presentation strategy on how to present the topic by making the message the most compelling and creating the most positive impression - while at the same time remaining brief.

I was delighted to receive confirmation of our appointment from the cabinet just five days after we placed our request.  His Excellency welcomed us the very next day and the meeting was cordial and upbeat. We started by reminiscing about his visit to the Southern Cardamoms last year, where we had visited the titanium mine site together and reviewed the community economic development projects in Chi Phat.  At that point, I presented to His Excellency’s our request for support and along with beautiful photos of waterfalls, rivers and wildlife, showed him the maps in the magazine that we had prepared for him. This helped to visually describe the high economic and conservation value of the proposed Protected Forest area: 

• forest watershed map with river catchments and hundreds of headwaters directly supplying 7 hydropower plants;  
• Southwest Elephant Corridor map;  
• endangered endemic wildlife species map;  
• REDD+ map. 

The Vice Prime Minister seemed pleased to hear about this new protection initiative. He agreed that protecting the rainforest in the sub-decree area is of strategic importance to the country’s economy.  He assured me that he would provide strong support.  He asked me to send him a formal letter requesting intervention, after which he would send letters to the relevant ministers. I was really happy about the positive outcome of the discussion and felt re-energized when His Excellency expressed his genuine, earnest support. 

The main point of my presentation: That it is urgent to provide Protected Forest status to the Southern Cardamoms in order to stop the current trend of allocating long stretches of forest to other industrial uses (large-scale plantations).  If this new sub-decree is not implemented and the forest continues to shrink, then this could reduce rainfall and water supply to the 16 hydropower plants currently under construction in the Cardamom Mountain range.  Of those, 7 hydropower projects are located inside the section that does not yet have legal protection.  Since the total electricity generation is anticipated to meet 25% of the country’s electricity needs, it is then of strategic economic importance for the country to ensure that no more forest is cleared. That is why it makes good economic sense to quickly pass the new legislation.

Comments

[Camille]

Well done!! You have shown that in order to succeed, it is important to prove the economic outcomes of protecting the Cardamon Mountain range as well as the environmental and social advantages.
I wish you the best of luck for the coming weeks!

[Volunteer Work]

I feel the same. It is important to prove the outcomes of conserving Cardamon.