Responding to Emerging Threats

As threats to the natural environment emerge, we work at all levels of policy to respond. In Cambodia, we have leveraged our strong ties the Ministry of Agriculture, Forests, and Fisheries to fight a planned titanium mine that could devastate the country’s largest population of wild elephants and a growing ecotourism industry in the Cardamom Mountains.

We are working with ministries to develop a new Payment for Ecosystem Services policy, to ensure that the users of natural resources–like hydroelectric developers who dam free-flowing mountain rivers—are required to contribute funds for forest and watershed conservation and community development.

We will continue working with governments and agencies at the national, regional, global level to advocate for innovative policies that create incentives for governments and communities to support standing forests, healthy rivers, and other natural resources—instead of favoring short-term profits from dams, logging, and harmful mining.