Mission

Wildlife Alliance is the leader in direct protection to forests and wildlife in the Southeast Asian tropical belt.  Our mission is to combat deforestation, wildlife extinction, climate change, and poverty by partnering with local communities and governments.

Our Model

How Do We Achieve Our Mission?

The basic tenet of our mission is to work directly with habitats and communities to achieve preservation, conservation, and poverty alleviation. Wildlife Alliance’s focus is on direct access to the people actually performing the everyday duties, instead of training a few teachers to return to these communities to convey our ideas. We begin by identifying a threatened area and performing a tactical threat assessment. Once we have pinpointed the problems specific to that arena, we take a basic six-step approach:

1. Law Enforcement: In many areas, laws already exist to protect forests, preserve watersheds, and deter wildlife poaching and trade. However, most of these laws are not enforced either because of corruption or lack of manpower. These shortfalls begin at the local level. Our first step is to work with law enforcement and other governmental agencies in the implementation of preexisting laws and the assessment of what other laws might be necessary in the area.

2. Forest Zoning and Demarcation: Our next step is to build consensus among local denizens, provincial and national government officials, and other non-governmental organizations as to what forest areas need to be zoned for preservation and secure guarantees from the government. By agreeing to administer these areas—after having proven our ability to do so during the law enforcement stage—we ensure that any governmental regulations regarding these demarcated forests will be enforced. This also provides clarity to local communities as to what can and cannot be done within these zones and is the catalyst for reforestation efforts.

3. Wildlife Rescue, Rehabilitation, and Protection: Once we have marked off areas of protected forest, next we turn our attentions to the rescue and rehabilitation of endangered, heavily traded, and poaching-vulnerable wildlife in the area. In Cambodia, we created a Wildlife Rapid Rescue Team in conjunction with the Forestry Administration and local law enforcement, to suppress and preempt illegal wildlife trafficking throughout the country. Rescued animals are then brought to Phnom Tamao Wildlife Rescue Center and are either immediately released into protected forests or rehabilitated and cared for by wildlife experts. With protected forest areas already demarcated, wildlife can return to their natural habitat but be protected within preserved forests and by law enforcement.

4. Livelihoods: In Cambodia, 80% of the population is rural and 70% of that population lives in the forests. In order to make a living, many of these rural poor engage in slash-and-burn deforestation or wildlife poaching. Even those who do not—those who are just subsistence farmers—destroy the forests through overpopulation and legal, commercial trade jobs. It is our goal, and the next step in our model, to provide alternatives to these livelihoods that also help preserve the environment, protect the watershed, and prevent climate change. In Cambodia, thes have included, our community agriculture development project in Sovanna Baitong, our community-based ecotourism projects in Chi Phat and Trapeang Rung, and the many small enterprises and community organizations that have grown up around these initiatives.

5. Political Will: Next, it is vital to work directly with the provincial and national government to engender political will at all levels for the policies and programs that have been put in place. By building coalitions across departments, we bolster the personal stances of political players and precipitate a groundswell of support. Our demonstrated success in assistance to law enforcement, and in wildlife and community programs helps secure the continued government support and trust that is vital as programming moves forward and as we work against lingering foes, such as commercial developers seeking land concessions.

6. Education: Once all of these steps have been completed, our final step is to create an educational program to reinforce what has been learned and instill in future generations the tenets of conservation. With continued education for adults and experiential learning for children, our model of law enforcement, preservation, and conservation is perpetuated.

Why Cambodia?

Cambodia houses an epitomic situation of environmental issues in the Southeast Asian tropical belt. It is home to one of Asia’s last seven elephant corridors and one of thirty-four biodiversity hotspots. It is the largest rainforest watershed in the region and had some of the best-preserved areas of rainforests to use as a starting point for reforestation. The wildlife trade was particularly rampant within and across its borders. Above all, the Cambodian government expressed the willingness to have us work with them, within their system; to nurture their nascent conservation efforts and be the agent that turned the tide of deforestation, and wildlife poaching and trafficking that was plaguing their country.