Safari park plan draws fire

02/01/2008
Radio Australia
Australian Broadcasting Corporation

The Cambodian government is considering a Spanish company's plan to create a hunting park in the country. The Madrid-based safari company wants to use 100,000 hectares of jungle in northeast Cambodia for hunting wildlife.

HOLLAND: For 38,000 US dollars big spenders can join Nsok Safaris in Africa for two weeks and hunt elephants, buffaloes and a range of other species. The company has been operating hunts in Cameroon for 30 years, now they're hoping to do the same in Cambodia.

Mark Gately is based in Cambodia and works for the Wildlife Conservation Society. He says safari parks can be environmentally sustainable if they're operated under the right conditions.

GATELY: The key thing is you need to have very detailed information on variables such as the population size, the population structure, growth rates and so on, so that you can monitor the impact of the hunting on the wildlife that's involved.

HOLLAND: Tourism is now a major earner for Cambodia, and high price hunts for foreign tourists will mean more cash for the country. Mr Gately believes the extra money could help to protect the country's wildlife.

GATELY: It is possible for example for these operations to provide a significant amount of funding for conservation activities in the area. So for example I mean these companies are often, it's obviously in their interests to protect the wildlife in the area that they're operating in so that there's actually something there for their clients to shoot.

HOLLAND: Deputy Director of the Wildlife Protection Office of Cambodia's Agriculture Ministry; Dany Chheang, says 30 types of animals including deer, wild boar, reptiles and birds could be shot for sport if the plan goes ahead. But he says tigers would be protected. In Africa, where hunting safaris continue to attract wealthy adventurers, environmentalists remain opposed to killling animals for entertainment.

CHHEANG: The negative press we've received in recent years has been quite disgusting.

HOLLAND: Nick deSouza is the World Society for the Protection of Animals regional director for Africa.

DESOUZA: There are pictures of young cubs being maimed by the actual hunters by their dogs, by the negative impact of them having had their mother killed. There are pictures of them having their cubs, particularly in one case where a litter of cheetah cubs were exported on a private jet to Saudi Arabia and all ended up dying.

HOLLAND: Mr deSouza says there are no positive benefits that can justify safari hunting.

DESOUZA: It's inherently cruel in that there is no way to humanely kill an animal from a distance. Error will always creep in and the animal is very likely to suffer extensive injuries that will not kill it off immediately.

HOLLAND: It's hoped that if the park opens in Cambodia's Rattanakiri province money brought in by the hunters will benefit poor people in the area. But deSouza says his experience tells him wealthy companies offering safaris rarely fulfill such noble promises. And while Mr Chheang from Cambodia's Agriculture Ministry says setting up hunting safaris in Cambodia fits with the government's plans to diversify options for eco-tourism in the country, the government must also consider the negative consequences.

Presenter - Steve Holland; Speaker - Mark Gately, Wildlife Conservation Society in Cambodia; Dany Chheang, Deputy director of the Wildlife Protection Office of Cambodia's Agriculture Ministry; Nick deSouza, World Society for the Protection of Animals regional director for Africa

Cambodian official: hunting game for foreign tourists not decided yet [-So why consider this project in the first place?]

PHNOM PENH, Dec. 21 (Xinhua) -- The Cambodian government has not decided yet for the project of hunting game for foreign tourists in forests of the Mondul Kiri and Ratanakiri provinces, which was requested by Spanish firm NSOK Safaris, Cambodian Minister of Environment Mok Mareth said Friday.

"Our animals have just recovered and they had miserable lives like Cambodian people during and after the civil war. We do not want to see our animals in danger or in extinction," Mok Mareth told reporters at the National Assembly.

"Personally, I could not decide it," he said, adding that the experts from his ministry and the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries have to talk with experts from the Spanish company.

"Recently, we allowed a number of foreign companies to build holiday resorts for tourists but we did not allow them to hunt," he said.

"They could watch the animals through their binoculars but we did not allow shooting," he added.

Mok Mareth said that they are trying to pass a law to protect wild animals and natural resources in Cambodia.

The Cambodian agriculture ministry was in negotiations with the Spanish company to establish a luxury hunting game reserve in Ratanakkiri province, the Cambodia Daily newspaper reported earlier this month.

For the love of money, the so-called Phnom Penh "Buddhist" State promote the killings of wild trophy animals

Trophy photo from the NSOK Safaris website

Cambodia plans hunting safaris for VIP tourists

Tue 11 Dec 2007
By Ek Madra

PHNOM PENH, Dec 11 (Reuters) - Cambodia is considering laying on hunting safaris for well-heeled foreign tourists in its remote jungle-clad northeast, to the consternation of green groups who say it could be a recipe for disaster.

Officials said on Tuesday a Spanish firm called Nsok Safaris had already drawn up plans for a five-star jungle camp to house hunters after trophies on a list of 30 mammals, birds and reptiles in a 100,000-hectare (250,000-acre) forest reserve.

The area, in Mondulkiri and Rattanakiri provinces, is home to several indigenous hill-tribes whose first main contact with the outside world was during the Vietnam War when their territory was crossed by the myriad paths of the Ho Chi Minh trail.

Dany Chheang, deputy director of the Agriculture Ministry's Wildlife Protection Office, said allowing foreigners to pay to shoot game was far better for conservation than having poachers take it illegally.

"Illegal hunters are burning dollars every day," he told Reuters. "We have not explored all the potential of our natural resources. Now is the time to do so."

"The money we net will be invested in preserving the animals and forest. It is better for sustainable development than letting local hunters deal with cheap black markets."

He did not say what the 30 approved species were. The forest area is thought to be one of southeast Asia's last wildernesses and is home to wild elephants and tigers.

Environvmental group WWF, which has been promoting wildlife conservation in war-scarred Cambodia since 1998, said it was concerned about the plan, which has been in the pipeline for two years but which has remained shrouded in secrecy.

WWF's Cambodia programme manager, Bas van Helvoort, said little was known about animal population numbers in the two provinces, and so allowing them to be hunted could be disastrous.

"Putting species up to be hunted is not going to contribute to making them safe," van Helvoort said. "This has been done in Africa but it is very carefully selected and very controlled."

So far, Phnom Penh -- which is routinely accused of allowing rampant illegal logging -- appears oblivious to the concerns.

"These are our natural resources. We do not need permission from wildlife conservation experts to run our business," Dany Chheang said.

The Finance Ministry was still working with agriculture officials on the finer points of the plan, such as trophies and fees, he added.

Madrid-based Nsok Safari's Web site advertises hunting expeditions in Cameroon and Tanzania.

(Editing by Ed Cropley and Roger Crabb)