Clockwise from bottom: Johnny Orn; Martin Hale/FLPA; Neil Bowman x2
IBIS RICE HOW FARMING CAN HELP TO SAVE A GIANT An innovative agricultural project in Cambodia has created the Ibis Rice brand, giving a boost to the threatened giant ibis (below), the largest member of its family and sole representative of its genus. Numbers of the giant ibis crashed as a result of hunting, deforestation and the drainage of trapengs (seasonal pools) where it feeds – with a global population of as few as 350 individuals, it is now classed as Critically Endangered. The surviving birds are today concentrated on the northern plains of Cambodia, particularly around the Khmer village of Tmatboey. Here villagers have come to see themselves as stewards of the birds’ future, and are working with the Wildlife Conservation Society and the Sam Veasna Center to grow Ibis Rice, produced locally without draining the seasonal pools, cutting down trees or hunting the ibises. Villagers earn extra money by hosting visiting birdwatchers keen to see this global rarity.
An adult and two subadult red-headed vultures. Vultures of the same Aggression at show carcasses is species often mostly between members aggression – these of same species. arethe red-headed.
these critical populations can survive and grow.” Even better, the Veal Krous restaurant has become an integral part of the life of the Dongphlet community. “Conservation is important for our next generation,” says Prak Bunthy, a deputy chief of the forest community. The initiative works because the Sam Veasna Center ensures that the village benefits financially from any visitors who come to watch, photograph or film the vultures.
COMMUNITY BENEFITS “There are two ways that we reward the community,” explains Johnny Orn. “Firstly we pay the people who cook for tourists and provide tents, as well as the guides who take visitors to the restaurant and the rangers who protect vulture nests. Secondly we collect $30 from every tourist each time they visit the restaurant. We bank the fees until there is a meeting with all of the villagers and they decide the infrastructure to invest in.” The Sam Veasna Center pays $450 for every cow that is slaughtered. Since the project started in 2008, at least $100,000 has been spent on the Dongphlet community, and about $40,000 of that has come from ecotourism organised by the centre. Everyone benefits, and the Sam Veasna Center is already applying the ethos of community involvement elsewhere in Cambodia, for example by taking birders to see rare Bengal floricans. No one has any illusions that it is going to be an easy task to nurture vulture populations back to sustainability. And there have been real setbacks. Vultures have died after ingesting poison targeted at other species, and there have been cases of deliberate attacks with guns and slingshots. But the local community seems to be totally committed. Prak says, proudly, “We, the villagers of Dongphlet, are determined to protect these amazing birds.” TIM HARRIS is a birder who visited Cambodia’s vulture restaurants in 2013. His most recent book is RSPB Migration Hotspots (£25, Bloomsbury).
December 2014
DICLOFENAC HAS BEEN LICENSED FOR ANIMAL USE IN SPAIN AND ITALY, TWO OF EUROPE’S KEY VULTURE COUNTRIES. Below left: villagers vote on how to invest vulture restaurant fees. Below: a white-rumped vulture warns a rival vulture to back off.
+ FIND OUT MORE Wonders of the Monsoon is out on DVD now, and on Blu-ray on 1 December: www.bbcshop.com l For more information about Cambodia’s birds and birdwatching in the country, visit www.samveasna.org/bird-sites.html l Learn more about ZSL’s EDGE project at www.edgeofexistence.org
BBC Wildlife
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