WA Today, Australia
Chhouk the baby elephant found abandoned in the Cambodian forest by Wildlife Alliance, his mother taken by poachers.
Would you purchase an endangered tiger's tooth as a cure for acne?
Perhaps not, but in many Asian countries, you could.
People need to be aware that when you see a full page ad in a magazine or newspaper for a conservation group and I would rather support a group that puts in every dollar that is donated into their projects.
The fact that the animal may be critically endangered can
actually make the purchase more lucrative, as the rarer the animal, the
more potent it's good fortune and healing properties.
Like the drug trade, wildlife trafficking is big business.
In Cambodia, traffickers wait on the outskirts of forests waiting for
village hunters to return with whatever their snares have trapped. The
sale of rare and endangered animals is one of very few options they have
to provide for their family.
This is the vicious circle that Perth woman Rebecca Tilbrook wants to break.
For 15 years as a conservationist, Ms Tilbrook has seen
Cambodia's wildlife decimated by the illegal trade and last year decided
to start her own charity, For the Animals.
"I don't want to see the tiger or the elephant wiped off the face of the earth during my lifetime," she said.
"I just think that it's unconscionable that we are even faced with that possibility, and it's a very real possibility."
When Ms Tilbrook first arrived in Cambodia more than a decade
ago she was confronted with wild animals being tortured and sold on
every street corner.
She says the practices have since moved underground, behind closed doors.
Bears are kept alive in restaurants waiting for customers to
order bear paw soup, a delicacy at $300 a bowl. Chefs cut off each paw
one at a time, leaving the animal alive, slowly bleeding to death, to
ensure the meat remains fresh for the next order.
Other bears are sent to bile farms in China or Vietnam where
they live in "crush cages" designed to squeeze every last drop of bile
from their pancreas out through the needle of an old catheter, until
they stop producing it and die.
Macaque monkeys are yet another culinary delicacy, served
either screaming or drugged, strapped beneath the table with a hole for
their head to poke through.
Their skull is then removed and their brains eaten alive.
The popular belief is that meat is the healthiest when the
animal is alive, and that the more fear an animal experiences at death,
the tastier its flesh becomes.
Almost every part of the endangered Asian Tiger can be used
and are sold for a hefty fee, including the penis which is brewed as a
tea to cure impotence.
According to the conservation group Wildlife Alliance, it is likely that there are no tigers left in the wild in Cambodia.
Its records say that the last time a tiger was sighted in the
Cardamoms - one of the last continuous forests in South East Asia - was
in 2007.
"We need to take direct action and we need to do it quickly," says Ms Tilbrook.
"We're running out of time."
But while Ms Tilbrook has felt an overwhelming response from
Australian people who want to help, she says that donating to just any
animal charity is not the best way to enact change.
"My foundation For the Animals was a reaction to the waste
and misuse of a lot of funds that I've [experienced] working in the
conservation world for over 15 years," she said.
"Funds are being wasted on overheads like pedantic research,
huge salaries, plush offices, business class travel, lavish parties; and
things that I feel feed the ego instead of accomplishing the mission
that's at hand.
"There are grass-roots charities doing important work on the
ground and no one's ever heard of them because they're not spending all
their budgets promoting themselves.
"People need to be aware that when you see a full page ad in a
magazine or newspaper for a conservation group, that's a very expensive
expenditure, and I would rather support a group that has the integrity
to put every dollar that is donated into their projects."
For the Animals sends all money raised in Australia to the
charity Wildlife Alliance in Cambodia and have not needed to focus on
advertising and fundraising – until now.
While the foundation has been financially backed by an individual benefactor, this fund will dry up by the end of 2013.
"I just believe there will be others out there who will want to support this work," she said.
Wildlife Alliance have seized over 52,000 wild animals from
poachers with more than 20,000 having been rehabilitated at their Pnom
Tamao Rescue Centre since 2001, which aims to release them back in to
the wild. About 2100 poachers have been charged.
They have preserved 1.7 million acres of natural forest that
is home to many endangered and threatened species, re-planting over
500,000 native trees in areas destroyed by slash-and-burn agriculture
and cancelling 34 commercial land concessions for agricultural
plantations and mining projects.
However, Ms Tilbrook says the biggest challenge has been changing Cambodian attitudes towards conservation.
"It became very clear that if we wanted to protect the
Cardamom forest that we would also have to set up the communities with
alternative forms of income so they didn't have to poach to feed their
children," she said.
Many Cambodians fled Phnom Penh in the 1970s to escape the
mass genocide that claimed more than two million lives at the hands of
Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge, leaving them little choice but to poach
wildlife and slash-and-burn the natural forest to plant crops.
With the average Cambodian wage at $US1 a day, risking up to
10 years in jail for selling an endangered Pangolin or a square metre of
rare Rosewood for hundreds of dollars becomes a calculated risk.
The Alliance have since rebuilt the Sovanna Baitong village, a
place where 187 families who previously relied solely on unsustainable
and illegal practices call home.
Villagers have been given a hectare of land each, as well as seeds, chickens, education and healthcare for their children.
"Now I have a school for my children and my house is close to the hospital," a Sovanna Baitong man said.
"I used to be scared of the ranger because he could put me in jail and take me away from my family," said a woman.
"I don't have to be scared anymore because I don't kill the animals."
"I have five children, now they are all studying at school
[and] my eldest son is in Pnom Penh studying at university," said
another.
"When I lived in the forest, one of my sons passed away, but here we have a hospital and medicine."
Ms Tilbrook says that while many Cambodians are still
adjusting to fully understand the conservation message, she recognises
that many Australians do.
"It's as easy as giving some money to a group that will use it really well," she said.
"It's not just about loving animals... it's about feeling that they deserve to be here on this earth with us."
***
You can donate to Wildlife Alliance through the Australian based foundation For the Animals. All donations go directly to Wildlife Alliance projects in Cambodia.
Jerrie Demasi was sent to Cambodia courtesy of For the Animals.
1 comment:
Oh my dear Sweety Chhouk,why did someone do this to you?
If I ever have chance to go to Cambodia, I will
see you then at Phnom Ta Mao.
When I was young, living in Cambodia,
I have never heard or seen anyone
did this harmful act to wild animals.
We lost Kouprey forever and what's next then ?
Thank you Wildlife Alliance,
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