Good News for Cambodian Gibbons!

This week, the Cambodian Prime Minister, Sandech Hun Sen, cancelled a significant titanium mining project because of it's potential negative impacts on some of the country's last remaining intact rainforests, located in the beautiful and remote Cardamom Mountains.

Pleased that the prime minister has taken the environmental impact into account, Suwanna Gauntlett, of the conservation NGO Wildlife Alliance, says: "We applaud the courageous decision of the prime minister to see the greater value of the forest as it currently stands."

The move has been welcomed by locals and environmentalists who were concerned for both the biodiversity of this forested area and also the continued well-being of nearby communities who depend on it. The proposed project had planned to locate the mine in the way of a migration trail used traditionally by Cambodia's largest population of Asian elephants.

The local communities have spent years avoiding deforestation and poaching to develop alternatives such as viable eco-tourism packages. These forests are famously rich in wildlife and, according to the IUCN Red List , there are several endangered species found in the Cardamom Mountains. These include: the Asian elephant (Elephas maximums), Indochinese tiger (Panthera tigris corbetti), Malayan sun bear (Helarctos malayanus) and Pileated gibbon (Hylobates pileatus). Also in this forest, the Siamese crocodile (Crocodylus siamensis), classified as "critically endangered", has one of its last refuges.

Wildlife Alliance and a Cambodian newspaper had questioned a claim by the mining company that its project would generate US$1.3 billion dollars a year.