Adding to a growing list of development projects approved or under consideration within Cambodia’s protected areas, Minister of Environment Mok Mareth signed off March 9 on a project that includes a zoo, restaurant and gift shop in Cambodia’s largest wildlife sanctuary.
The project, in the 402,000-hectare Kulen-Promtep Wildlife Sanctuary, which is located in parts of Preah Vihear, Oddar Meanchey and Siem Reap provinces, is funded by a man named Sok Hong and a US-based corporation called Cambodian Wildlife Sanctuary, headed by California-based lawyer David Casselman.
According to the project’s Web site, the Kulen-Promtep project includes plans for a 2,000-hectare “observation” area, where tourists can see Southeast Asian animals in pens that mimic their natural habitat.
Minister Mok Mareth could not be reached for comment Thursday. He has repeatedly declined to comment on development projects in other protected areas, including a resort and golf course in Kompong Speu province’s Oral Wildlife Sanctuary, and an acacia plantation and a sand mine in Botum Sakor National Park in Koh Kong province. Project agreements, signed by Mok Mareth, Sok Hong and Casselman, and posted on the project’s Web site, state that the project will “protect and preserve this unique and precious habitat of Cambodia.”
“The Cambodia Wildlife Observation Sanctuary will consist of a tourist friendly 2,000 hectare sanctuary protecting and sheltering indigenous wildlife,” the Web site states. It will include veterinary facilities, a restaurant and gift shop, and a waste-water treatment plant.
The remaining 400,000 hectares will be protected by the group from logging and poaching, though neither the Web site nor the posted project agreement provide details of how it would do so.
The budget for the first five years is $4.3 million. They plan to hire 100 to 500 Cambodians and five to 10 expatriates, according to the project agreement. It is not clear whether an environmental impact assessment has been completed, as is required by law. Nor is it clear what background in conservation those who are running the project have.
Several government officials and conservationists said this week they were unaware of the project and did not know that the signing ceremony had taken place.
Suwanna Gauntlett, country director of WildAid, which is active in wildlife conservation and the enforcement of protected areas, said she has never heard of the project, or of the Cambodian Wildlife Sanctuary. Neither has Jake Brunner of Conservation International nor Mike Davis of forestry watchdog Global Witness.
Chea Vuthy, press director for the Council for the Development of Cambodia, was also not aware of the project.
Chay Samith, director of the environment ministry’s Department of Conservation and Protection, in charge of protected areas, would not comment on the project and referred all questions to the Wildlife Conservation Society, which has enforcement operations within Kulen-Promtep sanctuary.
Joe Walston, director of Wildlife Conservation Society, said he had heard of the project, but had not been informed of any details or approached by representatives of the project.
“If people have good intentions and would like to invest in conservation, I think that’s great,” he said. But he said it is near impossible to judge the project without details of what it actually plans to do.
Casselman could not be reached for comment Thursday. He is a senior partner at the law firm Wasserman, Comden, Casselman & Pearson LLP in Tarzana, California.
The secrecy that has surrounded other development proposals that have cropped up in Cambodian wildlife sanctuaries in recent weeks, combined with what seems to be a lack of conservation experience, has many worried.
Surprised by the apparent secrecy surrounding the project, Marcus Hardtke of Global Witness said: “If they really want to do what they say they want to do, why aren’t they following normal process?”