Pan Sok still remembers his relative screaming as a tiger dragged him away one night, deep inside the Cambodian rainforest where they were tapping trees for resin. So he is “not happy” about a plan to reintroduce the big cats, a decade after they were declared extinct in Cambodia.
“I saw the tiger take him with my own eyes,” he said, describing the attack that took place over 30 years ago. “He was screaming but we couldn’t help him.”
Cambodia’s last confirmed tiger sighting was in 2007, in camera trap footage, but conservationists say they may soon be able to reintroduce the big cats.
The plan would see India send several of its more than 3,600 tigers to southwest Cambodia’s Cardamom Mountains, a protected expanse of lush rainforest stretching over a million hectares.
Reintroducing tigers could boost protection of Cambodia’s landscapes, restore an iconic apex predator and even boost tourism, said Jimmy Borah of Indian environmental group Aaranyak, who serves as a consultant to Cambodia’s government on the reintroduction.
It “would be a conservation message to the world that this can be done”, he said.
But there are risks. Poaching has decimated Cambodian wildlife, creating doubts about whether the Cardamoms have enough prey for tigers to eat. Deforestation continues to erode their proposed new habitat, driven particularly by dam projects – and local residents say they have not been consulted.
Indian tiger biologist Ullas Karanth once led surveys of Cambodia’s tigers and said the big cats and their prey “went extinct as we watched”.
He fears prey availability has not recovered enough to support tigers, who could starve. “The tiger diplomacy of the last 10 years to dump tigers from India into that rampant hunting culture is doomed, I believe,” he said.
Borah argues that camera-trap data show enough prey for initial arrivals and that “the conservation message is more important right now than worrying about prey availability”.
Tigers were supposed to start arriving in 2024. But concerns about their new habitat and the suspension of a carbon credit project expected to provide funding delayed the plan, sources told Agence France-Presse.
In May, Cambodia’s environment ministry approved a new road map. A copy seen by Agence France-Presse proposes that tigers begin arriving from next year, though funding is still being negotiated, sources said.
The tigers would start their new lives in a 40-hectare (about 99 acres) enclosure at the end of a red dirt track, some 4km from the nearest main road and local resident Lin Meng Ma’s home.
The 49-year-old lives with her daughter in an open-front wooden home metres from a dilapidated sign reading “Tiger Reintroduction Project”. She only learned about the reintroduction plan after asking rangers about discussions she had overheard.
“We were afraid; my house is very close, but they told us they would be in a fenced area and then move deep inside the forest,” she said.
Her main objection now is the cost: just under US$43 million (HK$337 million) until 2030, according to a draft budget seen by Agence France-Presse.
“I don’t think it is useful to spend this money on tigers,” she said, working on a yellow piece of crochet.
Most residents said they were ambivalent about the plan, but most also believe the tigers will remain in an enclosure. In fact, they will be released into the wild after acclimatisation.
Locals were also sceptical of claims in a recent study that tiger reintroduction will bring economic benefits from tourism.
The study itself acknowledges that thick local rainforest would make “safari-style” encounters unlikely.
There are other potential benefits, though, for a country that has lost a third of its forest cover in the last 25 years.
Reintroducing tigers could put “a bit of a brake” on unsustainable development in the Cardamoms, said Tom Gray, of global conservation bodyWWF’s global tiger programme.
“This is going to be a limited contribution to global tiger numbers, but as a mechanism and as a way to secure fantastic landscapes in Cambodia, that’s the goal.”
He said food shortages could be addressed with prey releases, as neighbouring Thailand does.
There are few homes immediately around the proposed release site, but villages, roads and dams all fall within the broader area tigers might one day roam.
So a plan is needed to track and potentially intercept tigers, said Axel Moehrenschlager, conservation translocation director for wild cat protection organisation Panthera.
“Translocated animals tend to range widely,” seeking prey, territory and mates, he warned.
Despite the risks, several conservationists told Agence France-Presse that the potential reward of reestablishing an iconic species might be worth it.
“Sometimes in conservation, you need small wins ... to ignite a movement,” said Phillip Kuvawoga, senior director of conservation at the International Fund for Animal Welfare.
