Talk:Botum Sakor National Park

Illegal logging in 1997-2002
"...an estimated 229 km² of evergreen forest lost in the years 1997 - 2002 through illegal logging (~30 km²/year)."

Hello. there is clearly something wrong here. The numbers doesn't add up. Is there a good source on-line perhaps? Hope we can get the right numbers.

RhinoMind (talk) 04:38, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

Size of the park
"The National Park comprises 183,408 hectares of designated park land."

The infobox says only 1,712.5 km2 or 171,250 hectares. What does the source says? What is the source anyway?

RhinoMind (talk) 05:20, 7 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Acording to Protected Areas and Development in The Lower Mekong River Region the parks area is 171,250 ha. This is what the infobox says. Should we correct the 183,408 ha then? If not, please give a good source or explanation. RhinoMind (talk) 03:26, 8 February 2014 (UTC)


 * I have now corrected the size of the national park to be 171,250 ha. RhinoMind (talk) 04:05, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

Status as Top-importance?
The Status of the Protected area has been rated as High-importance, as seen above in the tag. I would suggest it to be rated at Top-importance for these reasons:
 * The park is threatened by several factors and it is urgent to put a halt to these threats.
 * The threats are to a very large degree caused by human activity. Much of this activity is already illegal, so it is almost entirely a matter of political will, education and proper law enforcement to succeed in stopping these threats.
 * Many of the species living here, are critically endangered and some are not found anywhere else in Cambodia.
 * A large part of the park is unexplored and not properly investigated by scientist yet. There is a good chance of new and unknown species living here.
 * The park is the largest national park in the country.

I would like to get some feedback. And if you have good sources, literature or links associated with this park, please share and post them below. Thank you.

RhinoMind (talk) 21:40, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

Neofelis nebulosa
The Clouded Leopard was mentioned in the article, but have been removed. See p.7 here: REPORT 4 Fauna and flora diversity studies in Botum Sakor National Park, Cambodia April 2005 – September 2009

If there is eveidence after 2009 of its presence, please give a proper source on it.

Source of claim for clouded leopard presence, but nothing here about any tigers: https://www.wildlifealliance.org/exciting-results-from-a-camera-trap-survey/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.211.40.169 (talk) 18:47, 9 October 2021 (UTC)

RhinoMind (talk) 05:25, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

Do poachers read Wikipedia?
I guess some of them do! I have been in doubt whether I/we should mention the threatened species at all. I guess Im not alone with my concerns? What do you think? what do NGOs and conservationists think? Have this been debated somewhere? And what is the consensus on it in the global village? Hope for some constructive inputs.

RhinoMind (talk) 06:34, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

Info on a construction project moved
The information below was cut from the article:

"A Chinese owned company named "Chinese Development Group Co", started the clearing of around 36.000 hectares of land in the district of Kiri Sakor in August 2010. This project, situated to the east of the peninsula, is officially budgeted at US$5 billion and will include the construction of new roads, an airport, a seaport, a golf course, an ecotourism site and a large commercial area with residential living, hotels, restaurants and retail stores. There are serious concerns in the conservation community as well as in the local population that little, if any, international-standard environmental impact assessments were made prior to the approval of this massive development project, which is expected to last up to 25 years."

The reason for moving the info here, is that it is badly sourced and because it might reflect the same project as the one described in the article involving the Union Development Group Co.,Ltd company. Further investigation is needed. Maybe the company changed its name, maybe "Chinese Development Group Co" was an error in the citing-process.

RhinoMind (talk) 16:04, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

Debate on the exact land claim
As said in the article, a simple calculation shows that the projects would claim more than 70% of the national park area, if they are completed as planned. This number can be interpreted in various ways though:


 * The reference on the "worst" and biggest project (1998 agricultural project), reveals that the plans was slowed and almost stopped by a dispute with the Cambodian Ministry of Environment and that the dispute ended with only 1,536 hectares being allowed for clearance in 2007. This is much smaller than 60,200 ha. In addition it could be that this tolerated clearance is in fact located outside the national park in the 20 % upper north of the concession. Therefore, it could be that this 1998 concession will not involve the national park at all.


 * Likewise the concessions involving tourism, might overall be low impact eco-tourism or at least only claim smaller areas for buildings, roads and constructions within the large concessions, saving most of the area for original forest and nature.

If these two assumptions holds true, the overall area would reduce to 18,354 ha + hydropower reservoir + smaller areas (tourism) = 25,125 ha + smaller area (tourism). This would lower the impact substantially and result in a 15% (+ tourism) claim on the national park. This is a very optimistic estimate, but shows that detailed information on the specific projects - especially the tourist projects - is important and could tip the doomsday prediction. Nevertheless 15-20% land claim is still a serious threat. Even more so, when all the other threats and concerns are taken into account.

RhinoMind (talk) 17:29, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

External links modified
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