Combat? (laughs) I'm a naturalist. I grew up in a nice quiet naturalist way, you know, chasing bugs around the patio. The next thing I know I get a call from National Geographic and I'm running around in a forest with lots of guys with automatic weapons. It was very uncomfortable because I'm not a gun person. I can see this thing escalating into an arms race; that's how they start. People arm themselves to fight poachers and the poachers up the ante, and it goes on. Before you know it people will be dying out here again over a different issue.
WildAid is largely funded by Western money. What kind of effort is the Cambodian government making?
Well, environmental issues aren't too high up on the Cambodian government's list at the moment. They're not high on anyone's list really; look at America and the UK for example. How can we expect the Cambodians to give a damn? It's very easy to superimpose Western ideals on a country that's really struggling and shackled with a massive debt. I don't believe you can do it. Yes, the government has to wake up and see the problem or by the time they get the rest of it sorted out there will be nothing left. But I don't know how you can make them do it.
The trade animals you saw captured live, injured by snares, were just in terrible shape. How tough is it for you as a naturalist to see them in these conditions?
I'm a realistic naturalist. I find it patronizing when you see people like myself out there telling people what should or should not happen in areas where things have been going on for a long time. Animal welfare is a different issue from animal conservation. In a country with no refrigeration, they transport animals alive to keep them fresh. For example, they move these ducks around on little motorbikes with like 150 live ducks hanging off the back of the bike, banging off the exhaust and the like. When you see that, especially in a country where the people have done such horrific things to each other, you see that the issue of suffering, animal or human, is so much part of their life. To tell them that's wrong, well, you couldn't do it.
How effective can any deterrents be, armed or otherwise, if people are in such desperate straits?
These people are kind of reinventing themselves. Many of these people have no forest experience. It's like you and me saying "What have we got here that will help us somehow survive until next week?" That's what they are doing… They've got nothing else.
WildAid is a very hardcore group. When they catch poachers they take all of their kit, all of their gear, and make them fingerprint a document that promises they won't do it again. Well, we talked to the poachers and they say, "this makes our life miserable." They take their equipment and a single chainsaw might cost years of income. It might be all they have and it hurts and it makes it very tough on them.
But still, these people are caught multiple times. They may know the reasons why they mustn't do this, but then come the next week there's no food or the kids are sick. Where do they go? No matter how you threaten someone, when they are at that level of desperation they have to keep doing it.
Cambodia is not alone is it? This is a growing problem in lots of developing countries?
It's not the first time I've seen it, but it's the most extreme example I've seen of this kind of thing. I'm off to the Congo next week and that part of the Africa has the same problems. In fact there is much more organized and scary deforestation going on there, where they are really destroying the forested belt of central Africa.
It's a difficult dilemma, any solutions come to mind?
Not really. It's a very complicated issue with lots of interlocking threads. You've got to make up your own mind. I came away confused and with questions that I never expected to have. I also came away a bit depressed and without a lot of hope about this situation improving.
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