Cambodia

Vulnerable land of the kouprey

Cambodia's choice of the kouprey as a national icon is symbolic in more ways than one.

While exemplifying the wealth of wildlife found in this Southeast Asian country, the kouprey, a wild bovine endemic to the region, also symbolizes the vulnerability of Cambodia's biodiversity.

Discovered in 1937, the kouprey is today listed as critically endangered.

Along with massive herds of water buffalo, banteng and Eld's deer, the kouprey once ranged widely in the dry forests that extend throughout Cambodia. This makes Cambodia one of the great game lands of the world, on a par with the plains of Africa.

Conservation in Cambodia
WWF first began working in Cambodia in 1993 in an effort to protect Cambodia's dwindling populations of clouded leopards, elephants, tigers, majestic birds and other rare species.

Cambodia has great potential for conservation as much of the country's rich and diverse forests still stands.

Four of WWF’s Global 200 ecoregions (the Earth's most biologically outstanding terrestrial, freshwater and marine habitats) are located in Cambodia.

The Dry Forests
Much of WWF's current work in Cambodia focuses on the Lower Mekong Dry Forest Ecoregion, the largest continuous tract of dry forest in the whole of mainland Southeast Asia, a massive area of 62,000 square kilometres, twice the size of Belgium.