Story | 24 Jun, 2014
More good news for Saola as rangers collect over 7,800 snares
How do you protect what you never see and of which we know so little? According to SOS Grantee and IUCN Member, the Wildlife Conservation Society’s (WCS) Alex McWilliam, Deputy Director of the WCS Lao PDR Programme, by far the greatest immediate threat to the survival of the Saola throughout its…
Story | 16 Jun, 2014
SOS grantee Michael Dine of WWF, an IUCN member, has been updating SOS on field activities from his project to help protect the Critically Endangered Saola (Pseudoryx nghetinhensis). This is one of two SOS funded projects helping to protect the little known and rarely seen forest bovid – cousin…
Story | 28 May, 2014
Poachers Lose Motorbikes at Chu Mom Ray National Park, Vietnam
Lois Lippold, from the Douc Langur Foundation, an SOS Grantee reports on another heartening development in her project's work to protect the Endangered Langurs and Gibbons of Vietnam's Chu Mom Ray Park. In August 2013, Lois reported the first successful arrest of a poacher in the park. But in…
Story | 20 Mar, 2014
Supporting our forest guardians
Almost exactly a year ago, on the 14th of March 2013, 33-year old Thaweesak Chomyong, a ranger working in Thailand’s Pang Sida National Park was fatally shot when a group of poachers fired upon his patrol team before fleeing the scene. This was not an isolated incident. The neighbouring Thap Lan…
Story | 14 Nov, 2013
Myanmar seeks global standards to conserve its natural heritage
Myanmar is renewing efforts to implement the World Heritage Convention. As the country opens up to international conservation processes, IUCN is providing expertise to help identify potential natural heritage sites.
Story | 22 Jul, 2013
Improving access to forest resources
It is commonly claimed that forest tenure reform that provides rural people with rights to access and use of forest resources can contribute to improved forest management and poverty alleviation. But, at least with respect to poverty alleviation, there are few experiences with formal forest…
Story | 20 Jul, 2013
Improving ecosystem functionality and livelihood
This paper examines how interventions intended to improve functionality and productivity of forested landscapes to improve livelihoods of the poorest populations, might actually yield co-benefits in terms of biodiversity conservation. It argues in favour of a ‘landscape’ approach to achieve…
Story | 15 Jul, 2013
Unusual Partnership - Doe Mae Salong Landscape, Thailand
The Doi Mae Salong watershed in the north-west of Thailand is the headwater of the Mae Chan River, a tributary of the Mekong River. As such, it is an extremely important landscape for the economy of the region. The landscape has the particularity of being designated a Military Reserved Area and…
Story | 07 Feb, 2013
Lam Binh Community sends strong message to poachers
Once bitten, twice shy. Or perhaps, in this case the phrase should be ‘once stung, twice shy’. That is the lesson SOS grantee, People Resources and Conservation Foundation, hopes poachers will take from a recent successful ‘sting’ operation carried out in Lam Binh, a remote mountainous karst…
Story | 17 Sep, 2012
Protected area management: Vietnam vs India
In 2011, an independent evaluation of 10 years of international support to Cat Tien National Park documented the failure to convert high levels of technical and financial support into effective protected area management. This failure was starkly revealed by the killing of the last Javan rhino…