Qualla: Phnom Thnout-Phnom Pok Wildlife Sanctuary

Phnom Thnout-Phnom Pok Wildlife Sanctuary: Introduction

Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

In 2014 a couple named Ben and Sharyn moved onto a patch of forest in northern Cambodia, built a house among the trees, and began the slow work of persuading the land to survive. Three years later the government drew a line around it. Sub-decree No. 143, dated 31 August 2017, set aside 42,097 hectares of hills and forest straddling the boundary between Preah Vihear and Siem Reap provinces and named it the Phnom Thnout-Phnom Pok Wildlife Sanctuary. Protection usually arrives from above, handed down by a ministry to a landscape that never asked. This one grew outward from a single house in the woods.

Phnom Thnout-Phnom Pok Wildlife Sanctuary: Two Hills and a Signature

Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Phnom is Khmer for hill, and the sanctuary carries the names of two of them across roughly 421 square kilometres of country that had until then been quietly available to anyone with a chainsaw or a length of wire. Cambodia's protected-area system now runs to more than seventy des...

Phnom Thnout-Phnom Pok Wildlife Sanctuary: The Roll Call

Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

More than seventy species have been recorded here, and a handful of them are the reason any of this happened. Pileated gibbons sing at dawn, mated pairs duetting to advertise a patch of canopy as theirs; the males are black, the females a pale buff with dark caps and bellies, bot...

Phnom Thnout-Phnom Pok Wildlife Sanctuary: The Wire in the Grass

Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The official record names the threats without ornament: hunting, especially snaring; logging; and illegal land clearance for agriculture and speculation. Snaring is the quiet one. A loop of bicycle brake cable costs almost nothing, takes minutes to set, and does not care what wal...

Phnom Thnout-Phnom Pok Wildlife Sanctuary: Guests Who Pay for Patrols

Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The conservation programme grew out of BeTreed Adventures, an ecotourism enterprise that put visitors in the forest and then put their money back into it. More than seventeen thousand US dollars raised through guests has gone to roads, tree planting, patrolling, and the purchase ...