Suwanna Gauntlett

Dedicating her life to protecting rainforests and wildlife in some of the world’s most hostile and rugged environments, Suwanna Gauntlett has set the trend of a new generation of direct action conservationists. Suwanna has designed, implemented, and supported bold, front-line conservation programs to save endangered wildlife populations from the brink of extinction:

• Saving the Amur (Siberian) Tiger from extinction in the 1990s in the Russian Far East, when only about 80 individuals remained
• Reversing the drastic decline of Olive Ridley sea turtles along the coast of Orissa, India in the 1990s when annual nestings had declined from 600,000 to a mere 8,130
• Preventing the loss of one of Asia’s last seven elephant corridors in the 2000s by fighting to stop deforestation of the Southern Cardamom Mountains rainforest in Cambodia
• Dramatically reducing the illegal wildlife trade in Cambodia, one of Asia’s five main source countries for wildlife exported for traditional Asian medicine, exotic pets, and meats

If it were not for her, these battles might have been lost – and these species and habitats would have disappeared forever.

When Suwanna arrived in Southeast Asia in the late 1990s, she was appalled by the large-scale deforestation and rampant wildlife trafficking. "Ten years ago, when I moved to Cambodia,” she recounts, “owning exotic pets and consuming wildlife dishes was a way of life. Having caged tigers and bears in one’s living room was a status symbol. Wildlife was sold everywhere, in markets, in restaurants, even on sidewalks. Long-tailed macaques were held on restaurant roofs, waiting for customers to eat their brains while they were still alive. Captured bears in back yards were waiting for their next paw to be cut off. Thanks to our work, the Prime Minister inaugurated a nationwide campaign against wildlife trafficking. On the launch day, March 1, 2001, he asked businessmen to stop eating bear paws after their golf tournaments and ordered all law enforcement agencies to take action to stop the wildlife trade.”

Responding to this crisis required immediate action. No other non-profit had dared to take on the criminals conducting the illegal wildlife trade, but Suwanna moved quickly, agreeing on a Memorandum of Understanding with the Cambodian government to create a special law enforcement unit that would patrol the entire country and stop shipments of wildlife in cities, on roads, and national borders. The Wildlife Rapid Rescue Team (WRRT) was launched on July 2, 2001 with the support of the Prime Minister. In just the first six months of operations, the team rescued 2,800 live animals, and confiscated 2.3 tons of wildlife meat and body parts.

But this was not a simple issue: The new WRRT team was rescuing more and more animals that were now flooding the government-owned wildlife rescue center in Phnom Tamao. Stopping the wildlife trade raised a critical question – what to do with the large numbers of live animals that were rescued, and how to pay for their care and welfare? At the time, the government-owned Phnom Tamao Wildlife Rescue Center was considered “the place where animals go to die.” Suwanna felt a personal responsibility to care for the victims of the wildlife trade. She recounts how deeply she was touched by the plight of these animals while conducting two sting operations in October 2000 that rescued seven tigers and two bears from Chinese and local traffickers. After the animals were confiscated, the government asked Suwanna and her team from WildAid to help with their care. Suwanna wasn’t sure how she would manage to find enough funds to provide for food and enclosures, but she knew she must do it. “I could not avoid dealing with this problem,” she says. “The survival of these animals depended on me and when I saw how badly one of the young tigers had been abused, I vowed to help them. An eight-month old female had been so badly beaten that she could no longer walk. The hunter transporting her down the Mekong River had pounded her again and again with a metal bar – to fit her into a wooden box so the police couldn’t find her – he broke her back and her skull. She stayed in the box for five days…”

To address this urgent need, Suwanna and her team organized an international fundraising campaign and started raising funds for food, medicines, and technical experts. By January 2002, WildAid had created a professional team of veterinarians and wildlife husbandry specialists to provide ongoing technical assistance and appropriate diets to support the wildlife at the government facility. The team designed a four-tiered wildlife management program to deal with the hundreds of wild animals rescued every month: emergency care of animals during rescue operations; rapid release of recently caught individuals (strong adults in good health) back into their natural habitat; long-term care for the young and wounded; and rehabilitation programs for those animals that had recovered from injuries or were growing satisfactorily. For ten years now, Suwanna’s professional team has assisted the government rescue center in Phnom Tamao, which is regarded today as the foremost wildlife rescue center in the region.

Suwanna’s work is not limited to wildlife conservation – it also extends to tackling complicated habitat destruction issues in a practical and results-oriented manner, applying a proven park management mode that WildAid and Wildlife Alliance have developed in Asia and elsewhere in the world. In 2002, the Cambodian government faced another crisis – rampant destruction of one of the country’s rarest and most valuable ecosystems, the Southern Cardamom Mountain Range. This magnificent rainforest is one of Asia’s last seven remaining elephant corridors. The crisis started when a new freeway cut through the rainforest, linking Thailand to Phnom Penh. By opening previously undisturbed wilderness to newcomers, the highway enabled migrants and settlers to colonize the forest, and traffickers began pillaging wildlife populations. Based on Wildlife Alliance’s previous success fighting the wildlife trade, the Forestry Administration asked for Suwanna’s help to stop the deforestation and poaching.

Arriving on-site, Suwanna recalls, “Similar to other Southeast Asian countries, the rainforest was under siege: the sky was white with smoke everywhere, there were 37 to 40 forest fires any given day, the forest was being cleared at a rate of 700-2,000 acres per month, and 37 elephants and 12 tigers had been reported killed in the year preceding our arrival. District governors and commune chiefs were giving permits to anyone who wanted to settle there, promising land titles. These forests belong to the State and are protected by strong laws but the area is so remote that central government was not able to monitor much in those early years. Consequently, commune chiefs and district governors felt that they could do what they wanted. So they were burning the rainforest and parceling it out to newcomers, selling State land under the table.”

Suwanna worked with the Forestry Administration to address this crisis as fast as they could, organizing three small ranger teams on a shoestring, hoping to raise more funds later. When the rangers arrived in the field and saw the number of forest fires, they became desperate, not knowing where to start! Their work seemed to be a “mission impossible.” The ranger force was so small compared to the magnitude of the threats and the power wielded by the business interests and politicians.

Suwanna knew that, if the forest protection mission were to succeed, she would have to constantly elicit direct intervention from central government to support the rangers. So, she worked relentlessly with the field teams to meticulously document each case of forestland grabbing, supporting cases with GIS mapping, aerial photographs and investigative information – then swiftly submitting reports to appropriate ministries in Phnom Penh. She wrote support letters requesting urgent intervention by the central ministries. These reports and letters woke up the Minister and his Department Heads. This started Suwanna’s ten-year battle to keep the forest standing. She was successful in engaging central government to assert strong authority over provincial officials. In the process of imposing compliance with the law, the Ministry’s institutional capacity was strengthened and the ranger units on the ground became a force to be reckoned with.

• Forest fires were drastically reduced from 37-40 per day in 2002, to fewer than one per day in 2003.
• Rangers stopped 401 cases of land grabbing during the first nine months of operations. All illegal claims to the land were cancelled.
• The new freeway was zoned with strictly protected forest segments and zones for villager agriculture and residences. Today, this freeway is the only national road in the country to be bordered by lush rainforest.
• Reported elephant killings went from 37 in the prior 18 months to only five in the next four years – a 95 percent reduction. Tiger killings went from twelve to six – reduced by 50 percent. There have been no killings of either elephants or tigers in years.
• Seven government permits for land concessions were prevented or cancelled, saving 170,000 acres of forest.

Every year, Suwanna’s team dealt with high-level threats coming from unrelated government departments in Phnom Penh – land concession permits allocated to rich developers on the basis of political connections and relationships, without approval of the Forestry Administration. Working successfully with the Administration, the majority of these permits were stopped. As a result of the ranger teams, aerial patrols, and relentless outreach to ministries and agencies, more than one million hectares – 2.5 million acres – of continuous forest have been maintained in the Southern Cardamoms, one of the great forest conservation achievements in Asia.

As further funds were raised, Suwanna and her team designed a long-term strategy to work with local communities and all stakeholders to support the long-term protection of the Southern Cardamoms. Five communes have conducted participatory land use planning, zoning and demarcation. The poorest landless farmers have gained access to land, capital and markets through family enterprises in agriculture and ecotourism: development of drip irrigation and modern vegetable cropping, building night camps and homestays, managing community micro-credit funds and agriculture association, implementing transfer of technical knowledge and building of schools.

For these efforts Suwanna Gauntlett has been featured on CNN, BBC, the New York Times Magazine, National Geographic, and other global media outlets. She has received two medals from Prime Minister Hun Sen for her contributions to Cambodia’s people and environment.

In 1989-2000, prior to founding Wildlife Alliance, Suwanna created and managed the environmental management firm The Gauntlett Group, Inc. The firm assisted multi-national corporations with policy decisions, strategic planning and management programs that reduce pollution and excessive consumption of natural resource in all areas of operations. Clients included Pfizer, Ciba-Geigy, Fujitsu, Xerox, Boeing, Alcoa, LVMH, and Nike.