Eyes and Boots on the Ground: Anti-Poaching Patrols and Wildlife Populations Monitoring in the Biodiverse Annamite Mountains of Laos

Timeframe: 2019 - 2022
Country/Region: Laos
Partner: Project Anoulak

The Annamites are a mountain range in mainland Southeast Asia that extends east of the Mekong River from central Laos and Vietnam down to southern Vietnam and a small part of eastern Cambodia. The Nakai–Nam Theun National Protected Area, located on the Laotian side of the Annamites range, holds numerous rare species such as the Brown Hornbill, the Pygathrix Nemaeus, the White-cheeked Gibbons and more. The wildlife is severely threatened by illegal hunting, for local consumption and particularly for the international trade. On top of that, Nakai-Nam Theun shares a border of about 160km with Vietnam, which increases pressure on wildlife from illegal poaching by Vietnamese poachers.

To protect populations from further decline, Fondation Segré is supporting this project implemented by Project Anoulak in order to prevent illegal poaching on wildlife populations in Nakai-Nam Theun and allow populations to recover from past hunting pressure. An intensive anti-poaching patrol system will be put in place combined with a wildlife population monitoring to assess law enforcement efforts on biodiversity conservation.

Specific measures are defined in five areas of work:

  • Reducing or removing any instance of illegal poaching (including logging, and hunting) with community anti-poaching patrols and supporting teams
  • Ensuring stable or increasing wildlife populations, especially for key threatened species listed on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species
  • Assessing the impact of anti-poaching patrols on biodiversity abundance
  • Monitoring wildlife populations trends and distribution over time, and conduct surveys on species for which current occurrence is uncertain
  • Collecting data on several species to investigate certain aspects of their ecology (distribution, habitat requirements, activity etc.)