· A Forest Abundance
· Special Features
· Did You Know?
· Wild Side
· Cause for Concern
· Looking Ahead

Global 200 Snapshot

This ecoregion is important for its intact communities of mammals, birds, and other vertebrates.

A Forest Abundance

Step into the Cardamom Mountains Moist Forests and you will immediately feel enveloped. Surrounding you will be towering trees, vines as thick as your waist climbing through the branches, and dripping leaves in many shapes and shades of green. You may hear the chirps and whistles of arboreal birds, which reach a crescendo during the early morning when the birds are joined by the haunting calls of the endangered pileated gibbon. Elephants are here, but they march silently through the forests. On occasion--if you get close enough--you will hear a low rumbling sound they use to communicate with each other in the forests. Teeming with life, these forests have sustained populations of even the largest Asian mammals, including tigers and leopards and bantengs, the wild relative of domestic cattle, distinguishable by the animals’ white stockings and white rump-patch, for thousands of years.

Special Features

Human population pressures are low in much of this region, and that's helped to protect much of the wildlife habitat. The forests of the Elephant and Cardamom Mountains are especially intact in Cambodia, although the small area that extends into Thailand is not. The forests of the Cardamom Mountains are truly a showcase for Asia’s biological diversity.

	The moustached hawk cuckoo doesn't really have a moustache, but it does have a dark gray moustache-like stripe on its cheeks and throat.

Wild Side

Sun bears clamber up trees in search of honey and bee larvae, while gaur, large, dark oxen, lumber through the dark forest. In more open areas, you may see herds of banteng. Pileated gibbons swing through the trees, while common leopards, clouded leopards, and tigers pad through the undergrowth. A few species are found here that otherwise exist only in Thailand's southeastern peninsula, including the greater mouse deer, lesser long-tongued fruit bat, moustached hawk cuckoo, buffy fish-owl, silver oriole, and mountain fulvetta. But these represent only the few species that we know to live in these forests. Because this ecoregion has been little explored, many new species undoubtedly await scientific discovery.

Cause for Concern

The areas of this ecoregion that lie in southeastern Thailand have been greatly reduced by logging and clearing for agriculture. Even in Cambodia, home of most of the intact forests, the forests will become fragmented if current logging plans are carried out.

Looking Ahead

This ecoregion presents a unique opportunity in Southeast Asia to protect large blocks of intact habitat that are essential to the survival of numerous species. It is important to attempt to stop the rampant illegal logging currently taking place throughout much of the region in an effort to keep these forests wild. Further study by biologists will help to identify "hotspots" of diversity within this vast wilderness and to identify many species yet unknown to science.