In 2000, when the scientific consensus was that Cambodia's Siamese crocodiles were functionally extinct, Indigenous Chorng communities in the Cardamom mountains told researchers otherwise. They knew the animals were still there because they had lived alongside them for generations. That local knowledge led to the official rediscovery of wild populations and set the trajectory for everything that followed. On 22 July, Cambodia's environment ministry formally designated a 315-hectare wetland in Pursat province as a genetic conservation area — essentially a living gene bank for approximately 40 wild Siamese crocodiles. The species remains critically endangered on the IUCN Red List. Habitat destruction, poaching, and genetic contamination from farm-bred crossbreeding have left few genetically intact wild populations anywhere in south-east Asia. The species is believed extinct in Malaysia, Myanmar, and Indonesia. The conservation infrastructure behind this designation is substantial. Fauna & Flora International established a breeding facility in 2011 that now holds 648 individuals, including 71 breeding parents (54 female, 17 male). The programme has released 246 crocodiles into the wild since inception, with 100 of those released since 2024 alone. Each animal requires three to four years of rearing before release, and some are fitted with acoustic tags for post-release tracking. The results are showing up in the wild. In 2024, five wild nests containing 106 eggs were discovered in the Cardamom mountains. Community wardens monitored the nests and observed 60 hatchlings — the largest recorded wild breeding event for the species this century. This is a concrete signal that the captive-to-wild pipeline is producing reproductively viable animals. What makes this programme structurally distinctive is the role of Chorng community wardens. They identify nesting sites, monitor rivers, patrol for illegal fishing and poaching, and report threats to government officials. Conservation International's Sony Oum describes the Chorng relationship with crocodiles as spiritual — the animals are regarded as sacred guardians of rivers and forests. When crocodiles damage crops, Oum says, the community's response is not anger but satisfaction at their presence. The genetic conservation framing is deliberate. Small, isolated wild populations are vulnerable to inbreeding depression, which reduces reproductive fitness and disease resistance. The Pursat site is positioned as a reservoir of genetic diversity that could eventually support reintroduction efforts across the species' former range in south-east Asia — if the population remains healthy and expands. The 25-year arc from presumed extinction to formal habitat protection, driven initially by Indigenous knowledge that scientists had overlooked, represents one of the cleaner examples of community-anchored conservation producing measurable outcomes. The question now is whether the institutional and financial commitments hold long enough for the slow biology of crocodile recovery to play out.
