PEPY visits the Angkor Centre for Conservation of Biodiversity

Last week most of our office team had the chance to visit the Angkor Centre for Conservation of Biodiversity (ACCB), located located near the famous temples of Angkor. The ACCB is the  first nature conservation centre in Cambodia and aims to contribute to the conservation of wildlife and biodiversity in Cambodia.

The ACCB  promotes the rescue of selected native Cambodian wildlife, including confiscated animals from the illegal wildlife trade. The centre nurses the rescued animals back to health and keeps them safe from poachers. The centre also provides facilities and technical expertise for the conservation breeding of selected threatened species in order to increase world populations, training the offspring of rescued animals for release into protected areas. ACCB serves as an education and training centre for communities, wildlife officials and visitors to the centre in order to increase awareness of and build capacity for conservation and environmental protection in Cambodia.
A guide from the centre showed our group the facility and introduced us to some of the wildlife species ACCB is currently helping to rehabilitate, including Pileated Gibbons, Silvered Langurs, Asian Palm Civet, Malayan Porcupines (one of us nearly lost a finger!), Greater Adjutants (one of us nearly lost an arm!), several Raptors, a Burmese Python, and even a Pig-tailed Macaque!  The outing was a great way to get out of the office for an afternoon and learn about wildlife conservation in Cambodia.