Kaeng Krachan 2015

And so another year has come to pass in the Thailand Wildlife/Kaeng Krachan Project. It’s been another great year full of surprises and of course the inevitable equipment failures. It is maybe apt that the end has arrived in the rainy season when the weather does its worst to kill off equipment.

The elements and the inherent dampness of the forest have taken their toll again and there is a host of dead camera and video equipment this year. Equipment that was holding on, finally gave way to the elements. Indeed, on our last visit to review the sets we had 4 failed cameras and the very last of our Bushnell video cameras had finally given in to the torrential forest downpours it had successfully endured for so long.

Our strategy in 2015 had been to concentrate in small pockets of forest supported by Park Chief Khun Kamol Nuanyai's fantastic research team. Allowing time for the transitory and range species to hopefully join the localized species in front of the camera sets. Gaining more understanding of specific species behavior to better understand how to develop our camera placement in the future. All the time increasing the species captures and providing usable images to the Department of National Parks for their publications.

And indeed Kaeng Krachan has once again shown an amazing bio-diversity of cryptic forest life that habits even it's well visited locales. And as we close down the project, and start to prepare for our next wildlife photographic undertaking (which will surprise many), we are sharing a glimpse at one of the project deliverables. The hightlights of the awareness poster set for 2015:

{gallery}posters2015{/gallery} 

Kaeng Krachan National Park (KKNP), and by definition the Kaeng Krachan Forest Complex (KKFC), have proven time and time again to be an area of incredible bio-diversity. A unique meeting place of four zoogeographical sub regions and four floristic provinces (Indo-Burmese or Himalayan, Indo-Malaysian, Annamatic, and Andamanese). Already an ASEAN Heritage Park, its uniqueness of habitat and bio-diversity in Thailand deserves it the right to World Heritage status. Indeed it has resided on the tentative list for World Heritage since 2011 and Thailand is strongly supporting its full recognition by the world body, as it truly deserves. The World Heritage Committee will consider the inclusion of the Kaeng Krachan Forest Complex as a World Heritage Site in 2016. We must but hope they do the right thing and recognize the true natural heritage is about the survival of the magnificent and unique fauna and flora of the Keang Krachan Forest Complex and should not be overshadowed by disparate political views concerning human encroachment.