Continued from here ...

Tourism in Cambodia is up, and it appears the the big numbers are coming from Korea. Two new air routes are being added to the ones between Inchon and Siem Reap that started late last year.

And tourists aren't the only creatures on the increase.

Tigers may be making a comeback in the wild. The Seima Biodiversity Conservation Area in northeastern Cambodia is one location the Tigers Forever project, a branch of the Wildlife Conservation Society of the New York Zoos has installed cameras around 80 square miles as an effort to identify the wild tigers living there.

Of all the sites in Asia, the Cambodian one has the fewest tigers, probably no more than 10. But country director Joe Walston is confident of hitting the target, in part because the zone has plenty of prey. "As tiger habitat it's close to optimal," he says.

Fingers crossed that they find there are more than ten. Even if that ends up being the present census, things are much better than they used to be ...

"It's quite moving, I guess," says Ed Pollard, the society's technical adviser, standing in the dappled light beneath a canopy deep inside the jungle.

"Only 30 years ago this was a hotbed. There were arms coming along this trail around this area and now it's all overgrown and it seems like this untouched wilderness. In what used to be a cauldron of war, we've now got tigers and elephants and bears trotting backward and forward almost unmolested."

Peaceful, pastoral Cambodia. I love it!

And the Mekong River dolphins are looking like they're making a bit of a comeback.

With net fishing banned in its main habitat, these highly endangered animals appear to be having about 20 new babies born every year.

More accurately known as the Mekong River Irrawaddy dolphin, they are thought to be fewer than 170 left, but this is up from just 90 individuals.

The local public and political will to conserve Mekong River Irrawaddy dolphin population is considerable. James Cook University, in partnership with the Cambodian Department of Fisheries are working to raise education and awareness about Irrawaddy dolphins and develop local level conservation and management initiatives.

Recent collaboration with a local NGO in Cambodia, the Cambodian Rural Development Team, has initiated a new and exciting project to provide rural development (e.g. toilets, access to freshwater and diversification of local livelihoods) in exchange for increased co-operation with conservation activities.

It is yet to be seen if this $185 million for developing Tonle Sap Lake will be result in good ecology or not, but the program of loans, grants and 'technique projects' is in the works.

And as a tease for an upcoming post or two on Kari Grady Grossman's new book, "Bones That Float" and the work it supports, here's a VOA story on environmentally aware Cam kids.

About 100 Cambodian schoolchildren have called on Khmer government authorities to put an end to illegal, widespread deforestation near their school district, 70 kilometers from the capital, Phnom Penh. The children ages 10 to 16, attend primary school in the Kompong Speu Oral District, which borders on a wildlife sanctuary.

The Voice of America’s Khmer Service reports the children have sent authorities scores of drawings and cartoons depicting the destruction: men wielding axes, chain saws, and machetes, felling trees, stripping the land clean, and killing elephants and other wildlife.

You can see the drawings here.

Go kids! Go Kari!

And now, I'll go.