Destinations Known | Why proposed Irrawaddy dolphin festival in Cambodian commune is too late – the local population has been wiped out already
- Two years after their last Irrawaddy dolphin was found dead, members of a Cambodian commune are discussing launching a festival reflecting the animals’ value
- The event aims to help tourism recover in the area after the dolphins’ disappearance, but we suggest it might all be too little, too late
We humans don’t care much about individual animals, do we!
We begin to show a bit of concern only when species are threatened with extinction. Then we start to put some effort into saving the few that remain. But this is primarily for our own benefit, not theirs.
Tiger X, Orangutan Y or Dugong Z would not have been so loved if they had been born in earlier times. The last of their kind they may be, but we value them primarily because they represent a disappearing opportunity – to either ward off yet more loss to the planetary biodiversity we know is good for us or to benefit more directly.
And so to Anlong Chheuteal, in northern Cambodia, where villagers are coming to terms with the passing of their resident Irrawaddy dolphins – and the tourism boon they represented.
“Two years after the last Irrawaddy dolphin was found dead in a transboundary pool in the Mekong River on the Cambodia-Laos border, the villagers who once relied on the dolphins to attract ecotourists have a new plan to get visitors to return,” reports the Mekong Eye.
