Manoly’s role at the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) Laos PDR Program entails providing strategic policy guidance on protected areas and wildlife management and protection, and supervising cross-cutting programmes on counter wildlife trafficking and One Health. Her dream is to safeguard intact areas of vast natural significance for Laos and the wider world. Laos protected areas support the livelihoods of several million people of multi-ethnic groups, yet they are increasingly threatened by human-induced processes.
Before attending the Summit in London, Manoly visited Nam Et-Phou Louey (NEPL) National Park, home to many critically endangered species. Manoly heard many issues that rangers, who are responsible for protecting the area, face including basic lack of law enforcement mandates, equipment, and personnel to sufficiently and effectively protect over 400,000 hectares. These discussions inspired Manoly to apply for the Mary Robinson Climate Justice Award, for which she was successful and received £3,000 to help increase her conservation efforts. Manoly returned to Laos and continued to drive advocacy work for conservation, including contributing to the drafting of new and revised legislation on protected areas, CITES implementation, wetlands and wildlife and aquatic resources.
WCS, in collaboration with the NEPL National Park Management Office, currently works with 10 teams of rangers, made up of local community members and government-provided military personnel for forest patrolling. Many of the rangers were once farmers and hunters who contributed to the damage they are now employed to prevent. With the grant, Manoly has funded new equipment for the rangers, including technology for the SMART patrolling system, boots and badges. This helps them in their work tackling illegal hunters and loggers. Local communities of over 30,000 inhabitants are becoming better educated and equipped to support the conservation of their environment. The threats from agricultural expansion, free range cattle raising, illegal hunting and logging remain high, but with collaborative management between government, INGOs, and local communities, biodiversity monitoring shows promising trends in the protection of endangered species and ecosystems.
“The Mary Robinson Climate Justice Award helped a lot to lift the conservation issue’s profile in Laos. Seeing a young woman from Laos as one of the speakers at One Young World and as a winner of the award somehow inspires and empowers the youth to think that they too can do this!”
