Qualla: Cardamom Mountains

Cardamom Mountains: Introduction

Thu, 26 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Alison Kyra Carter, CC BY-SA 4.0. Somewhere in the Cardamom Mountains, on a remote rock ledge deep in the forest canopy, sixty-centimeter ceramic jars sit where they were placed centuries ago -- burial vessels containing the remains of people whose identity scholars still debate. Local legends say they hold Cambodian royalty. Archaeologists suspect they belong to indigenous Pearic communities who traded forest products for glass beads with maritime merchants. The jars have never been moved. In a mountain range where almost no one lives, where the forest is so dense and the terrain so rugged that the Khmer Rouge hid here for decades after their overthrow, the dead keep their own counsel. The Cardamom Mountains, stretching across southwestern Cambodia and into eastern Thailand, constitute the largest contiguous rainforest in mainland Southeast Asia -- a wilderness so impenetrable that much of its wildlife has never been fully catalogued.

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Image: Alison Kyra Carter | CC BY-SA 4.0

Cardamom Mountains: A Wet Wall of Green

Thu, 26 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Sotheaboth, CC BY-SA 3.0. The range runs along a southeast-northwest axis from the Gulf of Thailand coast in Koh Kong Province to the Veal Veang District of Pursat Province, continuing into Chanthaburi Province in Thailand. The asymmetry of the mountains defines everything. Western slopes facing the Gulf ...

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Image: Sotheaboth | CC BY-SA 3.0

Cardamom Mountains: Painted Elephants, Vanished Deer

Thu, 26 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit D Kyle Latinis, CC BY-SA 4.0. In a cave called Kanam, near Kravanh Township in Pursat Province, ancient red ochre paintings depict elephants, elephant riders, deer, and wild cattle. The art likely dates from the late Angkorian through post-Angkorian periods, though some researchers speculate the site could be...

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Image: D Kyle Latinis | CC BY-SA 4.0

Cardamom Mountains: Refuge for the Hunted

Thu, 26 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Hans A. Rosbach, CC BY-SA 3.0. The Cardamom Mountains are thought to shelter at least 62 globally threatened animal species and 17 globally threatened tree species. Cambodia's largest population of Asian elephants roams here -- possibly the largest in all of Indochina, though this has yet to be confirmed. Tige...

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Image: Hans A. Rosbach | CC BY-SA 3.0

Cardamom Mountains: Last Stronghold, Twice Over

Thu, 26 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit กสิณธร ราชโอรส, CC BY-SA 4.0. The inaccessibility that protects the wildlife also attracted those fleeing defeat. After Vietnamese forces toppled the Khmer Rouge in 1978, the mountains became one of the regime's final sanctuaries, with the Thai border providing a conduit for foreign support and an eventual es...

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Image: กสิณธร ราชโอรส | CC BY-SA 4.0

Cardamom Mountains: The Forest Fights Back

Thu, 26 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit JannyDavison, CC BY-SA 4.0. In 2002, a transborder highway to Thailand was completed along the coast south of the Cardamoms, fragmenting habitats for elephants, big cats, and primates while opening the forest to slash-and-burn agriculture and poaching. International conservation organizations -- Wildlife Al...

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Image: JannyDavison | CC BY-SA 4.0