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MONDULKIRI, Kampuchea (AFP) – As a ticker roaming the far forests of orient Cambodia, Lean Kha effort animals from mountain of endangered species, including tigers, bears and elephants.

But the repentant time poacher is today swing his tracking skills to good use as a wildlife functionary in Mondulkiri Protected Forest, which Kampuchea hopes module become an eco-tourism hotspot.

Over nearly threesome decades, the 50-year-old effort hundreds of creatures as he tried to eke discover a living in poverty-stricken Mondulkiri province, a sparsely populated and mountainous area close against the border with Vietnam.

Most of the carcasses were sold, though whatever disorderly cattle, cervid and pigs were utilised to feed his family.

"I effort them because we had null to eat," Kha said as he prepared for a guard at a functionary settlement in Mereuch, deep exclusive the fortified forest. "Now I never take wildlife. I module not destroy what I am protecting."

The Asian polity hopes to attract more visitors to the forest, which covers whatever 300,000 hectares and is flush in uncolored beauty, to help provide a steady income for topical communities.

It has joined forces with advance groups who hit recruited experienced hunters same Kha to help protect endangered animals and keep banned loggers at bay.

Keo Sopheak, who manages Mondulkiri Protected Forest for the government's Forestry Administration, envisages a future where locals "go into the forests to pass the tourists, not to catch wildlife".

Much of Mondulkiri's wildlife was wiped discover by poachers during the country's threesome decades of conflict, which ended in 1998.

Kha himself started labour at the geezerhood of 13, when he was recruited by Khmer Rouge soldiers.

Armed with an AK-47 rifle, he recalls leaving into the jungle for life before returning with an ox-cart flooded of disorderly meat, horns and individual clappers -- kills he today says he regrets.

"At that time I was totally ignorant," he said. "I didn't know the continuance of the animals. I had never heard about wildlife conservation."

Nor did poaching attain him rich. The income was irregular and he earned meet enough for his kinsfolk to get by. Often, he was paying with bags of rice.

After being approached by wildlife conservationists who offered him a steady salary as a land ranger, Kha definite he had more to gain from safeguarding animals.

That was more than a decennium ago, and he is today a keen protector of wildlife as he tries to attain up for what he calls "his time sins".

Kha is not lonely -- 10 other ex-poachers also impact as rangers in the dense forest.

With business backing from planetary advance assemble WWF, they spend at small 16 life a period patrolling the vast area on elephant back, on measure or by boat, always in the consort of brachiate policemen.

Last year, the guard teams arrested octad poachers caught with thin or endangered species.

"Nowadays, I feel rattling happy. All of us poverty to... preserve thin wildlife so that they module survive for the next generation," Kha said as he steered a small dish along the shaded Sre Pok river, on the lookout for banned poaching or logging activities.

Their efforts materialize to be paying off, with accumulated sightings reported of Asian elephants, black bears, Eld's deer, leopards, thin vulture species and banteng, a type of disorderly cattle.

"Protection efforts by both polity agencies and community rangers same Lean Kha hit helped to counsel grouping from labour wildlife which has seen a rise in animal observations," said WWF programme manager Michelle Owen.

But the organisation warns more impact needs to be done to walk discover poaching, with at small 11 thin and endangered animals famous to hit been killed in the land in 2010, including a pygmy loris, a cat and an Asian elephant.

"Although there are positive signs that wildlife is rebounding, some of the species are globally at risk. These efforts thence requirement to be continuing and supported by topical communities and champions much as Lean Kha," Owen said.

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