The principal threat to the survival of elephants remains habitat loss and degradation, with elephant populations pushed into ever smaller 'islands' of isolated habitat. There is often little connectivity between population groups. These populations may in turn come increasingly into conflict with humans, leading to problems such as crop-raiding.

These problems could become increasingly acute in the area surrounding Seima Protection Forest, which is undergoing a period of rapid change; improvements in the road network, in-migration from other areas of Cambodia and an increase in commercial exploitation activities such as mining, all now pose a significant threat to the long-term survival of elephant populations in the area.

Logging activities in the 1990s also brought additional threats to elephants and other species in the area. Aside from the direct impacts of logging, such as habitat modification caused by the removal of timber, there are also several negative impacts that accompany logging. Forestry companies construct roads to extract timber from their concessions, often opening up previously inaccessible areas to hunters and inadvertently facilitating illegal activities such as land clearance and poaching.