For farmers in the area, there’s little hope for this year’s dry-season rice harvest. They irrigate in desperation, but they can already see there won’t be enough water. They are bracing to write off their crops, fall deeper into debt, and maybe lose their land, several said this week.
Cambodia’s state electricity provider is pushing ahead with the construction of a transmission line through the Prey Lang Wildlife Sanctuary, a plan that has caused concerns for representatives of three multimillion-dollar conservation projects as well as officials in the environment and forestry ministries.
Residents in a Kandal commune say it’s been five years since trash collection was stopped in their area — so people are using the local stream as a dumpsite, and it’s killing fish, making them sick and spoiling farmland.
A government sub-decree named the daughter and son-in-law of a CPP senator as the new owners of 600 hectares of land in Preah Sihanouk, claiming the state land and flooded forests were unused and not of public interest. Residents there disagree.
The government has granted nearly 200 hectares of Ream National Park and flooded forest land that a local official said was disputed in Preah Sihanouk province’s Prey Nob district to companies and private individuals, to the surprise of two commune officials.
Bunong villagers flushed out by Sesan dam floodwaters have been taking boats to visit ancestral grounds, wading through clusters of dying trees that were not adapted to survive permanent floods. They are now bracing for a new fight as a rubber company eyes their refuge on higher ground.
The infilling of 70 hectares of the Mekong River across from Phnom Penh is nearly complete, residents say, as the Kandal provincial governor touts the “development potential” of the oknha’s project that he says will soon sway any unhappy locals.
A conservation organization recorded sharp declines in banteng, gaur and other species of land-dwelling hooved mammals in Keo Seima Wildlife Sanctuary over a 10-year biodiversity study, suggesting four animals are at risk of disappearing from the protected area within a few years — like tigers and wild water buffalo before them.
Chea Seila is one of the few conservationists who spends the months of listening needed to earn locals’ trust, villagers and colleagues say. For her, it’s the communities, with deep wells of knowledge, who are critical to protecting Stung Treng’s wetlands.
Members of the environmental group Mother Nature spent Thursday trying to trace the whereabouts of three of its prominent activists, who were arrested by Phnom Penh police in the middle of producing the group’s latest campaign video.
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