When I first arrived the new community I worked with, there were a number of people came to participate with their smiles and hopes. In the start up phase with the new community, there were not expected to gain a smoothly facilitate. It might refer to the community characteristic and the culture where people are living. The journey across the village to meet some people across the road or people nearby the road were what I can, to observe and learnt the people interest and their current situations.
Putuet village is not too far from the Modulkiri town but we required to stay overnight in the village due to the road accessibility constraint. This village are fending by the rubber plantation in which invested by the foreigner private company. The people used to have an ownership and freedom on their living previously, have been changed to adapt the new way of life of the new development.
Used to walked to the nearby forest to collect the food and NTFPs production for subsistence, now it is difference. They have to walk very long time across the Economic Land Concession (ELC) area and sometime they are asked to tell what the purpose of their journey to the forest if not, the barrier is locked while some areas will need to pay USD 5 of the entrance fee per car per time.
The areas were covered by evergreen, semi-evergreen forest, issued by royal degree in Namlir Wildlife Sanctuary was granted to private company by sub-degree. The remaining forest area about 10% of the total areas are under treated and also being lobbied to grant them to be ELC. But the question is, how the ELC really make the small country change? Yes, it makes changes, change from the evergreen forest to the rubber plantation and change from the free road to the locked road and also, we might expect very a little that the infrastructure will be constructed by the investment company. Anyways, it is still in waiting mood.
I listened carefully to what were mentioned by the community. They told us their experiences, problems and what they need for the community advantage and global interest which is called Community Based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM). Most of the women debated and asked us a lot of questions on how the natural resource are being managed and will be managed and how it will contribute to their livelihood and national development. Also they even came up with what they demand to make it belong to them, was the farmland where they left for long time a go. But it is not what they are expecting, we are here to initiate to make a Community Protected Area in this treated area where it is a little taking care from our govern't.
SFB (Supporting Forest and Biodiversity Project) was well known in this Landscape who got a biggest fund from USAID to implement its activities in our Cambodia. This project is remaining 24 months to continue the mission, goal, objective and its activities in this worth landscape (Eastern Plains Landscape and Prey Lang Landscape). A number of question were raised to me at a coffee-shop when I was departure from the village regarding to Sustainability Mechanism.
While talking about sustainability. It is a complicated thing and every NGOs and Project always think of this issue after their mission ended. It is really depending on the commitment of the community themselves and the commitment of the beneficiary both direct and indirect. But the question is, what are you contributing to make it sustainable? The resource mobilization after the project life will fall into to government who own this country, the relevance development partners and ALL of us can contribute to make it changes and sustainable especially the youth.
The community empowerment and improving the basic knowledge and understanding of the forest management and community institutionalization will be very important . Forest governance and the constructive dialogue would be able to play the role to make it difference and be efficiency. And I do believe that this all of mentioned cases will be able to contribute to protect this small forest area and continue its works and values to their people.
This short video clip, I made during my weekend, I do believe, it will make you impressing. My wife asked me What will this video relevance to your current position of Monitoring and Evaluation? There is.....!
I want a Social Impact and I hope and want to engage the Cambodian people to participate in the process of Forest Conservation in this landscape and their community. And so, it will contribute to an indicator of my project.
After walking down form the checking point, there were a few ladies came to us and ask for our interest to buy the wild meat. A few species of wildlife are being sold publicity in Busra Waterfall. Wild pig, red muntjac peacock and loris were dried on the stove for the tourist.
wild-meat offers for the tourist in Busra,
Photo by Siveun
"Hello man, would you like to order wild-meat, here is very fresh and just came earlier this morning" a lady said to me. I suddenly moved my camera to shoot some interesting picture of the wildlife which is being sold by the sellers. An old lady came close to me and ask for paying attention, He is a conservationist, why do you ask him to buy wild-meat? she said. Everybody looked to me like a stranger and one came and ask me to stop to take the picture. She said, Hi young boy, that is not good to take this picture and post to the social media because some wildlife organization and forestry administration may come and confiscate us.
Without responding I left the place to reduce people's stress and concern about confiscation from the relevance environmental agency. However, I feel not really comfortable with their eye looked to me, but being a environmental opinion, I felt very bad. Busra is a great junction point for the national and international tourists. While promoting the eco-tourism around this areas, the people really take advantage from the nature and natural resource including selling wild-meat. This is considered as a bad modelling regarding to environmental education to the people visited here.
This is also indicated that the environmental education is still limited for the local community and the people around here. However, law enforcement were not really proper implemented in this areas. The tourism principle in tourism sector should be prohibited the wild-meat inside the nature based recreation.
In Cambodia all wildlife shall be divided into the following three categories:
1- Endangered species;
2- Rare species; and
3- Common species.
According to the law:
Article 49 stated that: It shall be prohibited to commit the following against rare and endangered wildlife species.
1- Harass or harm any such species above or its habitat
2- Hunt, net, trap or poison
3- Process, stock or maintain as a zoo or in a family house
4- Transport
5- Trade and
6- Import or Export
Article 50 stated that: It is prohibited to commit the following activities against common wildlife species, except by a permit issued by the Forestry Administration:
1- Stock or maintain as a zoo or in a family house;
2- Transport and Trade an amount exceeding that necessary for customary use.
Loris is selling for medicine in Busra
Photo by: Siveun
Red Muntjac meat are sold in Busra
Photo by: Siveun
Wild-meat on the charcoal stove for selling to the tourist
Photo by Siveunn
A lady hand the red muntjac meat and negotiated the price
Photo by: Siveun
Cambodia currently has a total population of over 14 million people and has one of the youngest populations in Southeast Asia: with 41 per cent aged 18 and under, and more than a third between the ages of 10 and 24. Three decades of war and conflict, a post‐war boom and an average low life expectancy are reasons for this imbalance in demography.
While economic growth has propelled in the last decade, still 28 % of Cambodians live below the poverty line, having to survive on less than $1,25 a day, with children being the most vulnerable group. At these time of global financial crisis, the Asian Development Bank estimated that an additional 2 million people in Cambodia may have been forced into poverty as the cost of living (food, fuel and other commodities) have risen. As a consequence, an increasing number of women and children in Cambodia have been working in the informal sector in order to survive ‐ for lower wages, poorer conditions, and greater risk of exploitation and trafficking.
Without a formal social welfare system, there are concerns that the crisis will reverse the positive economic trends and push more Cambodian children into poverty, increasing their risk of ending on the streets.
In Cambodia, street children are primarily found in urban areas as cities are considered to have better economic and employment opportunities by migrants from the provinces. Based on information gathered by the Cambodia Street Children Network (CSCN) in 2008, more than 5600 street children were counted in 6 Cambodian cities in one day. This number obviously only indicates the actual number of children living and/or working on the street. However, the exact number is not known. Factors like seasonal fluctuations, regular migration and changing political and economical situations affect the actual number of street children.
The impact of street life on children and youth is significant. Unstable lifestyles, lack of medical care, lack of education and inadequate living conditions increase young people’s susceptibility to exploitation, unsafe migration and trafficking, substance abuse, chronic illness, sexual violence and sexually transmitted diseases.
Please see the video of the Transformer Actress Roise Huntington-Whiteley talked about the child life in Cambodia:
"Seth didn't choose to live here it's all she could afford. She didn't choose every single day surrounded by phial and disease. Seth didn't have a choice but you do" Roise Huntington-Whiteley Said.
Although the Kingdom of
Cambodia is rich in natural resources, decades of war and internal conflict
have left it one of the world's poorest countries. The legacy of strife
includes social and economic scars. Many millions of land mines were sowed
throughout the countryside, where millions of them still lie, hidden and
unexploded. Mines are an enduring menace to the eight out of ten Cambodians who
live in rural areas, and they are an obstacle to agricultural development.
Cambodia's poor people number
almost 4.8 million, and 90 per cent of them are in rural areas. Most
of them depend on agriculture for their livelihood, but at least 12 per
cent of poor people are landless. Small-scale farmers practice agriculture at the
subsistence level, using traditional methods. Productivity is low.
Two thirds of the country's
1.6 million rural households face seasonal food shortages each year. Rice
alone accounts for as much as 30 per cent of household expenditures. Rural
people are constantly looking for work or other income-generating activities,
which are mainly temporary and poorly paid.
Landlessness is one of the
causes of a strong trend of internal migration that is also driven by the
pressures of rapid population growth and the desire to evade from recurring
flood and drought in lowland areas. People are moving from the more densely
populated provinces in the south and west to the more sparsely populated
provinces in the north-east, which include some of the country's poorest
districts.
Who are Cambodia's poor rural
people?
The country's poor people
include subsistence farmers, members of poor fishing communities, landless
people and rural youth, as well as internally displaced persons and mine
victims. Tribal peoples and women are generally the most disadvantaged.
Women in particular do not have
equal access to education, paid employment and land ownership and other
property rights. For many women, reproductive health services are inadequate or
non-existent. Many women had to assume the responsibility of heading their
households after male family members were killed in conflict.
Where are they?
Poverty rates are highest in
upland areas. The poorest people live in the districts close to the borders
with Thailand and the Lao People's Democratic Republic in the north and
north-east, and with Viet Nam in the east. Poverty is less severe in the
districts around Tonle Sap Lake and those in the Mekong River basin in the
south.
Cambodia's poorest people are
isolated. They live in remote villages, far from basic social services and
facilities. Many have to travel more than 5 km to reach a health clinic,
and still others live more than 5 km from the nearest road.
Why are they poor?
The pressures of a fast-growing
population contribute to poverty. Because of a lack of education and skills
training, people have inadequate employment opportunities and low capabilities.
They are insecure, excluded and vulnerable. They have limited access to natural
resources. Poor health, lack of education, poor infrastructure and low
productivity lead to deeper poverty. The cycle of poverty, ill health and high
health care expenditure cripples poor Cambodian families economically.
Rural
poverty and lack of opportunity in rural areas have contributed to the spread
of HIV AIDS, as young women migrate to urban factories and become sex workers
in neighbouring countries. Although HIV prevalence rates have shown a decrease,
the impact of the infection continues to be strong.
The Mondulkiri bike racing and fun to promote the tourism, natural resource management and livelihood development of the local community were held in 18 May 2014. This is the first event in Modulikiri with the supported fund by World Wild Fund for nature (WWF-Cambodia), a leaded conservation organization in Mondulkiri in partnership with the Mondulkiri provincial administration. The bike event encourage participants of all age and fitness level to cycle through the beautiful landscape, mountainous around Sen Monrum town.
