CMDG scoredcard Goes Local

ពិន្ទុគោលដៅអភិវឌ្ឍន៍សហ្សសវត្សប្រើប្រាស់នៅថ្នាក់មូលដ្ឋាន

ប្រភព៖ UNDP Cambodia

Cambodia MGD Scorecard

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Endangered Giant Ibis found in new Cambodia habitat

(AFP) / 20 August 2013

Jubiliant conservationists expressed hope Tuesday for the survival of the critical-endangered Giant Ibis after a nest of the bird species was discovered in a previously unknown habitat in north-eastern Cambodia.

Habitat loss and poaching has pushed the Giant Ibis to the edge of extinction, with around only 345 of the reclusive creatures — distinctive for their bald heads and long beaks — left anywhere in the world, 90 percent of them in Cambodia.
A farmer in Cambodia’s Stung Treng province discovered the nesting site a few kilometres inland in the biodiverse Mekong Flooded Forest area last month, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) said in a statement.

An inspection team from the WWF later saw an adult bird sitting on the nest with two eggs.
“The discovery of the Giant Ibis nest on the Mekong is extremely significant because it provides hope for the species’ survival,” said Sok Ko, Forestry Administration official and Bird Nest Project officer with WWF.
The Giant Ibis — or Thaumatibis gigantea — was listed on the Red list of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) in 1994 as critically endangered, the group said, with its habitat limited to Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam.
“For Giant Ibis to survive ... it is key to secure breeding groups in more places. This one nest is part of securing the future for the species,” Gerry Ryan, WWF’s Research Technical Advisor, told AFP.
The group warned that threats remain as the species’ lowland forest habitats continue to be drained and stripped for agriculture, while its eggs are sometimes poached by villagers.
But conservation efforts in the Mekong area where the nest was discovered have brought some reward, Ryan added.
“Giant Ibises don’t like to be disturbed and are very shy — they tend to live far from human settlements,” he said.

“The presence of Cambodia’s national bird is further proof that efforts in managing and conserving the area and its biodiversity are worthwhile and having an effect.”

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Peaceful butterfly

Why Trees?

Tole Sap Lake and Living

Giant Snakes Set Free (Cambodia biodiversity conservation documentary

What is Infrastructure linked to livelihood development of minority people?

The road to access my target Community in Mondulkiri, Photo by Siveun

The Role of Community Organizers

Objectives:

SWOT analysis 

• identify the people to be involved in the organizations
• develop the relationship among the people that make the organization effective
• Data gathering
• Research 
• Participatory strategic planning
• Forming the organizations
• Responsive and effective leadership from the community 
• Leadership development is critical every member is encourage to take leadership roles;
• Members and leaders make organizational decisions – from by laws to slogans

Steps to CO

• Data gathering
• Research
• Participatory strategic planning
• Forming the organizations
• Formation stage 
• Community organizations should be democratic in governance, open and accessible to community members, concerned with the general health of the community rather than a specific interest or service function. 

Developing community leaders

• Responsive and effective leadership from the community
• Leadership development is critical every member is encourage to take leadership roles;
• Members and leaders make organizational decisions – from by laws to slogans
• Members raise and select organizational issues based on self interest of the group.

Process of community Organization

What is a Community organizer? 

• Organizer must thoroughly understand the characteristics and power patterns of the communities through intensive interviews and discussion with community members.
• Organizer is a listener, He identifies and trains potential leaders, through listening, issues and problems that are of importance to the communities are identified.Must be able to agitate the community to act. 
• People must understand that only them who must do something and they can do these is they organize themselves. Make people realize that they can only do these if they are organized

Phase of Intervention

Roles and responsibilities of COs

Challenge people to act on behalf of their interest 

               1- Facilitate dialogue to understand and share responsibilities and interests,

Develop new relationship

  1- linking people together

  2- Linking the group to another networks

Community organizers build community by developing leadership

1.Focus on developing leaders

2.Enhancing their skills, values and commitment

3.Focus on building strong communities 

Basic Community Organizing

1. What is a community?
- A group or individual having the same interest, having the same culture

  

Participatory Village mapping

2. What is community organizing ?

• Is a process by which the people organize themselves to take charge of their situation and thus develop a sense of being community together…
• To determine for themselves the actions they will take to  deal with issues in their community.
• Organizing people to working together to get things done
• People most often low income people are brought together in an organization to jointly act on interest of their communities. They take greater responsibility for the future of their communities.
• One of the common goals of community organizing is to build structures, processes, methods, values that promote liberate relations not only politically but economically
• E.g. build projects that can benefit more members of the community 
• Convene meetings
• Conduct action research
• Analyze public issues
• Develop a common vision for self development
• Implement plan to address and resolve important  issues and problems
• Reduction in health hazards 
• Is a strategy to build grassroots leadership, community initiative, and constituent influence in neighborhoods and  communities that are often forgotten by those who are in power

3. Why do we need to organize communities?
One of the common goals of community organizing is to build structures, processes, methods, values that promote liberate relations not only politically but economically
E.g. build projects that can benefit more members of the community 

Teaches people to:

1. convene meetings
2. conduct action research
3. analyze public issues
4. develop a common vision for self development
5. implement plan to address and resolve important  issues and problems 

Reaches out to involve people:

1. to effect changes in policies
2. create new jobs in the community
3.  reduction in health hazards

Protecting Natural Resources

Local fisher at Sre Pok Photo by Sviveun

Cambodia is blessed with many natural resources. Forests cover about half its land area, providing natural biodiversity, and timber resources. Its lakes and rivers provide fish to sustain around 80% of the population, as well as the potential hydro power. Most Cambodians rely on these resources for subsistence livelihoods in agriculture, fishing, and forestry. 

Illegal Timbers photo by Siveun

But resources need to be managed sustain-ably and transparently to ensure they can continue to provide long term economic benefits, through tourism, for example. Overuse can damage people’s livelihood as well as the natural environment.Illegal logging increases erosion, sedimentation and the risk of serious flooding.

Mekong dolphin 

Deforestation also contributes to land degradation and the loss of natural habitat. Declining water quality from increased pollution and over fishing are serious threat to Tonle Sap fisheries on which Cambodia depends. They are also endangering species such as Irrawaddy or Mekong Dolphin. 

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Our Forest Our Future 

Published by: FAO 

សហគមន៍ព្រៃឈើ និងយន្តការ REDD

ការណែនាំស្តីពីយន្តការ REDD+ (Introduction to REDD+)

Climate Change

Climate Change – what is it and why is it important?

Climate Change Educational Poster by UNDP

Throughout history, the Earth’s climate has constantly changed. But the extent to which our planet has warmed since the second half of 20th Century is beyond the natural cycle of climatic variation.

This dramatic change is largely due to the increased amount of Greenhouse Gases (GHG) generated by human activities – in particular land use change, deforestation and the burning of fossil fuels in the shift towards industrialisation. The increase in global temperature leads to changes in climatic patterns and melting of ice caps at the Poles. These in turn lead to phenomena such as sea level rises, changes in rainfall patterns, heat and cold waves and increasing droughts and floods. These changes are already having a negative impact on the environment and on the lives and livelihoods of communities across the world.

The effects of climate change are cumulative, irreversible and global. In addition, there is an inverse relationship between responsibility and impacts. Those in less and least industrialised countries who did not cause human-induced climate change are to be impacted most and earliest as they are least equipped to cope with the impacts. The “readiness” to cope with the impacts correlate with the level of economic and human development, as well as with the level of knowledge and information on climate change. Short-term disasters and the longer-term effects of climate change threaten people’s ability to lead long and healthy lives, to have access to education, to have a decent standard of living, and to participate in community life with dignity and self-respect.

The economic implications of climate change are extremely high due to the cost of damage and the need to prepare for further impacts, as well as investment needs for inevitable mitigation measures. It is all the more the case for developing countries like Cambodia.

What does climate change mean to Cambodia?

It’s not just about floods and droughts, but about the country’s capacity to cope with the challenges– and its ability to identify and build on opportunities.

Climate change is real and happening in Cambodia, and its impacts are unavoidable. The country is considered highly vulnerable due to its high levels of poverty and lack of infrastructure to cope with natural disasters and other longer-term effects of climate change, but by increasing society’s capacity to respond and adapt well, the impacts can be minimised.

However, climate change is not only about impacts and threats – how Cambodia responds to climate change also presents opportunities that lead to healthy economic and social development. Acting on climate change, reducing poverty and pursuing sustainable development can – and must – go hand in hand.

The first ever study on Cambodia’s vulnerability to climate change, conducted in 2001, projected that the country’s temperature would increase 1.35-2.5 degrees celsius by 2100. It also predicted annual rainfall would increase between three and 35 percent above current levels, also bringing more erratic, intense rain patterns, and unpredictable seasonal changes. For centuries, Cambodians have skillfully adapted their livelihoods to align with seasonal changes – such as rain-fed agriculture and fishery cycles synchronized with seasonal floods. But unpredictable seasonal changes, including potential changes in the Mekong flood pulse patterns, mean these centuries-old methods are under threat. Combined with short-term natural disasters, the long-term and gradual changes in climate can lead not only to economic losses but also to various human development challenges - such as food insecurity, health impacts, unemployment, migration and reduced access to education due to economic pressures on households.

According to recent studies, Cambodia is one of the most vulnerable countries to climate change impacts in the region. Contributing factors include a heavy reliance on rain-fed farming in low land areas, an undiversified agricultural base, a lack of appropriate infrastructure and technology to respond to effects, and low human development levels. If the country’s key sector, agriculture, were to be affected by a natural disaster, leading to the failure of major crops, issues such as food insecurity, unemployment and social instability would follow. Affected families may migrate to new places in search of better livelihood opportunities. Increased occurrence of water- and air-borne diseases will have significant health and economic implications in the country, which already suffers from a large number of malaria and dengue cases every year. On the coast, sea level rises will affect coastal communities and prime development locations. It is predicted that if there were to be a rise of one metre, 56 percent of Koh Kong city would be submerged.

Enabling prosperity

While there are significant threats, climate change is also about opportunities. An increasing amount of development assistance and various financing schemes are being made available for Cambodia, both to prepare for imminent impacts and to help prevent further global warming. With this assistance, Cambodia can harness opportunities, such as introducing low carbon measures that lead to positive development. Developing countries such as Cambodia can choose to avoid unsustainable, and often polluting, conventional ways of development. This is an option that most of today’s developed countries didn’t have when they started their economic growth. The schemes that are available for Cambodia to take advantage of include: carbon financing schemes; transferring to new clean technologies; and increasing energy efficiency.

Involvement of private sector is central to the success of this approach, and there is a need to create good public-private partnerships to encourage businesses to contribute to low-carbon “green growth”. Through such partnerships, Cambodia can reduce the effects of climate change while ensuring sustainable development and economic growth.

Source: www.un.org/undp

Defining CBNRM

1- CBNRM is both a conservation and rural development strategy, involving community mobilization and organization, institutional development, comprehensive training, enterprise development, and monitoring of the natural resource base "IUCN".

2- CBNRM is a bottom up approach to the integration of conservation and development "Cornell International Institute for Food and Agriculture and Development".

3-CBNRM came about, to a large extent, as the result of two difference processes. Firstly, It is a grassroots, bottom up  agenda, inspired by the goals of sustainable development and biodiversity conservation, gradually broadening and transforming itself to also include a social agenda and the becoming a broad social movement of sort. The second process is micro level, top down effort spearheaded by multilateral funding agencies, bilateral donors, and  above all, international NGOs and organization devoted to practical work and research.' In addition, the many actors, that is stakeholders, and agendas that constitute these two process are increasingly meeting, somewhere in the middle, aligning their experience, realizing that they have the same goals, and that they stand greater chance of making a difference by joining hands, as well as their often different means of resource "World Bank".

4- CBNRM is the management of natural resources under a detailed plan developed and agreed to by all concerned stakeholders. The approach is community based in that communities managing the resource have the legal right, the local institutions and the economic incentives to take the substantial responsibility for sustained use of these resource. Under natural resource managing plans, communities become the primary implementers, assisted and monitors by technical services "USAID".

5- CBNRM addresses interaction among the factors that influence natural resource access, use and management patterns. The participation and leadership of local people are essential   in CBNRM's approach as innovations must be built on voluntary improvement to local knowledge and practice, rather than imposed from outside. It also require recognition of the heterogeneity and multiple interest of different community members and outside resource users "IDRC".

Note: CBNRM= Community Based Natural Resource Management

Rescue the cutest Leopard cat

By Rohit Singh

Leopard cat, Photo by Rohit

It was early morning, things were as usual and I was leaving for office when I received a call from a community member living near the Mondulkiri Protected Forest. This forest area is part of the larger protected area complex of the Eastern Plains Landscape and one of the best wildlife sites in Cambodia. The caller is my usual informant who helps us in gathering valuable intelligence on wildlife poaching. He informed me that the villagers have seen a baby cat what looks like a leopard cub in the farm. The landscape supports approximately 4 leopards/100 km2, so the possibility of a leopard cub cannot be completely ruled out.  However the chances were very low. I decided to go to the village and see for myself.

I left the town with my team to the village. After driving approximately 40 km on dusty roads we arrived at the ranger station. The ranger station is the entry point to the Mondulkiri Protected Forest, my informant was already waiting there. He took us to the farm where the animal was seen. It was one & half kilometer walk in cassava plantation and we could see the forest all along the boundary of plantation.  On the way many villagers joined us, there were kids, old men, women and young men, all were looking forward to see the leopard cub. Some were even saying it’s a tiger cub. At-last we arrive to the farm where the cub was sighted for the first time, there was a small bush at the corner of the farm. I requested villagers to stay far from the area because I didn’t want to cause any stress to the animal.  We could hear the call of the kitten so it was definitely some cat species.  I went into the bush and saw a small and one of the cutest animals I have ever rescued. It was a baby leopard cat.

I lifted her in my arms and started walking back towards the village. All of the villagers were so excited they wanted to have glance of the animal we rescued. Everyone who saw her said only one word “Saat Nas (means most beautiful and cutest)” at that moment, we decided to give her the name Saat, we took her to the ranger station. She was so cute that every ranger wanted to hold her and have a photo with her, some took out their cell phones and started taking pictures. Saat didn’t like this celebrity treatment and gave an unpleasant expression; she was hardly one month old but clearly had enough wild traits.

We didn’t have anything to feed her at the ranger station so we gave her some water and brought her to the town. For two days I took care of her and was with me all the time. We fed her with milk and baby food. We knew that she was too small to be released back into the wild and we didn’t have any facility to keep her in therefore we decided to move her to the rescue center in Phnom Penh, capital of Cambodia. It was a long 350 km journey, so we decided to take her to the mid-point from where the national wildlife rapid rescue team (WRRT) can take her and bring to rescue center. WRRT has better knowledge and equipment to deal with handling of wild animals. Next day we left to the Snoul 150 km from the provincial town of Mondulkiri. We handed Saat to WWRT teams. It was an emotional moment as I had spent three days with her.

Leopard cat facts: Common name: Leopard cat Scientific name: Prionailurus bengalensis IUCN Status: Least Concern Threat to the survival: Poaching Distribution: Afghanistan; Bangladesh; Bhutan; Brunei Darussalam; Cambodia; China; Hong Kong; India; Indonesia (Jawa, Kalimantan, Sumatera); Japan (Nansei-shoto); Korea, Democratic People's Republic of; Korea, Republic of; Lao People's Democratic Republic; Malaysia; Myanmar; Nepal; Pakistan; Philippines; Russian Federation; Singapore; Taiwan, Province of China; Thailand; Viet Nam Source: IUCN website

After six months I got an opportunity to visit the rescue center and first thing I did there was looked for Saat. The zoo keeper took me to the enclosure where they had many leopard cats, I asked which one is Saat. He said he is not sure. I was bit depressed but when I saw closely all were like Saat, as beautiful as Saat.

After the rescue of Saat, we rescued several leopard cat babies and other animals but the lesson I learned from Saat’s rescue will always remain with me.

Thanks to Mr. Rohit Sign

Law Enforcement Technical Adviser (WWF-Cambodia)