Also a resin tapper, Hon learnt the practice from his
parents, and is now passing the trade on to his 23-year-old
son, Keuth, every week, as they venture deeper into the forest
to collect the precious extract. “Resin is the main source of
income for our community,” he says. But yields have declined
over the past eight years, and the community has observed a
change in rainfall. “Before, there were more trees and the rain
was regular. If this year stays dry, we will collect less resin,”
Hon says. He believes that this is because of illegal logging.
A Vanishing Point
Spanning four provinces and covering 3,600 square
kilometres, Prey Lang is considered the largest evergreen
forest in the country, and is likely the most expansive
in Indochina. But over the last 10 years, Cambodia’s
deforestation rate has increased more rapidly than that
of any other country in the world.
A recent report published through a collaboration of
NGOs – the MOSAIC Project, CHRTF, N1M and Mother
Nature Cambodia – states that the Cambodian government
granted at least 32 economic land concessions (ELCs) in
Prey Lang, “clearing spirit forests and graveyards without
concern”. The report also reveals that a forest “restoration
project is found to be clear-cutting dense, valuable forest and
transforming it into a monocrop acacia plantation”.
For Fran Lambrick, a British environmental scientist
who has been studying the Prey Lang forest for five years,
concessions are a vehicle for deforestation.
“When companies come for the land, they start clearing
the forest and exploiting valuable timber, even outside the
concession boundary. There are all kinds of corruption that
help make it happen,” she says.
Scientists estimate that deforestation is responsible for
up to one-sixth of global carbon emissions, which contribute
to warmer temperatures. As deforestation is responsible for
19 percent of greenhouse gas emissions released into the
atmosphere each year, the country has also been driving
climate change.
The United Nations estimates that the loss of Prey Lang
would not only have an impact on the climate, but would also
affect at least 1.5 million people in the Mekong region.
“Prey Lang has valuable ecological importance [and its]
ecosystem plays a critical role in the water regulation between
the Tonle Sap and Mekong basins,” a representative of the
UN Development Programme (UNDP) in Phnom Penh
explains. The Tonle Sap is one of the world’s most productive
Scientists estimate that deforestation
is responsible for up to one-sixth
of global carbon emissions, which
contribute to warmer temperatures