Cambodia: One of the World’s Highest Rates in Deforestation.

Cambodia is the second most bio-diverse place on earth after the Amazon Jungle, and was once covered by lush rainforests.

Rampant deforestation and wildlife poaching is driving the destruction of the country and its human communities who depend on the country’s forest for fishing and farming.

Increasing global prices of rubber and land concession deals are to blame for the deforestation.  The Cambodia government has leased 45% of the rainforest to private investors, and rubber trees now cover the forest plantations.  Ninety percent of the timber produced in Cambodia is illegally procured.  The northeast region of Cambodia is intensively logged and has the highest rate of logging of all countries in the Mekong region. Over half of the dense tree cover that once covered the rainforest is now gone. In the last fifteen years, 1.59 million hectares of tree cover loss has contributed to global warming with massive amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere.

The west is largely to blame for the deforestation because the huge demand for timber and rubber comes from developed countries.

The Indochinese tigers are now almost completely extinct, Asian elephant, Water buffalo, two species of monkeys, the Mouse deer, and other plants and animals, are now endangered.  The River dolphin is another endangered species in Cambodia, which in the era of the the Khmer Rouge, was killed for the extraction of oil, and is now protected thanks to expanding tourism in the Mekong River area.

There are only about thirty wild tigers left in Cambodia.  Tigers are sold for Chinese medicine, and other animals are poached for bushmeat.  The Cambodia Wildlife Team along with the Cambodian Military Police, inspect villages that poach and sell wildlife, but there are only three of these teams in the entire country.  Some villagers also protect the forest from loggers and hunters in order to preserve it for future generations, but the chain saws of the loggers can be heard everywhere.

Smiling Buddha-Bayon-at-Angkor-Cambodia

Buddha says that animals carry the souls of of our ancestors and must be protected.

There are wildlife centers and animal sanctuaries in Cambodia which protect, care for, and rehabilitate animals rescued from the illegal wildlife trade. The Wildlife Alliance is one such organization. The Wildlife Alliance is working hard to protect the rainforests and wildlife, and also to support the local people whose livelihood is so affected by the deforestation. With their call to action, The Wildlife Alliance is fighting against the injustice of the Cambodian government’s corruption, and their failure to enforce laws.

Since the 15th century, 95% of the population in Cambodia is Buddhist. During the regime of the Khmer Rouge (1968-1975), Buddhism and all religions were considered to be detrimental to the country and the people were not allowed to practice any religion.  Under this regime, Buddhist monks were persecuted and expelled to labor camps where over 50,000 were killed. The Khmer Rouge organization engineered the Cambodian Genocide, ethnic cleansing of minorities, and the agricultural reform, which led to the country´s famine, malaria epidemic and a quarter of the country´s population dying. The Khmer Rouge did not completely eliminate the use of medicine, but they only allowed traditional methods.  Treatable diseases, such as malaria led to the deaths of thousands of people because no western medicine was allowed.

The Khmer Rouge was a communist movement whose leaders had formed their movement while they were students in Paris.  The U.S. bombings on Cambodia drove many rural Cambodians into the arms of this radical ideology. The leader, Pol Pot, and his fellow leaders, based their philosophy on the idea that industrialized nations were to blame for their lack of development.  In their view, Cambodia had to become self-sufficient and not rely on the developed nations for its economic growth. They isolated Cambodians from all foreign influences, eliminated money, shut down the banking system, closed schools and relocated people to forced labor camps. Their belief was that the Khmer people, who were the predominant ethnic group in Cambodia, were superior.  Citizens were to be turned into pheasants, and the Genocide began.  Hundreds of thousands of Cambodians were killed or died of disease and malaria. The Khmer Rouge regime persecuted, tortured, overworked and starved their people.  According to UNICEF, they estimate that a total of three million people were killed under the regime.

Musicians, writers, filmmakers, minorities, intellectuals, anyone connected to other governments, persons of any religious belief, were all tortured and killed.

The sites where the people were killed, are known as Cambodia’s “killing fields.”  The brutality and barbarism of this regime is a reminder that the freedom we are privilege to, should never be taken for granted.  Whereas, in the U.S., where democracy, freedom and rule of law prevail, other countries lack the rights we are born with.

Cambodia was restored to a constitutional monarchy in 1993, and the Khmer Rouge organization was dissolved in the mid 1990s.

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