KAMPONG THOM, Cambodia (TrustLaw) - Over the past 30 years illegal logging coupled with rapid development and population growth have stripped Cambodia of much of its forests.
This is clearly visible in the eastern province of Kampong Thom. But near the small farming village of Beng, charred trees and cleared fields give way to a lush, dense forest.
Local villagers have legally protected the Prey Rong Knong forest spanning 281 hectares
since March 2009, when they signed a deal with the Cambodian authorities to look after it for 15 years -- under an initiative allowing communities who live in and around forests to manage their resources.
Such community forestry projects are increasingly seen as a way of reversing a trend that saw forest cover drop from 73 percent of Cambodia's territory in the 1970s to 59 percent in 2006.
“If we don’t have community forestry, then all the forests will be gone,” village chief and community forestry committee chairman Dim Mao told TrustLaw.
According to the United Nations, Cambodia lost 2.5 million hectares of forest between 1990 and 2005. Such losses of carbon-absorbing forests are considered an important contribution to climate change.
Community forestry sites in Cambodia range from a few hundred to a few thousand hectares.
Advocates say they improve villagers’ livelihoods while helping to combat climate change by keeping forests, a major sink for carbon emissions, intact.
It also protects the areas from commercial and other outside interests, a major achievement in impoverished Cambodia where land grabs are disturbingly common.
An estimated 85 percent of Cambodian households lack land titles and many villages lose their livelihoods as a result of the government routinely leasing large tracts of rural land for
agro-industrial exploitation.
"With the agreement, we feel more secure. Before, we were worried the companies may come and do something to the land," said Pain Lin, a 21-year-old villager and member of the forest management committee.
CHALLENGES
Beng was one of the first villages to get legal recognition for community forestry in a province that is fast becoming a model for the initiative, according to James Bampton, programme coordinator for RECOFTC, a Thailand-based international NGO that is helping communities to legalise the sites.
Forty six sites have been established in the province which is known mainly for its 6th century pre-Angkor temple ruins -- more than anywhere else in Cambodia, and close to 50 are in the
process of receiving recognition.
Although villages around Cambodia have embraced community forestry as a way to protect the land they live and survive on, experts say there are many challenges ahead.
Bampton said getting legal recognition is a long and complex process with no certain timeline, because "there is no publically available guidance on how the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries judges the potential community forest area applications".
The result is a backlog. Close to 200 sites are awaiting verification from the Ministry as potential community forestry areas even though many villagers have been managing the forests for years.
Bampton said corruption in the forest and land sector and failure to follow the spirit of the law compounds the challenges, which include the 15-year term limit for each agreement, a five-year moratorium on the commercialisation of timber products and the lack of clarity on royalties to the government once the villages start commercialising their timber.
“In a natural forest it takes longer than 15 years for timber trees to grow,” Bampton told TrustLaw. “If a time limit has to be imposed for communities, it should be for a 25-year
cycle to match a selective harvesting cycle.”
And no one knows for sure what will happen after the 15-year term is over.
“A community forestry agreement could be extended but it all depends on the community fulfilling their obligations. The complexity of the law means it would be very easy to find
excuses to say they haven’t done it quite right,” he said.
PRECIOUS RESOURCE
Nevertheless, in Beng, the locals are overjoyed about their agreement to manage the Prey Rong Knong site. The deal was all the sweeter because the site was leased to a private company to harvest timber in the 1990s.
Despite the commercial lease, the villagers with help from a local NGO started to manage a portion of the forest in 2001 because they were concerned the land would be cleared. Luckily
for them, the commercial lease was cancelled not longer after.
Since then the villagers have formed a committee to oversee the management of the forest. Free membership is offered to villagers of all ages. Members are allowed to use forest
resources but they are also required to do patrol duty, looking out for any illegal activities.
Prey Rong Knong is a source of mushrooms, spiders and fruits, which the villagers collect for sale and food, as well as rattan. It also has high-grade timber, the villagers said, although as part of the agreement they cannot harvest it commercially for the first five years.
Still, the villagers at Beng have big plans for their forest.
“We want to harvest timber. We would like to plant Beng trees, which are used for furniture, in shallow ponds,” Dim said. “We also want to plant bamboo because the bamboo market is good, and we are looking at making rattan handicrafts for sale.
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