Can A Few Monks Save the Cardamom Forest?
By Luke Duggleby
May 16, 2013
Cambodia,
strapped for cash and desperate for energy, has turned to clearing its
prehistoric forests for hydro-electricity dams. And China is only too
eager to help.
Guided
by Buddhist monks, the 200-metre-long orange cloth snakes its way
through the Cambodian village of Ta Tai Leu and into the forest until it
reaches a clearing. There, emerging from the forest with community
members, students and farmers in tow, the religious procession is met by
a scene of devastation: logging has left only the largest trees in
this old-growth rainforest, their enormous buttresses too much for the
loggers’ machinery, their canopies towering over the smouldering
wreckage. The monks pause momentarily, then continue towards the
remaining goliaths, to bestow their blessing.
It’s a tree
ordination, in which spiritualism meets activism, with the hope of
protecting the trees left standing through either divine intervention
or media attention. The Khmers take spirits seriously. And it seems
little else stands guard over this place in the country’s southwest,
which is nonetheless called the Central Cardamom Protected Forest.
Cambodia’s forests were once described as the country’s “most
developmentally
important resource”, but these rich forests had been largely degraded,
the valuable timber sold off by the political elite for quick, private
profits from unrestricted logging.
Deep in the Cardamom, the Areng valley is covered with such
ancient trees, along with natural wild grasses, and small communities of
Khmer people who still speak an ancient form of Khmer language.
This vast forest has been little explored, largely protected from
development because of its remoteness and the retreating Khmer Rouge
who left thousands of landmines in their wake; people were too scared
to enter, or simply didn't have access to the region. The Areng is
also one of the last known natural habitats in which the Siamese
crocodile is found, though it had been believed extinct in the wild
until it was rediscovered here in recent years.
Cambodia’s
forests were once described by the World Bank as the country’s “most
developmentally important resource”, but according to the international
group Global Witness, by 2009 these rich forests had been largely
degraded by unrestricted logging, the valuable timber sold off by
the political elite for quick, private profits.
According to the group’s report
Country For Sale,
“Patterns of corruption and patronage found in the forest sector, and
documented by Global Witness over 13 years, are now being
duplicated”, in other Cambodian industries.
In the valley adjacent
to that in which the tree “ordination” was held, a dam project known as
Stung Cheay Areng is in the planning phase. It’s part of a wider
hydroelectric program in the valley and across Cambodia, in which
Chinese companies are driving development. China has some US$4.5 billion
in Cambodian energy contracts and investments, according to The
Heritage Foundation’s
investment tracker.
Luke Duggleby
This
village, along with eight others in the Areng Valley, are at risk of
disappearing because of the 108-megawatt Cheay Areng Dam.
It’s
true that Cambodia is a country in serious need of electrification.
During the 1970s, the country’s civil war all but wiped out its
electricity infrastructure. When the Khmer Rouge took control in 1975,
it destroyed virtually all electricity-related facilities as part of its
efforts to reduce the country to a completely non-threatening
agrarian society.
When Cambodia eased into a state of peace in the
late 1990s, the government tried to rehabilitate the electricity
system, but internal fighting, lack of funds, and many other issues
affecting a country that had been reduced to rubble just a few decades
before, made this a difficult task.
Even today there is no
national grid, and the vast majority of the population — and less than
10 per cent of rural households — has no regular access to electricity.
The demand is there from domestic, business and industrial sectors,
and is increasing every year, yet the government has insufficient
capacity to meet such needs. Even Phnom Penh experiences regular
blackouts. Foreign investment is seen as vital to developing this
much-needed infrastructure.
“Cambodia is seriously short of
electricity and recent power cuts show that the available supplies
cannot meet demand. And the government has prioritised developing
hydropower as one way to remedy this problem,” says British researcher
Mark Grimsditch.
“As one of the world’s least developed countries
it has limited resources and technical capacity to [manage such
projects]. China has proved to be a willing partner in supporting this
burgeoning industry,” Grimsditch wrote in a
report about China’s hydropower investments in the Mekong region.
“Cambodia is seriously short of electricity and recent power cuts show
that the available supplies cannot meet demand. And the government has
prioritised developing hydropower as one way to remedy this problem.”
“Chinese hydropower companies are eager to invest abroad, and
have strong backing from the Chinese government,” according to
Grimsditch’s 2012 report, produced for the World Resources
Institute.
“Until recently, Cambodia was a relatively clean slate
in terms of hydropower, and so presented an excellent opportunity … for
Chinese companies looking to develop overseas projects. This has fit
well with Cambodia’s desire to develop the sector, and no doubt the
strong political relationship between the two countries has
facilitated the rapid expansion of the sector.”
Though China was once a supporter of the Khmer Rouge, the past 15 years have seen a
strengthening
of government relations between the two countries. China has poured
money into Cambodia through aid and investment, waived national debts,
and secured access to key sea ports. In 2006, Cambodia’s Prime
Minister Hun Sen described China as Cambodia’s “most trustworthy
friend”.
And the Chinese government’s focus on large-scale
development projects, such as hydropower dams, is very inviting to a
Cambodian government in a rush. It’s difficult to obtain precise funding
figures on international deals in Cambodia. Many approved projects are
never realised,
for various reasons — for example, the mere approval of big
projects is seen to boost the prestige of Cambodia for potential
investors — but in the past 10 years China’s actual investment has
increased substantially, especially in the energy sector.
China, with its
commitment
to developing renewable-energy projects, is now the world’s largest
developer of hydro-electricity-generating dams, having several years
ago surpassed The World Bank in this role. With its domestic market
saturated (so to speak), overseas projects keep China’s big state-owned
companies in play, and developing their damming technology, Grimsditch
told
The Global Mail. Worldwide, China’s wealthy state enterprises and banks have around
300 dam projects
either in the planning stage or currently being constructed, in at
least 70 countries. In Cambodia, 11 such projects are at varying stages
of development, including the dam that threatens the Areng valley.
THE
ARENG VALLEY DAM project’s feasibility was being assessed by a team of
engineers sent by China Guodian in November 2012. After three months of
living in the valley, the engineers returned to China, but as yet
their recommendations are unknown to the public. The same applies to the
status of the deal, though some reports have speculated it could go
ahead within months.
Within and around the boundaries of the
Cardamom Forest, three other dam projects have already started
construction or been completed. The rivers being dammed are: The
Atay river (hence Atay Dam); The Ta Tai river (Ta Tai Dam); and the
Roussey Chrum River.
The sacrifices of the people are compounded by the fact that the dam makes almost no economic sense.
But it is the planned damming of the Areng river that has
galvanised environmentalists, students, rice farmers and now monks. The
advocacy campaign highlights the relocation of indigenous people,
and the impact that flooding some 20,000 hectares would have on wild
fish and other rare and threatened species.
The Areng valley is
remarkable for several reasons, not least its Siamese crocodiles. This
newly rediscovered reptile is still classified as Critically
Endangered — the highest risk category assigned by the International
Union for Conservation of Nature
Red List for wild species.
Fauna and Flora International,
a British non-governmental organisation (NGO) involved in conservation,
and which has been working to protect the last remote populations
of the crocodiles for several years, estimates that fewer than 250 are
left in the wild. Habitat destruction and hunting have eradicated
the creature from 99 per cent of its historical range, which once
covered much of Southeast Asia.
But even that is now at risk. If
the Chinese-funded Stung Cheay Areng dam project goes ahead, this vital
breeding ground could be submerged forever. Other species would also
suffer catastrophic consequences: gibbons, black bears, Asian elephants
and a host of other mammals thrive in this area of national park.
The
Central Cardamom Protected Forest (CCPF) complex covers 4,013 square
kilometres. The largest unbroken tract of woodland in Southeast Asia,
and by far the most pristine, it is made up of a series of adjoining
national parks, each dedicated at different times, with the aim of
preserving the whole area.
Luke Duggleby
In
a village in the Areng Valley a family of Siamese crocodiles have been
kept for protection, after the nest was found in the wild.
The
Stung Cheay Areng dam is by far the most controversial yet proposed in
Cambodia. It would not only submerge one of the most bio-diverse valleys
in the country, but some 1,000 people who have lived in the area
for centuries would be forced to relocate. Their six villages run in a
line along the valley floor, where these people have for generations
coexisted in a sustainable balance with the surrounding environment.
Cambodia’s
ever more confident government authorities have evicted tens of
thousands of people from their lands in the past decade to make way for
development projects. In return for meagre compensation, they are
frequently forced to leave their extensive ancestral lands which have
long afforded them a subsistence living, and relocate to two- to
three-hectare plots, which are often in the forest, on an elephant
corridor where their activities are likely to conflict with those of
the elephants, and on steep land with no area for rice plantations. In
short, they are forced to abandon a sustainable existence for likely
poverty, according the array of campaigners against the project.
One old lady in a village in the Areng valley, who didn’t want to be named, told
The Global Mail,
“I heard from other villagers that we will be leaving and that’s
what everyone thinks will happen. We will only have the option of
selling our buffalo and will be forced to leave our trees and our
land behind.”
The sacrifices of the people are compounded by the fact that the dam makes almost no economic sense. According to a
report
issued by International Rivers, an NGO which has fought since 1985
to protect rivers around the world from destructive dam projects, the
first Chinese company involved in the dam was China Southern Power
Grid, which signed in 2006, but later withdrew from, a Memorandum of
Understanding to explore the prospects for a dam there. In November
2010, China Guodian Corporation revived the spectre of flooding the
Areng Valley, when it signed a new Memorandum of Understanding with the
Cambodian Government.
The Stung Cheay Areng dam is by far the most controversial yet proposed
in Cambodia. It would not only submerge one of the most bio-diverse
valleys in the country, but some 1,000 indigenous people who have lived
in the area for centuries would be forced to relocate.
The withdrawal of China Southern Power Grid was not surprising,
considering that this dam, which will cost hundreds of millions of
dollars, is expected to produce only 108 megawatts of power at best,
according to the calculations of various NGOs; and that it will have to
flood over 20,000-hectares of land to make a reservoir large enough
to produce even that quantity of electricity. Over half of this
reservoir will be located in the CCPF and will totally submerge the
Areng Valley, making it the largest single encroachment to date into the
protected Cardamom Forest.
According to Ame Trandem, Southeast
Asia program director of International Rivers, “The Stung Cheay Areng
dam’s environmental and social costs are likely to outweigh the
project’s US$327 million price tag. While it’s a large investment, the
Chinese often benefit from the payment of warranties granted to them
by the Cambodian government.” Such warranties may include promises to
buy back the power at an agreed price, and even provide financial
bailouts in certain circumstances. Trandem’s report adds that,
“Cambodia’s poor governance also serves as an advantage for Chinese
companies, as the true environmental and social costs associated with
these projects falls on the hands of the Cambodian government to
remedy.”
China Guodian Corporation, with profits of almost a
billion US dollars in 2011, is China’s second-largest power company. As
with any Chinese company of that size, it is administered by the
State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the
State Council, (SASAC), on behalf of the State Council of the
People’s Republic of China.
Not frightened of controversy, China
Guodian also announced in November 2010 that it would undertake a
feasibility study into a much larger dam project at the town of
Sambor in Kratie Province, in Northeast Cambodia. This dam would totally
stem the flow of the Mekong River itself. The consequences of damming
such a major river would be catastrophic, in terms of fish migration
and downstream fish stocks alone.
Luke Duggleby
Cambodian Buddhist monks and local people bless large trees by wrapping orange cloth around them and praying.
“This
project was proposed as part of a US$6.4 billion deal for 16
infrastructure projects that was inked when Wu Bangguo, chairman of the
standing committee of China’s National People’s Congress travelled
to Cambodia in November 2010. At that time, Wu was reported as saying
that Chinese financial institutions would likely provide financial
support,” says Ame Trandem.
ALEJANDRO GONZALEZ-DAVIDSON couldn’t
believe what he was seeing. The trees just went on and on. The forest
seemed never to end. Every now and again he’d stop his motorbike,
ask a villager where the road led, and continue. It was his first trip
into the CCPF and his first visit to the Areng Valley. It was love
at first sight.
“You have mountains surrounding you on both sides.
You have no telephone coverage and no electricity. Since the first time
I went there I felt like I was stepping back in time … Khmer is
spoken as it was hundreds of years ago and you hear people speaking this
ancient form of Khmer everywhere. It’s not only the magical beauty of
the valley itself, nature wise, it’s the people as well,”
Gonzalez-Davidson tells
The Global Mail.
Born in Spain
to a Spanish father and a British mother, Gonzalez-Davidson arrived in
Cambodia on holiday in 2002, and never left. Learning the Khmer
language to a fluency that very few foreigners ever achieve, he has made
almost 30 trips to the Areng Valley and surrounding forests, and formed
an empathetic relationship with the local people. Getting to the
valley is a feat in itself, with the only access after the town of Tmol
Bang being a mud track not wide enough for a car, and a surface so
bad that it can take an untrained outsider three hours to cover 16km on a
motorbike.
But the road didn’t deter him and any time he was able
to take off from his job as an English teacher at a Phnom Penh
university, he would visit the villages and spend days, often weeks,
living there, talking to the locals and trying to understand the area.
He admits that some of the people in the valley are now among his
best friends, so he has an interest in their wellbeing.
“While it’s a large investment, the Chinese often benefit from the
payment of warranties granted to them by the Cambodian government.” Such
warranties may include promises to buy back the power at an agreed
price, and even provide financial bailouts in certain circumstances.
When rumours of the dam — plans for which were presumed to have
been shelved when China Southern Power Grid withdrew from the project —
began to resurface in 2010, Gonzalez-Davidson tried to make sense
of the prospect that the valley could be lost forever. “In any other
country in the world this dam would simply not go ahead; the valley
would be declared a world-heritage site. Why destroy an area that size
for just 100 megawatts of power? Spain is doing solar panels, taking
up two to three hectares of land and you end up with 50 megawatts of
power, and this could flood up to 20,000 hectares of protected
forest! It doesn’t make sense.”
One thing Gonzalez-Davidson has
learned during his time in rural Cambodia is the power and strength of
Buddhism and the respect accorded to monks of the country’s dominant
religion. In a system built on corruption at every level — from the
police force to politicians — Buddhist monks are trusted by the
local people.
It was this trust that he believed could be built on
to create a Buddhist movement led by monks, which could help save the
valley and surrounding forests.
In early 2012, Cambodia’s most famous environmental activist
Chut Wutty
was murdered. For years Wutty had fought to expose the illegal
operations — such as animal poaching and the logging of rosewood and
other rare timbers — taking place in the Cardamom. He regularly took
journalists in to observe and report on such activities. It was on
one trip, to expose the illegal logging of rosewood, that he was shot
dead by a military police officer protecting the operation.
Wutty
strongly believed in the power of the monks to rally and inspire
people, and often worked in collaboration with them. After his death,
Gonzalez-Davidson contacted a close associate of Wutty to ask if he
knew any monks who would be interested in leading a tree-blessing
movement into the Areng Valley.
At 42 years of age, monk Brahm
Dhammasat has seen a lot of change in the Cardamom. His home is a
village called Aural, a two-day walk north of Areng, in a valley
beside Cambodia’s highest mountain, Phnom Aural. His valley is much
easier to access than the Areng Valley, and despite being part of a
wildlife sanctuary has also been devastated — in its case by logging and
sugar-cane plantations.
Luke Duggleby
Chinese engineers in the Areng Valley — there to assess the feasibility of the 108-megawatt Cheay Areng Dam.
“Ever
since I was a child I have seen how the world has been changing around
me and the destruction of the environment has increased more and more. I
want that to change and see the world become more sustainable,
where people are dependant on nature and nature is dependant on people.
If that doesn’t happen the cycle of life will be broken and there
will be no more species left on our planet,” Dhammasat says.
After
hours of discussion on the telephone, Gonzalez-Davidson managed to
persuade Dhammasat to come to the village of Ta Tai Leu, outside the
valley but inside the CCPF, to lead the first tree ordination in
this part of the Cardamom. This was a test run before the group ventured
into the Areng valley itself — an area in which officials are much
more sensitive to activism.
Monk-led environmental activism has
been very successful in another forest, in Northwest Cambodia. There, in
2002, a monk called Bun Saluth prevented the destruction of his
local forest by teaching people the importance of the natural resources
their livelihoods depended on. The result was the legal protection
of 18,261 hectares of evergreen forest now called the Monks Community
Forest. For this achievement, the monk was honoured with the United
Nations Development Programme’s
Equator Prize, which recognises local initiatives to advance sustainable development solutions.
Susan M. Darlington, Professor of Anthropology and Asian studies at Hampshire College in America (and who wrote
The Ordination of A Tree,
about the Thai Buddhist environmental movement and its activist
monks), explains, “If the monks and organisers work closely with the
community involved, including them in the planning and
implementation of the blessing and concurrent projects for protecting
the surrounding forest, the rite would help cement a commitment to
conservation. People need to feel they own the rite and the project, and
understand how it benefits them in the long run.
“In Thailand,
the robes on trees are beginning to be more effective because the whole
country now knows about the rite; the symbolism of a tree wrapped in
a monk’s robes has slowly entered the Thai conscience enough that
hopefully loggers hesitate when they know a forest has been consecrated
and is taken care of by local people,” she says.
Gonzalez-Davidson,
who is registering an NGO called Mother Nature, to help continue the
movement he has helped to initiate in Cambodia, remains realistic.
He knows that the real fight must come from the local people themselves
and hopes that the monks can be the force to inspire such change.
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