Cambodia is a Southeast Asian country which is bordered by Vietnam, Thailand, Laos, and the Gulf of Thailand. It has a total land area of 176,520 sq. km. and a population which is estimated to reach 13,995,904 by July 2007.
Cambodia is not only a small country – it is also relatively poor with 40% of its population living below the poverty line as of 2004. Only about one-fifth of its total land area is suitable for growing crops and a mere 2,700 sq. km. of which are irrigated.
Although it has a young population more than half of which is below 21 years of age, the Cambodian people badly needs education and skills training. (Central Intelligence Agency. 2007) In order to fully comprehend the extent of the environmental problems besetting Cambodia at the present time, it is imperative to take a look at the experiences of both its people and its territory from the decades of war that devastated the country.Majority of Cambodians trace their ancestry to the Khmers of the Angkor Empire whose almost 300-year-rule over a large part of Southeast Asia ended sometime during the 13th century after being weakened by frequent attacks from its neighbors the Thais and the Chams (inhabitants of what is now known as Vietnam).
As a result of its weakened state, the King sought the protection of the French in 1863 and by 1887 the country was completely absorbed by French Indochina until it became independent in 1953. (CIA. 2007)Being independent did not mean peace for Cambodia, however. After gaining its independence, Cambodia declared a neutral foreign policy.
However, sometime during the middle of the 1960s, that neutrality was practically ended when it became embroiled in the conflict between North and South Vietnam after the U. S. and the South Vietnamese forces discovered that some military units of North Vietnam and its allied Viet Cong forces were operating out of some of its eastern provinces.Later, that discovery forced the United States air force to conduct bombing missions over the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces based within Cambodian territory sometime in 1969 and started the destruction of Cambodia.
(Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs. 2006) In 1970 the domestic strife which was instigated by the Khmer Rouge, the local leftist forces led by Pol Pot and Leng Sary, intensified into a full scale civil war after the Khmer Rouge received substantial support from the North Vietnamese government. The initial chaos led to a military takeover which ousted Prince Sihanouk and installed General Lon Nol in the seat of power.That power grab, which occurred in March 1970, consequently resulted to the abolition of the monarchy by October of the same year and the rechristening of the country. Cambodia became the Khmer Republic but started experiencing the brunt of five years of bitter fighting between the Khmer Rouge forces under Pol Pot and the forces loyal to the republic.
(Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs. 2006) The civil war in Cambodia lasted about five years until a decisive offensive was launched by the Khmer Rouge guerillas on January 1, 1975.The fighting which raged for 117 days ended only when the Republican forces were forced to give up the fight on April 17, exactly five days after the forces of the United States which had been fighting alongside them left the country due to the refusal of the United States Congress to further subsidize their espoused mission in Cambodia. (Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs. 2006) The victory of the Khmer Rouge forces was initially misconstrued by the majority of Cambodians who, by that time, were already tired of war, as the precursor to an era of peace.
The almost warm welcome that they accorded the Khmer Rouge forces was due, in fact, to their anticipation of the long-awaited advent of peaceful days in a country which has had its fair share of bloodshed. However, peace was not for this country – at least not yet. Because even before things could settle down, the Democratic Kampuchea (the new name which was adopted by the new rulers), was again turned into a killing field. The Khmer Rouge bundled the residents of towns and cities up and brought them to the rural areas to cultivate the land.
Thousands died from disease and starvation and thousands more were killed for resisting and questioning or defying orders, while numerous former military personnel and civilian leaders of the previous regime were promptly executed upon discovery. Those who miraculously escaped death suffered from severe malnutrition. The killings under the Khmer Rouge regime continued unabated for about three years. Later, a soured relation between the Khmer Rouge and their Vietnamese neighbors sparked a Vietnamese invasion in 1978 and resulted to more killings.It was believed that the killings which took place between the start of the Khmer Rouge takeover and the 1978 Vietnamese invasion decimated its population of 7.
3 million (1975 estimate) by almost 3 million people. It is not known how many of the surviving Cambodians lasted the ten-year Vietnamese occupation which was ended by an 18-nation, U. N. -led peace effort which culminated to a comprehensive agreement on August 28, 1990.
Peace finally settled over Cambodia in 1991 under a U. N. -supervised ceasefire and normalcy returned with a U. N.-administered democratic election in 1993. (Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs.
2006) As could only be expected, the decades of war that devastated Cambodia destroyed the key institutions which could have been relied upon to administer its natural resources. This refers to “trained personnel, appropriate laws and regulations, enforcement capability, and government structures for development of environmental policies and co-ordination necessary for their implementation. ” This was the grim reality the country faced when peace finally came in 1993.Some observers said that one consolation for Cambodia at the time was the fact that most of its resources remained unexploited since there was no commercial operations involving its natural resources during those turbulent years, with the exclusion of timber cutting.
(Phyrun. n. d. ) More than a decade after the normalization of Cambodia, however, environmental problems are already apparent. Foremost among these problems is deforestation which, observers claim is primarily caused by rampant illegal cutting of logs which are exported to other Asian countries.
Illegal logging was believed to have deprived the government of some $184 million in revenue in 1997 alone. Deforestation, the direct consequence of illegal logging, has been blamed for the “alternate flooding and drought” in some areas in the country which negatively affect the operations of fishermen and farmers. Deforestation has also caused the destruction of the natural habitat of endangered species found in the forests of Cambodia such as “Bengal tiger, Java rhinoceros, bears, and elephants. ” (Legget. n. d.
)Meanwhile, reports had it that illegal logging, the primary cause of deforestation in Cambodia, started as early as the civil war years with each warring groups - including the government forces of Cambodia - financing their war efforts through the proceeds from timber exports. For instance, the Khmer Rouge and other guerilla factions were said to have sold logs to Thailand timber companies while the government forces of Cambodia exported logs to Vietnam and Japan. In 1970, the rainforest cover in the country had been estimated at more than 70%.By 2006, Cambodia’s rainforest cover has dramatically shrunk to 3.
1% in what has been described as the “worst deforestation rates in the world. ” From 1990 – 2005 alone, forest loss in Cambodia was placed at 2. 5 million hectares. So extensive was illegal logging in the country that a loan in the amount of $120 million was canceled by the International Monetary Fund sometime in the 1990s because of the corrupt practices in Cambodia’s forestry sector which aided and abetted the practice of illegal logging. In spite of that loan cancellation, however, illegal logging continued unabated, causing Cambodia to lose almost “30 percent of its primary forest cover” during the period from 2000 – 2005.Aside from illegal logging, forest clearing for agricultural purposes, cutting of trees for fuel, and various mining activities are also blamed for deforestation.
(Mongabay. com. 2006) Another serious environmental problem faced by Cambodia is pesticide misuse. It has become a dumping ground of companies which are producing hazardous pesticides already banned in other countries for the dangers that they present not only to human health but to the environment as well.
Cambodian farmers started using pesticides – particularly rodenticides and insecticides – during the 1980s and the 1990s.A survey of 933 farmers undertaken in 2000 showed that 625 of them (or 67%) were using pesticides. As early as 1994, 33% of the pesticides being sold in Cambodia were under Class 1 category, meaning that they are “highly or extremely hazardous to human health. ” As a matter of fact, it was discovered that there were provinces where the most common pesticides in use were all Class 1 pesticides.
These are all imported products (mainly from Thailand and Vietnam) because there are no manufacturing plants in Cambodia.Evidence that Cambodia is being turned into a dumping ground for banned and extremely hazardous pesticides is the fact that out of the 241 brands of pesticides being sold in Cambodia in 2000, 42 were prohibited in Vietnam and 16 were no longer allowed to be sold in Thailand. (Environmental Justice Foundation. n. d.
) Several reasons appear to compel Cambodian farmers to use pesticides. The first reason is the increasing lack of farming hands to allow farmers to resort to the traditional method of pesticide control which is labor intensive such as “rat hunting or hand-picking of Golden Apple Snail.”This was brought about by increasing migration of people from the rural areas to the cities to look for better, higher paying jobs. This migration caused a farm labor shortage thereby raising the cost of farm labor which poor farmers could no longer afford. (Environmental Justice Foundation.
n. d. ) Another reason is the wrong perception that Cambodian farmers have of pesticides. Due to the fact that most farmers are uneducated, they are easily swayed by what they see on the advertising materials and are even led to believe that pesticides solve most problems being faced by farmers.They also want to think that pesticide use turns them into modern farmers and affords them a higher status compared to those farmers who do not use pesticides. Moreover, the term “pesticide” is also translated as “medicine” in the Khmer language.
This has given them the idea that if they use a higher concentration of pesticide, the growth of their plants would be accelerated. One Cambodian farmer, a certain Pech Savoeun, was once quoted as having uttered the following: “When I was in the field I felt dizzy and then I couldn’t walk. When I returned home I vomited…I have to use pesticides. There is no other alternative.I am a farmer.
” Environmental Justice Foundation. n. d. ) Foreign aid providing free pesticides purportedly aimed at modernizing Cambodian agriculture and hike agricultural productivity has also played a significant role in encouraging Cambodian farmers to resort to pesticide use. There are some quarters, however, who doubt the sincerity of such projects. The Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), for instance, suspects that such freebies are only part of promotional campaigns aimed at perpetuating the use of pesticides which are produced by the donor countries.
(Environmental Justice Foundation. n. d. )Pesticide use developed into a serious concern because of the lack of education among Cambodian farmers. Since many of them cannot read the instruction manuals, they have no idea how dangerous such pesticides could be if handled incorrectly. Many of the poor farmers could not also afford to buy the necessary protective gears needed before they could safely handle such chemicals.
Moreover, most of these farmers do not even know the specific kinds of pesticide to use for different purposes, nor are they trained to mix the proper doses needed for their purposes, thereby resulting to excessive use of such hazardous materials.(Environmental Justice Foundation. n. d. )Since most of the pesticides available for sale come from either Thailand or Vietnam, the labels are usually written in languages which even the more literate Cambodian farmers or the dealers who are selling the products could read or understand.
This raises the possibility of the poor and uneducated farmers to misuse the products. For instance, some farmers made the mistake of treating fungal attacks on their coffee plants with “monocrotophos and mevinphos” which are both insecticides and therefore could not effectively address the fungal attack.(Environmental Justice Foundation. n. d.
)The government of Cambodia perceives the lack of education among Cambodians as one of the main reasons for the environmental problems being faced by Cambodia today. This is because the decades of war that devastated the country destroyed its educational institutions and deprived its people of the necessary knowledge about how to properly deal with the environment. For this reason, environmental education has been given due importance in Cambodia today.According to policy-makers in Cambodia, “Only an informed, motivated and committed citizenry can provide the base necessary for the continued protection of the environment.
” For this reason, environmental education had been integrated into the curriculum of both the “primary and secondary schools in August 1991” and plans were afoot to include subjects in Environmental Education in the college level under such disciplines as “engineering, biology, earth sciences, chemical sciences, environmental law, [and] environmental management.”(Phuyen. n. d.
)To address the deforestation problem, the Ministry of Environment has already established “23 protected areas in Cambodia, covering some 3. 5 million ha. or 19% of the country’s land mass. ” Furthermore, the ministry aims to examine the issues “regarding reforestation and forest conservation” more closely and remedy its lack of experience in the area of community forestry. (Phuyen. n.
d. )Indonesia has also experienced the problem of deforestation due to legal and illegal logging. The government was forced to turn to massive logging export under pressure from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to repay its external debts. What policymakers did was to declare a moratorium on timber-cutting for any purpose for a number of decades. To make this possible, Indonesia made an appeal to debtor countries as well as to the IMF to ease the pressure for debt repayment.
(Revington. 1992)
