The indigenous ecotourism of Cambodia was weighed down by the fear of viruses Environmental News

Banlung, Cambodia – When his two teenage daughters started going to high school three years ago, Thong Samai started selling traditional wine made from herbs collected from the forest to sell along with Coca-Cola and Red Bull at the entrance to the sacred lake Yeak Laom. ecotourism has become a popular destination in eastern Cambodia.

It is the beginning of March and the biggest wave of COVID-19 that has hit the country has just begun, however no one knows yet how bad it will be – and Samai sees a group of domestic tourists coming out of a bright white van and they pass by his stall towards the shore of the lake.

“They [tourists] they are afraid to approach me, and I am afraid they may give me COVID, but I take the risk of running the business, ”he told Al Jazeera.

Making a good day between 70,000 and 100,000 rails ($ 17.5 – $ 25), the 40-year-old Samai, a member of the Tompoun indigenous community that runs the lake, says his store’s income ensures his daughters can continue to attend school.

Profits have dried up since the pandemic began and this month the Khmer New Year, Cambodia’s biggest holiday, closed the lake completely.

The pandemic – which is re-escalating in Cambodia and forcing it to blockade in Phnom Penh and other areas – has been a constant tension for the country’s indigenous communities in Ratanakiri province, as additional income from their natural and spiritual milestones is essential to their economic survival and forest survival. .

Indigenous groups in Cambodia make up less than two percent of the population and live mostly in northeastern hill and forest provinces like Ratanakiri.

But they often face agro-industrial companies that have long-term leases, want to clear forests and plant crops of raw materials like rubber, entering lands that have been cultivated by indigenous peoples for generations.

In the past, indigenous communities used alternating agriculture and lived in isolation from the Cambodian “plains”. But when outsiders began moving to Ratanakiri more than 20 years ago to gain open land and job opportunities, indigenous communities also began planting in a farming style and began to earn income in other ways.

Ratanakiri province has lost nearly 30% of its tree cover (approximately 240,000 hectares) to 59,000,000 hectares – since 2000, and 43% of the loss has been from primary forests, according to Global Forest Watch.

Many communities have regretted the loss of the forests that mark their land.

They hoped that the ecotourism would not only generate some money for them, but also give them a way to protect some of the remaining forests.

The head of the 49-year-old fishing community Eang Vuth has seen the flow of the Sesan River in the Ou Ya Dao district of Ratanakiri province last month [Roun Ry/Al Jazeera]

Near Cambodia’s border with Vietnam, the three villages of the Jarai indigenous community have been mixed with hydroelectric dams along the Sesan River for more than 10 years fearing greater deforestation, which they hope will stop tourism.

49-year-old Eang Vuth is not from Jarai, but she arrived in the indigenous village of Pa Dal in 2009 to study and protest the impact of hydroelectric dams on Sesan. Over the past two years, he has noticed a company clearing some thick forests that remain between Pa Dal and the nearby town of Pa Tang.

‘Bad people’

Vuth is now working with village volunteers to turn the two islands in the forests of the Sesan River into an ecotourism site where visitors can relax, swim and fish, while the project aims to prevent companies from cutting down trees.

“We can benefit from these places … As a result, we can use that to show the government that the community here can make revenue, so if a company wants to come here and do something, we will report that,” he said, although the pandemic worried tourists in March. whether it would reduce its ability to attract.

A fisherman from the village of Pa Dal and a friend of Vuth’s, Galan Lveng, 55, sees ecotourism as one of the only ways to stop cleaning up in his village and save some forests for the young people of the village.

“I’m afraid of losing the forest because bad people are always around, watching,” he said. “It simply came to our notice then [ecotourism] plans happen, I’m sure we’ll be involved in the community. If we save the trees, I will be very calm. “

A boy washes his hands at a hand washing station provided by the International Plan Organization at Lake Yeak Loam in Ratanakiri province on March 10, 2021 (Roun Ry / Al Jazeera)

Ecotourism has already made a difference in protecting the forest around Lake Yeak Laom, where Samai has its outlet.

The head of ecotourism at the Nham Nea community said his indigenous Tompoun community began in 2000 to welcome tourists and do business around the lake.

At the same time, Cambodians from other provinces began to take an interest in the lands of the peoples, buying or selling “soft titles” to indigenous families – unofficial deeds issued by local authorities – and forcing them to sell community lands.

As parts of the village were sold privately, residents of Tompoun in Yeak Laom could never get a community land title, but after years of questioning, 225 acres (556 acres) were protected by forests and lakes in 2018, and Nea says the community on its patrols he has seen few trunks or trunks since then.

Several times a month, members of the Yeak Laom ecotourism committee cross a circular path through the surrounding protected forest, looking for traces of the cut. On one of the February patrols, Tompoun patrols pointed to a rat trap tucked into a small fence and mixed up the rat wires used to catch wild chickens, but found no new trunks or clearings.

For Near, the registration threat has been part of the community’s decision to keep Yeak Laom open to visitors during the pandemic. The site was open all year round except for the Khmer New Year, when a travel ban was imposed and all tourist sites were ordered to close.

“We have a lot of big trees, so if we pause people will come and take advantage of the opportunity to come and cut down the trees, so we’re concerned,” he said. “But if the government promises to close us, we will do as they say.”

Ly Kimky, a 29-year-old woman, dressed her two-year-old daughter at Lake Lumkud in Lumphat district in Ratanakiri province on March 11, 2021 (Jan Roun Ry / Al Jazeera)

Buli Mi, about 60 kilometers away, is trying to make Lumkud, another lake run by three villages in Tompoun, and a protected area like Yeak Laom. For 39-year-old Mi, keeping the ecotourism site in Lumkud open through a pandemic is to stop the illegal collision and raise revenue to help nearby villages.

Costs up, income down

Among the demands for a papaya salad and strawberry-flavored energy drinks, Ly Kimky explains that she had to reduce her outdoor stand during the pandemic to save money. He, his wife and their baby live between his brother-in-law’s house and Lumkud, sometimes sleeping in a tent near the lake so he can prepare food for the store early.

He says the 29-year-old is better than working as a farmer, repeating the complaints about the prices of chestnuts and mandiopas heard in rural areas due to bad weather conditions and the tourist areas of Ratanakiri.

“If I work in agriculture, that’s going to be hard for me, maybe I won’t have enough food,” he said. “Here, I can eat leftovers.”

The challenge of getting enough budget to launch the lake at COVID-19 is a monthly challenge, Mi said.

Beb Rieng, 35, collects cashews on his farm for sale in the city of Banlung in Ratanakiri province on March 14, 2021 (Roun Ry / Al Jazeera)

It has had to hire more people to monitor visitors ’temperatures at the entrance and spray sanitation as required by the Ministry of Health, although the number of visitors has been reduced.

Monthly profits fell from 2 million rails in Cambodia to about 1.5 million ($ 500 and $ 375) and by March the park had been at a loss of nearly 12 months, he said.

“We have not yet reached the point where we need to close, but we have financial problems and we need to find a solution,” he said in early March.

The Lumkud and Yeak Laom sites closed a couple of weeks later.

Nea says his people had previously closed their doors to outsiders at the start of the pandemic, adding that he and other indigenous communities were more cautious about infectious diseases after losing many members as a result of a cholera outbreak 20 years ago.

“We’ve been through events like this before, we’re not like the people in the city, so if we see something weird happening [like an illness], we will hold a closing ceremony for the people, ”he said.

A motorbike crosses the road to the village of Pa Chon Thom, announcing the closure to outsiders, in the O’Chum district of Ratanakiri province on March 15, 2021 (Roun Ry / Al Jazeera)

However, although they preserve their culture and spiritual practices, they want to reopen them after the pandemic eases.

The success of ecotourism sites – in addition to agriculture – has made life in the village much easier, as increased incomes have allowed people to buy motorbikes and telephones.

“Time changes people and when they see how Khmers live, they like it more and living is more fun, easier and cleaner,” Nea said. “Updating [ourselves] Living as a Khmer does not mean that we abandon our religion. “