FORESTRY PROGRAMME IN CAMBODIA
Tuesday, 17 May 2005
FORESTRY PROGRAMME IN CAMBODIA
Over the years Hoon Hai, a resident of Svi Krom village in central Cambodia, has just about managed to feed himself, his wife, his two girls aged 9 and 11, along with his fourteen and sixteen year old sons. One of his main sources of food has been from farming of just over three-quarters of an acre of rice land.
With encouragement, advice and financial assistance from Concern, Hoon Hai, with his fellow villagers and the residents of four neighbouring villagers, has worked since nineteen ninety one on the development of 450 acres of community owned forest. The land had been waste land controlled by the government and without this initiative would probably have been encroached on by rich people who would have used it to grow rice.
For several years now the forest has provided Hoon Hai with wild potatoes and mushrooms which bring variety and enrichment to the family diet. As a skilled artisan he now has a rich source of pole wood from which to make handles for agricultural hoes, billhooks and axes. In addition he collects vines from which he produces fishing nets which find a ready market with fishermen who work the nearby Tonle Sap (Great Lake).
