Development on Cambodia's Coast in Ream National Park

CEOCambodiaNews · Post by **CEOCambodiaNews** » Fri May 24, 2019 11:58 am

May 24, 2019
Development challenges in Ream National Park

Environment Ministry officials say there are three major investment companies operating in the area. They are tycoon Kith Meng’s Royal group, tycoon Hun To’s Evergreen Success and Asia Resort Development Company, and the Chinese-owned Yee Jia’s Tourism Development company.

According to a 2008 sub-decree, Evergreen Success and Asia Resort Development were given 2,377 hectares to develop tourism projects within the park.

A 2008 directive letter from the Council of Ministers to the Environment Ministry allocated 1,681 hectares to the Royal Group also for tourism development.Yee Jia’s Tourism Development was also granted 3,300 hectares in 2008 for tourism development.

The 2008 directive letter says that the Environment Ministry and the companies must provide a clear master plan for development and conservation areas within their respective development areas.

“The companies must sign a contract on environment protection with the Environment Ministry and implement it in accordance with existing laws,” Foreign Affairs Minister Prak Sokhonn, who was then a secretary of state with the Council of Ministers, said in the document.

Environment Minister Say Sam Al said at the time that the companies were given time to improve.

“We gave them six months to correct their master plan, and then we will re-evaluate those companies,” he said.

In 2015, Mr Sam Al said the ministry was willing to revoke concessions for companies who do not comply with the law, or fail to keep their obligations.

Prior to his comments, at least three land concessions within the province were already revoked by the government, including one within the park belonging to Hong Kong Research Investment and Development Consulting Group.

A local environment official working in the park says the three companies remaining are now the only ones with concessions within the park, but noted their leases were cut in half in 2015.

“We have cooperated with joint-provincial forces to try and prevent what you see here,” the local environment official says, pointing to a cleared section of forest while noting that the clearing was done by the Evergreen Company which planned to build a five-star hotel.

“For this area, we have already submitted a report for our superiors to check,” he adds. “We have been trying to prevent this clearing for some time – this area used to be full of trees.”

The environment official, who asked to remain anonymous because he is not allowed to speak to the media, says encroachment on protected land began recently following a boom in land prices, noting that powerful people are behind the crimes.

https://www.khmertimeskh.com/50607376/d ... onal-park/

CEOCambodiaNews · Post by **CEOCambodiaNews** » Thu Apr 06, 2023 4:17 pm

Cambodia’s Ream National Park transformed from wildlife haven to development zone
As development hits the national park, decades-old concessions are revving into action, while developers use sand to build into a natural bay
Sreynat Sarum, Danielle Keeton-Olsen
April 5, 2023

San recalls how she used to earn much more before the wide new roads were built by the Cambodian government along Sihanoukville’s beaches. Her job, selling papaya salad and seafood fried noodles along the seashore, has not changed. But she’s been forced to move along the coast, from just outside Sihanoukville to within Ream National Park.

“A lot of people don’t really like to come here because on the way it’s a bit quiet and the forest is a bit thick,” she says.

About four years ago, San had to leave her steady business running a shop in Ong village, Ream commune, to make way for a road along the beach. This was as neighbouring Sihanoukville exploded with casinos and expansive resorts targeting mainly Chinese holidaymakers.

When we visited her, on a Thursday at sunset in Cambodia’s hot season, there were more vendors like San than visitors. This beach only became accessible after developers and the Cambodian navy had deforested part of the national park.

“There is nothing I can do about it,” San says. “When they told us to move, we moved. I found a new place to make money. I’m not sure about this new place’s future.”

Ream National Park, and the mangrove forests and beaches that surround it, attracted private and public developers because of its natural beauty and proximity to Sihanoukville. Residents and wildlife have suffered from tourism developments and expanding ports, but some of that natural beauty survives.

The forest held promise as a conservation zone in the early 2000s. Experts identified dozens of rare species of birds, mammals and marine creatures that relied on the system of jungles, estuaries and coasts. They noted it’s potential as an ecotourism area. Shortly after these assessments began, the national park was parcelled into massive land concessions spanning thousands of hectares.

As the Cambodian government finished new roads along Sihanoukville’s beaches, developments on the outskirts accelerated. These included extensive sand filling along the Ream commune’s beach to create a new gated community atop a filled-in mangrove forest. Though there’s little room for conservation projects in the national park in between the massive private concessions, conservationists hope some of the surrounding natural features can be protected to sustain species.

In 2015, a Cambodian fishing cat was spotted on camera traps in Ream National Park. It was one of only nine such cats documented in a survey of 14 locations across four coastal forests in Cambodia.
Full article: https://chinadialogue.net/en/nature/cam ... ment-zone/

Reecek · Post by **Reecek** » Thu Apr 06, 2023 7:42 pm

the biodiversity of ream and kohtakiev will never come back and you cant find it anywhere else.

we dont have pictures, no videos, and noone exists to talk about it. it will just be forgotten as if it was never there,.

John Bingham · Post by **John Bingham** » Thu Apr 06, 2023 7:54 pm

All these "National Parks" were set up in the 90s as a smokescreen. They don't mean anything.