Cambodians are often criticized (by expats) for their lack of environmental awareness, however, many people are becoming more interested in learning about the importance of conservation and environmental issues.
Here, a Cambodian journalist speaks out on why they consider it important to keep spreading the word and informing the population that everyone needs to get involved if they want to live in a cleaner, healthier Cambodia.

Why I Keep on Writing About the Environment and the Climate Crisis
Sao Phal Niseiy 31/01/2021 4:12 PM

From day to day, I am writing more and more about climate crisis and environmental issues. I keep on sharing it too on social media posts. Many have asked why I am doing that.

Honestly, I am not an environmentalist because it takes a lot of dedication and efforts to be one. But it doesn’t require to be an environmentalist to raise the subject. Technically, I am just a very concerned citizen and a journalist by profession who has an interest in environmental issues.

Through writing and sharing on environmental issues, what I hope for is to see friends share similar concern about the environment wellbeing and work together at some point to embolden an alteration of people’s behavior on a larger scale.

It simply is about promoting education, knowledge, understanding as well as actions undertaken by a group of individuals—the more influential, the better. Once we are knowledgeable, more and more people will be able to be considerate about the impacts they create on the environment and eventually speak for their own future.

For example, more people are increasingly taking part in anti-plastic campaigns in recent years because they concur that the society they are living in is being choked by plastic pollution. This fight is gaining momentum. This has to be kept going.

We need such a participation in other environmental activities, too. This can be wider and more frank talks among people in our country about the need for government policies that encourage investment in clean energy as well as government effective mechanisms to combat illegal logging and wildlife trade while fostering reforestation countrywide. With this, we can urge our government to do more to mitigate the climate crisis.
Full article: https://cambodianess.com/article/why-i- ... ate-crisis

I'm in Seattle, USA, a city that has been well educated on the environment, pollution, and the harm that plastics do to the earth, yet our roadsides are covered with all sorts of trash thrown out of car windows. Out of the way forest roads are sometimes used illegally as toxic waste dumps. Never ceases to amaze me how momentary convenience out prioritizes just about everything else.
While the government may have policies to limit corporate waste, and extensive programs to educate the public, some elements of the citizenry, incomprehensibly to me, seem committed to undue any reductions in waste those policies produce.

techietraveller84 wrote: ↑Sat Feb 06, 2021 7:58 am While the government may have policies to limit corporate waste, and extensive programs to educate the public, some elements of the citizenry, incomprehensibly to me, seem committed to undue any reductions in waste those policies produce.

I swear there's people out there who think environmentalism = left wing = baby murderers and pussies, ergo shitting on your doorstep = manly, tough and patriotic.

I read this post as a strong positive message - that Cambodians do care for their environment. They care about their country getting sold out.It's something that the younger generation of Cambodians are becoming engaged with, and good for them. This message is not "Please save me foreigner ONG", but "Cambodians, let's do something together about our environmental problems".
Good stuff.

In a parallel universe I could see myself being quite the environmental activist. It's one of those things I feel quite passionate about but am just too damn lazy to actually do something about. So I'm always a little excited when I hear about others doing what I'm too lazy to do.

In terms of the environment, history will, for sure, look back at our time as being the dirtiest, least uncaring, most selfish, most shameless and most self-serving period of all of human history. I've never got my head around the fact that plastic can be manufactured at the rate that it is and nobody seems to be trying to put limits on it or find alternatives. In much the same way that we've come up with a vaccine in less than a year, where it would normally take ten, if plastic was banned tomorrow, and only environmental alternatives could replace it, the market would find a viable alternative in a heartbeat. Necessity is the mother of invention, after all.

How can it ever be right that a plastic bottle of water can take seconds to drink, yet the plastic that that bottle is made from will probably never, ever break down?

Well done to the guy. I applaud anyone who, unlike myself whose environmental activism seems limited to the odd post on an internet forum, actually gets up and does something constructive.