3. What are the effects of the environmental problems?
The natural resources in Cambodia are threatened by short-sighted overexploitation on an
increasing and threatening scale. This reduces the country’s overall natural capital, yet whilst
great benefits flow to the few; equally great burdens fall on the many, in particular the rural
communities whose well-being and livelihoods are based on natural resources management. If
the over-exploitation of current scope and scale continues, Cambodia’s future socio-economic
development is at risk.
This section presents a summary of the main impacts of the environmental problems, to the
country’s poverty reduction efforts, to public health as well as to economic growth.
3.1 Impacts on poverty
Besides agriculture, fisheries and forest resources play a critical role supporting livelihoods in
Cambodia, especially in providing diversifying subsistence and income-generating activities.
Combined they provide a safety net to families during difficult times. Between 20% and 58%
of household income derive from common access resources including fuel wood, fishery, and
resources provided by the mangroves (with heavier reliance among poorer households).29
Amongst the poor, a quarter depended solely on fishery and forestry products for over half of
their income in 2004.30
26 http://www.mekonginfo.org/assets/ midocs/0001627-environment-mangrove-forest.pdf
27 Ibid.
28Ibid.
29 World Bank 2006
30 PEP 2005
7
Lack of assets
The people living in poverty face a number of interlocking and mutually reinforcing
problems, including lack of secure land tenure, remoteness from markets and services, lack of
productive assets, lack of access to decision-making processes, low levels of education and
high dependency ratios.31 Land is one of the high-value resources, and land grabbing a serious
problem.
For instance, when forest land is given away to private companies through land concessions
the space for rural communities to access natural resources, particularly non timber forest
products (NTFP), is reduced and might trigger migration to cities were they are at a risk to
become marginalized and without secure employment. A similar problem arises when fishing
lots in rivers and Tonle Sap lake are given away to private investors. Both food security and
income generation opportunities are seriously hampered as the possibility to find protein and
sell excess fish catch on local markets are reduced.
32
Vulnerability
Cambodia is one of the most disaster affected countries in South East Asia33, and the impact
of these disasters is felt most in rural areas, where the large majority of the poor live. Over the
past 10 years, Cambodia has been affected by a series of exceptional floods and by
widespread, but highly localized, agricultural droughts. As Cambodia’s (rural) poor already
are disproportionally dependent on public goods for their livelihoods, declining quality of, or
access to, natural resources negatively affects the poor disproportionally. Additional (to
current serious factors like land conversion and biodiversity depletion) stresses caused by
climate change induced floods and droughts will hit the poor hard. The people living in
poverty are more vulnerable to external shocks due to limited asset base, livelihood
opportunities and little access to decision-making, and have less ability to adapt to
environmental changes. The new dams on the lower Mekong and the expected, but still
unchartered, impacts on rural livelihoods34 they will cause is also an issue of concern as
regards vulnerability.
Security
Lack of security is a fundamental dimension of poverty. The main environment-related
security issues in Cambodia are related to decreasing resilience of ecosystems, unreliable
access to food and water, lack of secure tenure to land, lack of access to resource-based
safety-nets such as goods and services from the natural commons (forests, fish, etc), low
ability of households to accumulate assets including natural capital, pollution, and existence
of conflicts over resources. Women are disproportionately at risk from environmental
degradation, conflicts, and natural disasters, due to gender roles, and historic, cultural and
socio-economic reasons.
More than six million people work full-time in fisheries and fisheries-related activities, and
fish and rice are an integral part of the nation’s staple diet. Fish and other aquatic animals
provide more than 80% of the total animal protein and much of the essential minerals and
vitamins in peoples’ diets.35 The importance of sustaining the services of the Mekong river is
therefore both an issue of security as well as a matter of public health
31 World Bank, 2006.
32 Pianporn Deetes, International Rivers, pers comm
33
, UNDMT 2011
34 http://www.internationalrivers.org accessed 2013-06-12
35 EU 2012
8
For the past decade and at the current time, the political situation in Cambodia has been rather
stable, albeit with strong undercurrents of strain. Some of the issues are pointed out in this
policy brief – rampant destruction of biodiversity as the livelihoods basis for many people,
severe shortcomings in governance, and, not least, land conflicts – could lead to a situation
where the existing firm grip on political power may be challenged, leading to violent reprisals
by the state. There have been incidents where state security forces have used gunfire to stop
peaceful opposition land-grabs by powerful government-backed business and security
interests, and the well-known environmental activist Chhut Wutthy was shot dead after
military police and company security guards stopped him from documenting illegal logging
activities in Koh Kong province.36
Gender aspects
The depletion of biodiversity and natural resources hits women hardest. They often have a key
role in rural households of refining and monetize the “harvest” from fields, forests and
fisheries for example by selling excess fish catch at local markets or manufacture handicraft
from NTFP for urban consumers and tourists. This position enables them to wield influence
both in the family and in the community given their importance for access to financial
resources providing added value to the subsistence-based economy.37 When a natural
resource-based livelihood no longer is possible in a household due to biodiversity degradation
or an infrastructure development, the women lose this position and opportunities for
alternative employment (like working on dam construction or at a plantation) arising is