Privatization Leads To Catastrophic Loss Of Cambodia’sTropical Flooded Grasslands

Around half of Cambodia's tropical flooded grasslands have been lost in just 10 years according to new research from the University of East Anglia.

Tonle Sap, Cambodia

The seasonally flooded grasslands around the Tonle Sap, Southeast Asia's largest freshwater lake, are of great importance for biodiversity. It is a refuge for 11 globally-threatened bird species. They are also a vital fishing, grazing, and traditional rice farming resource for around 1.1 million people.

Research published today in the journal Conservation Biology quantifies for the first time the area's catastrophic loss of tropical flooded grassland.

The grassland area spanned 3349 km² in 1995, but by 2005 it had been reduced to just 1817 km² -- a loss of 46 percent.

Despite conservation efforts in some areas, it has continued to shrink rapidly since, with a further 19 percent lost in four years (2005-2009) from the key remaining grassland area in the southeast of the Tonle Sap floodplain.

Factors include intensive commercial rice farming with construction of irrigation channels, which is often illegal. Some areas have also been lost to scrubland where traditional, low-intensity agricultural activity has been abandoned.

The research has been led by Dr Charlotte Packman from UEA's school of Environmental Sciences, in collaboration with the Wildlife Conservation Society Cambodia Program and BirdLife International. It was funded by the Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund.

Dr Packman said: "Tropical and flooded grasslands are among the most threatened ecosystems globally. The area around the Tonle Sap lake is the largest remaining tropical flooded grassland in Southeast Asia. It is hugely important to both biodiversity and the livelihoods of some of the world's poorest communities. Our research shows that these grasslands are disappearing at an alarming rate.

"These unique grasslands are home to many threatened birds including by far the largest remaining population of the critically endangered Bengal florican -- the world's rarest bustard. This bird has experienced a dramatic population decline of 44 percent in seven years due to the destruction of its grassland habitat. Other birds under threat in this area include sarus cranes, storks, ibises and eagles.

"Rural communities have been left vulnerable to land-grabbing and privatization of communal grasslands. Traditional, low-intensity use of the grasslands by these communities, such as burning and cattle-grazing, help to maintain the grasslands and prevent scrubland from invading.

"Intensive commercial rice production by private companies, involving the construction of huge channels and reservoirs for irrigation, is denying local communities access to the grasslands on which their livelihoods depend and destroying a very important habitat for threatened wildlife. More

 

Land Is Life, and It’s Slipping Away

PHNOM PENH, Feb 14 2013 (IPS) - Nean Narin, a humble man and father of three children, says his family is going hungry. Narin lives in the village of Boeung Kak, situated on the edge of Cambodia’s capital, Phnom Penh. For years, he and other villagers relied on the Boeung Kak Lake for fish and plants, which they would eat and sell.

Displaced families in this relocation site outside Phnom Penh

But in mid-2008, construction workers began pumping sand into the lake “in preparation for the development of a 133-hectare commercial and housing project” sponsored by Shukaku, Inc. — a Cambodian firm owned by a Senator of the ruling Cambodian People’s Party – and leased to the Chinese-owned Erdos Hong Jun Investment Co., Ltd.

Over the next four years, the project would displace over 3,000 families.

Narin and his neighbour Tep Vanny, along with a many others, refused to leave and now live a hand-to-mouth existence, stripped of a steady livelihood.

Vanny’s parents left Boeung Kak and moved to the rural Kampong Speu province, located about 48 kilometres from Phnom Penh.

But a sugar plantation tycoon has since claimed that land, and the family now faces eviction for the second time, she told IPS. All the fruit trees Vanny’s parents relied on for food have been cut down, and no compensation offered.

What was once a modest life has now become a daily struggle for survival as a result of a land buying spree in this Southeast Asian country of 14 million people, which experts say began during the 2007-2008 financial and food crisis.

"Land is life; land is dignity and without land farmers become workers for life, working as slaves for plantation owners.”

In Cambodia, land is equivalent to life: according to Germany’s federal ministry for economic cooperation and development (GTZ) over 80 percent of the population are subsistence farmers.

One of the world’s least developed countries, Cambodia seems to have no place left to go but up: over 68 percent of its people live on less than two dollars a day and 26 percent suffer from hunger on a daily basis. But the wave of land acquisitions, experienced first-hand by thousands of people like Niren and Vanny, suggests that the situation could soon get much worse.

FDI feeds landlessness

For the last two decades a wave of foreign direct investment (FDI) has had lopsided results here.

The market-driven economy – launched in 1989 and opened to foreign investors in 1993 – fuelled a rapid increase in FDI, from practically nothing in 1990 to 800 million dollars in 2008, according to the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations.

Asian countries were the largest investors from 2000 to 2010: China topped the list with 47.6 percent of FDI, making South Korea — with 18.8 percent — the second-largest investor.

While investments initially went straight into sectors like tourism (53 percent), infrastructure (21 percent) and the garments industry (20 percent), the past half-decade has seen a steady rise in land investments.

Various local and international experts attribute this spike to the global food and financial crisis of 2007 to 2008 when farmland became a valuable asset to wealthier countries outsourcing agricultural production to increase their food security, and financial speculators cashing in on land investments.

But this pattern could have catastrophic implications for millions of peasants here – already land tenure has been shrinking and 20 percent of agricultural families in Cambodia are landless. More