On April 26th, a Cambodian environmental activist named Chut Wutty was killed by military police. Two journalists present at the incident reported that Wutty was shot after refusing to hand over photographic evidence he had been collecting. A subsequent government inquiry -- open and shut within three days -- not only failed to address the details of his death, but also prohibited further inquiry into the issue Wutty was investigating: namely, the systematic stripping and selling-off of Cambodia's forests.
Wutty was part of the Prey Lang Network -- a grassroots group of activists fighting to save the Prey Lang forest, Southeast Asia's last remaining intact lowland evergreen forest. His death is the latest episode in a long and sorry history of Cambodian dissenters being intimidated or even silenced by a kleptocratic elite ransacking the country's natural resources for personal gain. Home to the Kuy indigenous people for centuries, the Prey Lang forest possesses significant biodiversity value as well as being a critical source of water for the country's rice-growing areas. In fact the battle the Kuy are fighting against the march of logging, plantations and mining companies into the forest holds an uncanny resemblance to the plot of Avatar -- and in what might otherwise be a charming example of life imitating art, they have even tried using the film to bring media attention to their cause...
Except this is real-life. And the bullets are real.
Cambodia has a sad history of state abuse and violence, but Wutty's death and the attention it has begun to receive provides an unprecedented opportunity for the international activist community to pressure the Cambodian government to reform. A growing chorus of NGOs -- including Global Witness -- are calling for a full inquiry into Chut Wutty's death, reform of Cambodia's notoriously corrupt natural resource sector, and an end to the persecution of those who defend forest and land rights. The time has come for the Cambodian government to afford its citizens a meaningful say in what happens to the country's resources; rather than line the pockets of a small, corrupt elite, the riches of Cambodia must serve to lift its people out of poverty.
This problem -- and its possible solution -- is not as distant as it might appear. With savagely ironic timing, on the day Wutty was killed, USAID announced a $20m grant to "support forests and biodiversity" in Cambodia. The potential for this kind of aid money as a powerful force for good has too long been squandered on landmark conservation projects, many of which have been fatally undermined by the Cambodian Prime Minister and his cronies who habitually plunder resources that might otherwise drive development. To make matters worse, little of this money ever reaches the kind of grassroots organizations Wutty worked with. As a mark of respect for his work -- and to signal our desire for change -- we as US citizens must call on our government to ensure our tax dollars be used to support such groups. The forests they are fighting to defend are not only their homes, but ours as well. They are nothing less than the essence of the natural world.
The work of the Prey Lang group is but one example of the heroic and dangerous work being done every day by activists around the world in the essential fight against "the resource curse." We must let them know they are not alone. Making sure our aid money reaches its target is the right place to start.
Edward Zwick is a member of the Global Witness Advisory Board.
They know education is denied to most people (particularly women) - and even when there is "school" available, it is nowhere near the level people in the West think of education.
The solution to this problem starts with providing education - high quality education - to Cambodians, thereby empowering them to fight for themselves and solve their own problems. This is not only the smart thing to do - it is by far the cheapest path to the solution.
If you want to support education, or learn more about how you can actually do something to change Cambodia (other than spouting off philosophy) - then check out the non-profit getset-go.org for more info.
http://www.change.org/petitions/help-us-stop-the-illegal-deforestation-of-prey-lang-forest-in-cambodia. Pass it on to your friends. They need to know the outside world supports them in their journey for justice.
You can also check out http://preylang.com/ and the http://www.phnompenhpost.com/ for most recent updates on this issue and so many more in Cambodia.
As the author said, "We must let them know they are not alone."
It's a very real situation and needs support
http://www.change.org/petitions/help-us-stop-the-illegal-deforestation-of-prey-lang-forest-in-cambodia
Do a little homework and then support a small non-profit that works directly with Cambodians in need. And if you really want to help solve this problem, support small orgs that focus on empowering Cambodians to fight for themselves (like getset-go.org) rather than rescue operations that foster a habit of waiting to be saved by some external power.
He never responded to my letter.
Jerk.
I don't grieve for Cambodia, like I grieve for Southern California's ecosystems, second in biodiversity, only to tropical rainforests. These rich ecosystems were the Sherwood Forests of the new world, thousand year old oak trees with trunks the size of cars, giant sycamores whose living, towering bodies turned golden in late autumn with their thick, mottled bodies that dipped to the Earth, sheltering the Earth from the heat of the sun.
How ironic it is, we grieve for distant and faraway ecosystems while ravaging and butchering our own share of the Earth. How many people talk of saving Los Angeles and San Diego's chaparral and Robin Hood's Sherwood Forests. Saving the Earth begins at home, our slice of paradise.
We can only control the butchery of the Earth from our corners of the planet because so few are literate in the science of ecology and why mankind breathes. Man exists only because of ecosystems, and ecosystems exist only because of biodiversity, here and in Cambodia.
The beauty and majesty of our own life giving and supporting ecosystems are going, going...Save distant ecosystems and their strands in the web of all life, when our Earth, our planet is dying?
In "faraway" Cambodia (which is far more intimately connected to your life than you are aware), people do not have such a legal framework. It is a dictatorship in which people are forcibly evicted from their lands (by the military, on the payroll of the companies), people are forced into slave labor, human trafficking and forced child prostitution happens in the open, and people are shot when they try to protest.
Cambodians (among the poorest people on the planet) have not been lulled into complacency and laziness by a life of luxury. They have the WILL, but they live in a system of oppression in which they lack the means.
And people (particularly women) are denied basic education to keep them powerless. A comparison to California is beyond apples to oranges.
In America, we devour more of the Earth than almost anyone else, gobbling up our natural resources and our share of the living Earth. We can't lead as an example; we only call to attention others following our course of killing the planet to survive. Comparing California to Cambodia is oranges and oranges as far as the science of ecology is concerned. Killing ecosystems in CA and Cambodia still kills that much of our life giving and yielding Earth.
For almost 100 percent of man's existence on the Earth in California and Cambodia, he lived and survived with 80 percent more free time without civilization, without killing the Earth. Cambodians haven't been as planet devouring as Americans! But, we feel we can pound our collective chests by calling the planetary misdeeds on others while we concrete the Earth faster than anyone else, except maybe China.
A great one is getset-go.org that runs a Women's Library and Learning Center in Cambodia. Lack of education is a root cause of a lot of this illegal activity because it leaves people helpless and companies know they can get away with abuses. Rather than fight the symptoms, small, underfunded orgs like getset-go address the cause of the problem and empower Cambodians to fight for themselves.
Education is the root-cause of this illegal activity, because companies and gov't officials know that lack of basic education renders the population virtually defenseless - and too poor to hire lawyers. By supporting women's education in particular, you empower Cambodians to fight for themselves.