A Research Report

Presented to
The Faculty of the Graduate School
Norton University

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
OF FOREST RESOURCES IN
CAMBODIA
Lecturer: Prof. Fe D Prudenciado

Ms. Sorn Somoline

 INTRODUCTION
Economic growth: local
supply, export to
international market
Social: forest community,
tourism, science, research
study
Cultural: Spirit forest
Rural livelihood: House
building, Fuel wood
Environment: ecosystem
Source: Forest Cover, 2002, FA
(forest biodiversity, wildlife),
erosion prevention, storm,
drought, flood.
 INTRODUCTION
 Unsustainable management: Forest tY
el x 1>karERbRbY
l KM
rbéRB
concession management, forestry Fig. 1. Change of Forest Cover
community, code of practice.
74%
73.3%
72%

 Lack of law enforcement : Illegal 70% 70.0%

logging, Encroachment. 68%

66%

 Population growth: Increase of 64%

65.3%

demand for construction, Increase of 62% 62.2%

fuel wood supply (six million m3 of 60% 59.8%

58.6%

wood is used every year).

58%

56%

 Economic growth: Export round 1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000

wood in 1990s (600,000 m3 each

year and increased to 4.3 million m3
in 1991 ) Source: Forestry Administration, 2007
 INTRODUCTION

The objective of the study:

 To identify the policies and legislations for
supporting the sustainable forest management in
Cambodia.
 To ensure the key challenges of government
agencies for sustainable forest management.
 To determine the effective mechanism for the
forestry sector and all stakeholders to implement
the sustainable forest development in Cambodia.
 DISCUSSIONS

1. Cambodian policies and legislation for

sustainable forest management
 Policy support forest management :Millennium
Development Goal, Rectangular Strategy,
Cambodian’s forest policies.
 Legislations : Forestry law, Sub-Degree on Forest
concession management, Community forestry,
Declaration, Code of practice for forest harvesting.
 DISCUSSIONS
2. Key challenges of Government for sustainable forest
management
 Laws enforcement against illegal logging.
 Forest management system :
- Forest land for indigenous people
- Protected area
- Forest land for production (forest concession
management, community forestry management,
plantation forest management and unorganized multi-value
harvesting)
- Harmonization of forest management system in ASEAN 's
sustainable forest management
 DISCUSSIONS
 Institutional framework
- The enabling agencies :Government agencies (The
Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, The
Ministry of Environment), Civil Society
Organization , Donor.
- The framing agencies : Ministry of Interior,
Ministry of Economy and Finance, and Council of
Ministers
- The implementation agencies: Public
organizations (Government Department), private sector
agencies (concessionaires ), non governmental agencies.
- End users of forest ser : Directly, forest livelihood
dependent groups and indirectly all citizens through a
contribution to the national economy and the maintenance
of environmental services.
Institutional Players and their relationship

Donor Overall Policy

Advocate Sector Policy Citizens

Government

Delivery User
 CONCLUSION
Mechanism for Sustainable forest management :
 Government plays a central role, as the lead agent for
policy.
 The policy framework acts as a hub through which
services are delivered and users access resources.
 The policy framework also plays a key role as an
instrument allowing citizens to contribute to sectoral
policy and advocacy agencies to represent the voices
and arguments of those who either cannot have their
own voice (in the case of biodiversity) or are not
sufficiently empowered such as the extreme poor.
 The stakeholder can combine the important features of
trust, transparency, openness and flexibility together.
 CONCLUSION
 An effective partnership process has brought stakeholders
together to set up voluntary, cooperative partnerships and a
Model Forest Partnership Committee. The committee is
comprised of representatives of differences stakeholder groups
including the government, Non government organization,
industries, farmer, technology providers and academic
organizations. The partnership committee provides a forum for
exchanging ideas on forest management, resolving conflicts
and encouraging participatory decision making.
 Conflict of interest related to forest management (Forestry
Administration and Ministry of Environment ).
 Confusion of roles within government : when officials are
seen to make decisions and propose policies when their
relatives or friends have related business interests that caused
the lack of law enforcement.
 RECOMMENDATION
 Illegal logging: (i) Providing assessments that link illegal logging
and forest crime to livelihood concerns and determine the
institutional capacity for governance; (ii) Strengthening judicial
systems and the rule of law; (iii) Reforming concessions, policies
and regulations; (iv) Promoting the adoption of log tracking
technology to follow timber from harvest through milling to
ensure that illegal wood does not enter the legal supply (v) Visibly
demarcating boundaries between concessions, protected areas, and
indigenous territories ; (vi) Encouraging investments in
sustainable forest management ; (vii) Developing common
standards for measuring and reporting forest crime and; (viii)
Boycotting timber from conflict zones .

 Encourage ownership at the community scale: (i) Recognizing and

enforcing indigenous rights; (ii) Including low-income and
indigenous peoples in the process of rule making and
implementation.
 RECOMMENDATIONS
 Solution on overlap of responsibility and confusion of
role between forest stake holders: (i) Reduce conflicts
between formal laws and traditional norms and forest
uses; (ii) Establish or clarify property rights to
ecosystem services and responsibilities for providing
them; (iii) Motivate stakeholders to collaborate in law
enforcement by enabling them to effectively
participate in decision making and share the benefits
of legal harvesting and conservation; (iv) Increase
risk to those engaged in illegal practices; (v) Provide
transparent mechanisms for conflict resolution.
 Increase public salaries.
 Administration reform for bureaucrats.
 Capacity building for forestry officers.