On March 22, 2024, ADB’s landscape restoration project held its final national workshop at Hyatt Hotel, Phnom Penh, to present and discuss the outputs and lessons from Cambodia’s demonstration sites. The project is funded by the Japan Fund for Prosperous and Resilient Asia and the Pacific.  ICEM – International Centre for Environmental Management and ICRAF – World Agroforestry Centre, are the technical partners responsible for implementing the project.

The workshop was opened by H.E. Dr Eang Sophalleth, Environment Minister, with opening remarks from Ms Jyotsana Varma, ADB’s Country Director.  Other participants included representatives from national and local government line agencies, the community leaders involved, and other local and international stakeholders from the Sangker watershed.

Dr Eang Sophalleth committed to supporting upscaling of the important restoration demonstrations in the project through the MoE’s Circular Strategy on Environment based on clean, clean, and sustainable policies. The Minister emphasized that MoE is actively working to halt illegal activities and to facilitate nation wide forest restoration.

The project focuses on four demonstration sites in the Samlout Watershed in the headwaters of the Sangker River Basin, Battambang Province. It is a collaboration with the local NGO – the Maddox Jolie-Pitt Foundation (MJP), involving communities, local government, the Samlout Multiple Use Area Rangers, and the Provincial Department of Environment. The project is working to rehabilitate degraded areas with a focus on Community Forests, restore native tree species, demonstrate ecological agriculture techniques, support local livelihoods by implementing diversified cropping techniques, introduce fruit and coffee trees, and potentially develop agro-tourism. The project also applies nature-based solutions to improve the hydrology of the watershed and reduce erosion. Put […]