Kingdom of Cambodia

A Biodiversity Hotspot

Agriculture employs almost 80% of the workforce in Cambodia.

Cambodia is the subregion's smallest country, situated between Thailand to the west, the Lao PDR to the north, and Viet Nam to the east. Much of its land area of 181,040 km2 is taken up by a shallow basin, centered on Tonle Sap Lake, and surrounded by the Cardamom and other mountains in the southwest.

Cambodia is a biodiversity hotspot, rich in genetic, species, and ecosystem diversity. It has the world's highest proportion of undeveloped land (forest and wetlands) and one of the least disturbed coastlines. The recorded 2,300 plant, 100 terrestrial mammal, 500 bird, 500 freshwater fish, and 460 marine fish species found so far in Cambodia are likely to be underestimates, given the limited and often unverified information available. Many people rely directly on biological resources for their livelihood. Cambodia's ecosystems-forests, wetlands, freshwaters, and marine waters-house the rural Cambodian's main source of income. The southwestern coastal ranges and marine waters, northeastern forests, and Tonle Sap Lake floodplains deserve priority action for biodiversity conservation.

But despite their importance, ecosystems are degraded and species are threatened because of conversion of wetlands and forests for agricultural use, poor planning and weak regulatory enforcement, uncertainties in land tenure, hunting, and wildlife trading, among others.

Inundated forests have recently come under increasing seasonal pressure largely because of the demand by households for wood for fuel and handicraft production; expanding fish-lot operations; and conversion of inundated forest to farming, caused by increasing seasonal migration toward the lake of people looking for income-earning opportunities.

The management of water resources is a key environmental issue with direct implications for the poor. Sanitation is generally inadequate or nonexistent. Only 26% of the rural population has access to safe drinking water.

Cambodia is the only place in the subregion where tropical forest still reaches all the way to the seashore. However, forest cover is dwindling at the rate of 1.6% a year to satisfy the domestic demand of rural people for wood, assessed at 6 million m3 annually. Other factors causing forest depletion are illegal logging, widespread shifting cultivation by upland dwellers, forest clearing for agriculture, and lack of sound forest management.

Economic development over the long term, after decades of war, remains a challenge. The country has progressed significantly in both human and economic terms since it rejoined the international community in 1991. Growth since 1993 has been relatively strong and a dynamic export industry has developed. Economic growth will continue, however, only if there are sound policies on environmental and other sector concerns, supported by an appropriate legal system and more functional government agencies that will work together and with similar agencies in other countries of the subregion.

Facts and Figures

Source: Greater Mekong Subregion Atlas of the Environment