Today is World Water Day 2010, and looking back at previous World Water Day slogans, they seem very familiar in the context of Cambodia.
World Water Day in 2009 highlighted issues of trans-boundary water. In northeastern Cambodia communities are today struggling with hydropower issues in the 3S’s (Sesan, Srepok and Sekong) river basin.
In 2008, World Water Day was dedicated to sanitation, which is an all-too-well known issue in Cambodia. In 2007, the world awareness day was dedicated to water scarcity.
Currently, upper-Mekong river nations are experiencing their most severe drought in decades along the upper stretches in Thailand, Laos, Burma, and China.
The drought is not expected to finish until May at the earliest with the onset of the rainy season. In China’s worst affected provinces, Yunnan and Guizhou, it was reported that an estimated 16 million acres of farmland and 20 million people are suffering from water shortages.
Finally, way back in 2006, World Water Day celebrated the links between Water and Culture. The sacred waters of the Ganges spring to mind and its religious significance for Hindus. Angkor Wat also comes to mind, particularly as an example of the control of water and the abundance it can produce.
And Cambodia today faces the same issues that it’s ancient ancestors had no powers to deal with in the past.
With 63 potential dam projects throughout the country, including two mainstream Mekong dams at Sambor and Stung Treng, and several on both the Sesan and Srepok, the specter looms of virgin forests being churned up by trucks and heavy plant machinery, the blocking of fish migration routes and uneven flow rates of rivers.These issues are already being experienced today on the Sesan and Srepok rivers in the northeast.
A study by the Japan Water Forum in 2005 found that seven of the eight UN millennium goals are heavily dependent on access to clean water for success and up to 50 percent of the success rate in meeting those goals was dependent on access to clean water.
Those millennium goals if you don’t know are to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger, achieve universal primary education, promote gender equality and empower women, reduce child mortality, improve maternal health, combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases and ensure environmental sustainability.
Cambodia should be assisted in every way to attain these fundamental and noble goals.
While the Cambodian tourism industry and infrastructure is heavily focused on the Angkor temples, the emerging community based ecotourism sector is beginning to take shape particularly, though not confined too, the southwest of the country.
It’s low volume tourism right now, but many of these places simply haven’t been on the map very long and the word simply hasn’t got out yet. This is because the really successful promotion in this sector is done by ‘word of mouth’ and personal recommendation.
Great swathes of Cambodia are home to pristine forests supporting a multitude of fauna and flora. Huge watersheds that help avoid sedimentation of the great lake and the Mekong and secure the provision of water all year round by slowly releasing it over the dry season.
These Cambodian forests not only have high social value but are also of global significance.
They are the range of tigers, wild elephants and perhaps even home to the mythical Kouprey, Cambodia’s national animal, as well as being home to indigenous people and communities who’s spiritual and social traditions are shaped by the forests and their relationship to it.
There are nurseries for literally billions of juvenile fishes, and the emerald mangroves and miles of coastal palms are Cambodia’s matadors. It’s first lines of defense against global warming and the impending rise in sea levels. They too act as bio-diversity incubators.
The WWF’s “First Contact’” report of 2008 brought us the discovery in the Greater Mekong region of shocking pink millipedes, electric green snakes, rare turtles and added an additional 1,000-plus species previously unknown to the world.
The story was a smash hit in the international media.
The Mekong’s potential is staggering, and I’m in no doubt there is much more to be discovered.
Cambodia has a serious pedigree in heritage. It possesses all the cultural and diverse environments that appeal to the international traveler as well as the regional tourist market. It is, however, the last country in the region to really act in the ecotourism travel sector. Nevertheless, it’s a crucial addition to Cambodia’s portfolio. Laos has benefited enormously with the full and enthusiastic support of government leaders there.
By its very nature ecotourism is about responsibly utilizing the natural assets in product development—those that offer the least impact on the environment. These products can be very simple things like a rubber tube ride down a river, a ramble in the jungle, a picnic on a river island or just a great place to watch a sunset, which are all popular activities for tourists in neighboring Laos.
Rural rivers, wetlands and forestry are the lifeblood of this developing travel sector.
After three years or so, the riverfront at Sisowath Quay is so close to being finished. As an integral part of the character of the city of Phnom Penh, the spectacular celebrations of the Water Festival will finally be unhindered by the dust and debris of construction over the last few years.
Bon Om Tuk is the cultural highpoint and should be highlighted as the premier festival event of international importance. It is a genuine Khmer expression of epic proportions that celebrates the unique hydrology of the Tonlé Sap. A pristine and blooming Phnom Penh riverfront will be ready to embrace every province as well as an international guest list in November. This is good news for the radiant capital.
Tourism and marketing can’t and won’t be able to do everything in terms of development, but it is an extraordinarily powerful force if it captures the imagination of the prospective traveler.
I believe water be an integral part of the Khmer psyche. It is something that is quintessentially Khmer. Instinctual even. No explanation or workshop necessary.
With this in mind, it is crucial that all hydropower efforts be transparent so everyone can see and hear of the benefits, but also to be informed about what damage to the freshwater fisheries, which in Cambodia amounts to a value of some $2 billion annually, a mainstream Mekong dam would have.
The evidence offered from fisheries specialists already would suggest mainstream dams should be abandoned but lets wait for an impartial, final, EIA report.
What stakeholders must do, at all costs, is avoid some sort of mainstream construction that creates a tipping point. A point at which whatever is done, the natural environmental response is so profound that we are left powerless to act or to react.
Cambodia has the environmental assets and an opportunity to lead the world in developing its international marketing strategy based around water thanks in no small part to the Tonlé Sap and the acute awareness of the ancestors of today’s Khmer.
With this simple but strategic message that water is Cambodia it could leverage the fact in the international tourism marketplace.
Water has never been used in this way before. The benefits of being the first country to do so are both priceless as they are long term.
If Cambodia can bring itself around to building fewer large-scale hydro projects, leaving more rivers to flow freely, it can enjoy the benefits of being recognized as a genuine leader, not only in the ecotourism sector but also in it’s efforts to achieve the millennium goals, by looking at alternative sources of energy—maybe even purchasing it from a friendly neighbor—to meet increasing demand. Perhaps Cambodia might take its foot off the gas peddle of dam construction, at least momentarily, and gather all the stakeholders around to take stock, re-evaluate and above all, be honest.
Of the six countries that are the custodians of the Mekong river, Cambodia can act with justification that the phenomenal hydrology of the river is not only vital to the Khmer way of life but that it should also to be celebrated and conserved along it’s entire length.
Then, Cambodia can rightfully claim the title of “Kingdom of Water” for itself.
Carpe diem. World Water Day 2010.
