CF Agreement Signing Cambodia: Ty Sokhun Speech

Ty Sokhun is the Director General of Cambodia's Forestry Adminstration. The following is an unofficial translation of his speech delivered at the Community Forest Agreement signing ceremony in Kampong Thom on 27 March 2009. 

Ty Sokhun Speech (unofficial translation)

It is my greatest pleasure to be here for the signing of CF agreements here in Kampong Thom province.

On behalf of the Forestry Administration, I gratefully offer my thanks to all of you who are spending your valuable time in attending this important event. This has shown the commitment and efforts from all of you in supporting and involving in the development of CF in Cambodia.

As Kampong Thom’s Governor already mentioned in his speech, forestry is not only an issue for Cambodian people but for people all over the world. Forests are very important to sustain all of our life in the world. The loss of forests is a common concern for all people because the lost of forest resources is like the lost of a lung for the human body. We cannot breathe without the lungs as they play an important role to circulate blood in body like the forest plays a major role in stimulating and cleaning the air in the atmosphere. Without trees to absorb dirty pollution, CO2, and other gases released into the atmosphere become a source of greenhouse gases and this makes our life become difficult.

The nations of the world are now trying to identify the strategy to tackle the forest degradation issue. Because in total, 9.5 million hectares per year of forest all over the world are lost. Therefore, all nations are now working together to identify strategies nationally, regionally, and globally for the management of these resources. Sustainable forest management is now one of the most important goals for the management strategy of global and national forest resources. Forests are the sink of carbon concentration, if we destroy this sink, carbon contributes more to climate change. Estimates are that 18% of CO2 emitted in to the atmosphere are from deforestation and forest degradation.

In the world now, carbon credits are becoming one of the incentives for those who help in tree planting through the Clean Development Mechanism. To encourage the management of natural forestry resource in a sustainable way, carbon credits are the main discussion to provide reward to those who actively involve in this type of management. Now this mechanism is taking place in Cambodia as a pilot site in Odormean Chey for CF and I hope that this model will be expanded to other areas.

What does carbon credit mean? This mean we do not need to cut down tree or harvest tree but we protect our forest resource so we can get financial rewards from this protection. By doing so, it provides incentives to manage forests sustainably and equitably for people who live in and around forested areas and contribute to the rural development and livelihood of local people who are involve in the management. This is one of the world’s current efforts and now is in the stage of negotiation and we hope this will work.

When we talk about forest management here, historically it was invented by the Royal family since kings liked hunting game. Later the management of forest resources was under the responsibility of the State. But this management is still not sufficient and has its own limitations because forest resources are still lost. All over the world this type of management still lost millions of hectares because of the lack of participation from local people. So the concept of participation was established, which we call CF management and now we are at Kampong Thom for these CF signing agreements. We have more CF sites that are not yet recognized by MAFF.

The establishment of CF provides the opportunity for local community to participate in the management and use of forest resources sustainably. Your opportunity has arrived so please take advantage of this to use this resource effectively and to get benefits. Also ensure that you all will use this according the law and not to sell these rights. Do not lose this important opportunity and turn this opportunity to be practical and get the benefits that ensure sustainable use of the forest resources. If you do not use these rights properly, you will lose a great chance that you all really need.

I would like to congratulate all of you getting these important legal rights at this event, and you also get support from MAFF, the Governor, district governors, local authorities as well as other line ministries. I would like to say that there as long way to go as Dr. Yam Malla stated, we still need to develop CF management plan, implement them, and conduct M&E effectively. Similar to the construction of a building, you need to build the basics before you really have your building 

So, you can get many benefits like H.E. Governor already stated from this management and similar to what I said about carbon and you are also not going to lose your traditional use.

During the current world crisis, poverty is increasing all over the world. According to FAO surveyed in 2007, 838 million people suffered from hunger in 2008 the hunger increased more than 40 million. And millions of people lost their jobs including around two million people in the USA.

Based on the evaluation of ILO, forest resources in the world could provide jobs for around 100 million persons. If we could establish more CF areas we could increase more job opportunities for local people and more benefits from this establishment. So we need to take more consideration on this matter. The Government of Cambodia, under the smart leadership of H.E. Hun Sen, has indicated in the rectangular strategy that to increase job opportunities and equitably and effectiveness in Cambodia, the national forest policy of must see forests managed in a sustainable way and provide benefits to improve the livelihoods of local people, and contribute to the economic growth of the country.

For the Cambodia government, CF is one of the most important parts of forest management in Cambodia and the Government will evaluate the effectiveness of this management in improving livelihood and contributing to poverty reduction of local people who live around and inside forest areas.

So, government will increase the number of CF more in the future. Now today we have 360 CF sites which cover 33,000 hectares with participation by more than 8,000 families over 20 provinces.

We plan to increase up to 2 million hectares of overall forest areas. Based on aerial photos in 2006, there is 59% of total land equal to 10.8 million hectare and it is still under the commitment of the millennium development goals which under commitments we need to end up by 2015 to have 60% of forest cover. The Government encourages local people to participate in the management and protection of natural trees and planting tree.

As you know, already there are many events we organized to manage our forest resources, including planting chamkar trees, develop tree nursery and distribute seedlings to local people, organized national tree planting ceremony with King Norodom Sihakmony at the national-level and Governors or deputy Governors and FA staff at the provincial level.

I would like to take this opportunity to inform you that the National Forestry Program in Cambodia had been recognized national and internationally that in the forestry policy reform process it has been useful to eliminate big illegal logging activities under the leadership of our prime minister. We are the first country to implement forest crime monitoring mechanism. We also played a role as a host country and initiator for international discussions on strengthening law enforcement and governance in forestry sector. And today we are also in the recognition process of implementation of the CF program in Kampong Thom province. I am proud of the governors, local authority, FA cantonment, line departments and especially representative local community who are present here today in achieving what many other countries in the Mekong  region have yet as Dr. Yam Malla mentioned, and which can be a model to follow by other countries.

Dr. Yam Malla is internationally recognized because of his experience and he is the executive director of RECOFTC. RECOFTC is based at Kasetsart University, Bangkok, Thailand. This organization does not belong just to Thailand but to other countries located in the Asia-Pacific. His nationality is Nepalese and has the greatest experiences in CF development and his evaluation reflected the experienced person on the community forestry that Cambodian CF can become a model for other countries in the region. Hopefully this evaluation can be sustained forever and we all need to try harder for this achievement. Please do not let this evaluation fail in the end. I said this because I want all of you to believe in yourself that you all could achieve this goal and also you need to help yourself before others could help you!

I think I have talked a lot and as Dr. Yam Malla and Joel Rodriquez (Oxfam GB) already did, so I would take this last chance to again admire and congratulate to the representatives of the 32 sites who worked so hard to get this achievement. Thanks to the Governor, the Forestry Administration, local government authorities, NGOs, for your great support.  Thanks to Dr. Yam Malla for spending your valuable time in participating at this event.

I would like to finish by again congratulating everyone here today. I wish you prosperity, happiness, and long-life!