Choeun Trop, 55, says Yeejia has taken part of her land and stopped her from collecting rattan from the forest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Over the past two or three years, officials from the company have monitored her community tightly, at one point requiring members to carry identification cards and barring outside visitors, she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Trop\u2019s son, then 16, is now in jail after joining a protest against Yeejia during which some protestors dismantled a guardhouse at the entrance to the company\u2019s concession.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe\u2019re poor. It\u2019s been very difficult, and we couldn\u2019t ask anyone to help,\u201d she says. She tried to enlist the support of two Cambodian human rights organisations, but both told her they could not intervene. \u201cI cry and cry, and if I cry too much, I\u2019m afraid I will faint again, and no one will take care of my son. My son cries because the situation inside the prison is terrible, and he has a very small space to sleep.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
![\"Yeejia](\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/cambodia-tourism-concession-6.jpg\")
<\/div>Precious forests and wetlands<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Ream National Park covers 34,000 hectares of diverse landscapes that include the Prek Toek Sap estuary, low-lying mountains, miles of mangroves, seagrass beds, coral reefs and parts of two islands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
General forests cover 55% of the land, while mangroves take about 7%. A vital ecosystem for biodiversity<\/a>, mangroves support many plants, fish and crustaceans, and the fisheries they nurture feed local people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Elsewhere in the park, remote areas of dry forest, covering 13%, could still conceal one of the last populations of rare wild cattle known as kouprey, according to a 2006 report<\/a> by University of Copenhagen ecologist Robert Schmidt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When Ream was established in 1995, it faced significant levels of commercial logging and fishing \u2013 at least one-third of its area had already been heavily changed as a result of resource extraction. <\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n Finding ways to stop this was one of the new park\u2019s main concerns, and international organisations, including the Asia Development Bank and the United Nations, were deployed to help find solutions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Internationally funded projects concentrated on developing a management plan for the park and on training park rangers. Opening the park\u2019s headquarters in late 1998, the then-environment minister, Mok Mareth, promised Ream would be a \u201crole model\u201d for protected areas<\/a> in the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But although the funded projects did manage to end commercial resource extraction, illegal logging and fishing continued to flourish<\/a>, with corrupt police, navy officers and fishermen combining forces to plunder the park. Then, when international funding ended in 2000, the park was left with very little financial support.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Several reports at the time recommended ecotourism as a way to fund the park. In one from the Economy and Environment Program for Southeast Asia<\/a>, published in 2001, academic Thanakvaro Thyl de Lopez outlined a \u201cdream park\u201d scenario, in which revenue would be generated through nature-driven tourism, allowing local people living inside the park to continue using its resources in a sustainable way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But the report warned that this scenario would require the support of international donors, at a time when their programmes had not been renewed due to \u201clack of interest\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n With the promise of sustainable tourism starting to fade, commercial tourism stepped in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In June 2008, Prime Minister Hun Sen signed decrees granting concessions to two companies \u2013 Yeejia, and Evergreen Success & Asia Resort Development.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yeejia was given rights over 3,300 hectares of the park<\/a>, an area they named Golden Silver Bay<\/a>. When reporters visited the concession in January 2021, they found around a dozen half-built hotel-sized structures, most flanked by Cambodian guards. Outside one of them, a sign reads Qin Yue Ream National Coast in both Khmer and Chinese characters. Further in, patches of newly-paved road led to clearings where rows of identical off-white cottages stood out against the raw, red earth. Another road opened out onto a fresh construction site, where excavators were levelling a hillside, the roots of the remaining trees dangling over the manmade cliffs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The other company, Evergreen Success & Asia Resort Development, was given a concession of 2,377 hectares<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Evergreen Success is tied to Hun To, a nephew of the prime minister, who has been investigated by the Australian authorities in connection with drug smuggling and money laundering. According to a 2012 report in The Age newspaper, To was of interest to Operation Illipango,<\/a> an Australian investigation into heroin concealed in Cambodian timber shipments. Plans to arrest To were derailed when the Australian embassy in Phnom Penh cancelled his travel visa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To has since become a co-director of the Lixin Group, a Taiwanese construction and property company that has already developed a hotel in Sihanoukville under the US-based brand Wyndham.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lixin is heavily promoting its \u201cNew City\u201d development<\/a> in Ream National Park. An advertisement on the resort\u2019s WeChat channel from September emphasised the eco-tourism side of the project<\/a>. But plans for the resort include massive developments inside the park, from a golf resort and a horse racing track to casinos and hotels, all flanked by mangroves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yeejia\u2019s rise in Cambodia has also depended on elite contacts. Company chair Fu Xianting\u2019s resum\u00e9 includes time in the Chinese People\u2019s Liberation Army and then in state-owned companies, one of which brought him to Cambodia for a conference on agricultural machinery and light manufacturing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n According to a 2016 Financial Times investigation,<\/a> Cambodia\u2019s Council of Ministers revoked Fu\u2019s concession in Ream after concerns about forest clearance from environmental groups. But Fu, who has close personal ties to Hun Sen, met with the Cambodian leader and obtained his support for continued development.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yeejia\u2019s development plans for Golden Silver Bay range from casinos and luxury hotels to a conference centre and medical rehabilitation facilities. Its WeChat social media presence shows it is advertising to Chinese developers seeking a slice of Cambodia, as well as to tourists. In November, Yeejia held a small ground-breaking ceremony<\/a> with Zhonghai Tianhong Real Estate (Cambodia), which has leased 4 hectares of land from the developer on a 99-year lease \u2013 the same timespan as Yeejia\u2019s 2008 concession within the park. This is despite the fact that, according to Cambodian law<\/a>, concessions cannot be sold to another company without a new contract being drawn up with the government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Neither Yeejia nor Lixin would respond to requests for comment from China Dialogue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Beyond the bulldozers currently clearing land in the name of tourism, illegal logging for timber has continued in Ream. Chantha, the community activist, says the state-employed park rangers conduct frequent patrols, but will release loggers who pay them. Chantha has accompanied the patrols and claims to have witnessed bribe-taking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n According to the 2001 de Lopez report<\/a>, about half of rural households inside the park engaged in illegal logging in the past. Chantha and other villagers admit to cutting trees for their own use before Yeejia officials stopped them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But things are different now. \u201cThe Ministry of Environment officials blame the community for deforestation, but it\u2019s not us,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s someone outside and hired by some oknha [tycoons] or rich businessman to come clear land here.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Meanwhile, the coast of Ream and the rest of Preah Sihanouk province is also under threat. Ouk Vibol, director of conservation in Cambodia\u2019s Fisheries Administration, says overfishing is a significant challenge, with trawlers scooping up whatever fish they can find, destroying seagrass beds in the process. The loss of mangroves due to the park\u2019s tourism developments is also having a big impact on fish stocks, says Ouk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIf you destroy one habitat, there are real negative impacts on the species that move from one habitat to another,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Just outside the national park, one little-known Chinese\u2013Cambodian company, Canopy Sands Development, has undertaken a massive coastal reclamation project<\/a> on 427 hectares granted by the Cambodian government. The company was formed one month before it received the land. Its shareholders also chair powerful companies in Cambodia, including Prince Group, whose China-born director, Chen Zhi<\/a>, has obtained Cambodian citizenship through his investments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This and other developments along the coast, which once boasted waters teeming with lucrative squid, crab and fish, have changed local fishers\u2019 lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Docking just north of the Canopy Sands development, Chan Ra, 27, says he has to be very careful where he drops his fishing lines. The traditional gear he uses to catch squid is made with large shells strung out along a line. The squid nestle into the shells for shelter without the need for bait. The shells are durable but expensive and are often damaged by the sand-dredging boats filling the Canopy Sands area, says Ra. There are still some squid to be found close to the shore, but the fisher says he has to travel further to catch crabs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ra lives mostly on his boat these days, because another company has been reclaiming land from the sea on the bay where he used to live. \u201cBefore we could reach home by boat, but now they\u2019re filling it with land,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ra has had to move three times due to development projects. Like many local people, he built a home without procuring an official land title \u2013 a requirement that was seldom enforced until land prices began to climb.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Nam Then, 32, runs a small shop selling sundries on a hillside a couple of kilometres from the entrance to Yeejia\u2019s concession. He has not been directly impacted by the long-running dispute between local people and the Chinese company, whose concession overlaps their customary land. But he shares his neighbours\u2019 concerns and attends meetings about the issue at the Ream commune office.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe share information around the community,\u201d he says. \u201cWe are the same people who have the same affections. I am also living in one part of the community, just in a different area.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In June last year, the government finally allocated land<\/a> and promised titles to the three communities in the park affected by Yeejia\u2019s concession. Details have yet to be worked out, however. Then keeps a plastic folder full of documents showing the outlines of plots. Some families are missing out, he says, but he and others are watching the process closely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"With](\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/cambodia-tourism-concessions-8.jpg\")
<\/div>The developers descend<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"Cranes](\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/cambodia-tourism-concession-4.jpg\")
<\/div>Powerful connections<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"While](\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/cambodia-tourism-concession-7.jpg\")
<\/div>Ongoing destruction<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"Just](\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/cambodia-tourism-concession-1.jpg\")
<\/div>![\"A](\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/cambodia-tourism-concession-2.jpg\")
<\/div>Nowhere is safe<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"Shop](\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/cambodia-tourism-concession-3.jpg\")
<\/div>