Prey Lang under threat

A brother and sister filmmaking team, Ben and Jocelyn Pederick from Australia, carried off the main award from last week's Environmental and Conservation Film Festival with their eleven-minute short film Prey Lang: One Forest. One Future. It's effectively a trailer for an hour-long film they are completing to tell people about the Prey Lang forest that covers parts of Preah Vihear, Stung Treng, Kratie and Kompong Thom provinces and the challenges it's facing in the future. Prey Lang is the largest primary lowland dry evergreen forest remaining in both Cambodia and Indochinese Peninsula and it’s in jeopardy. With an estimated 700,000 people relying on the forest for survival, logging and mining interests have the potential to destroy this critical, fragile and ancient forest habitat. Healthy wildlife populations including endangered species such as elephants, gaur, banteng, tiger and Asiatic black bears are all at risk as well as the indigenous Kuy communities who protect and rely on the forest for their daily needs. You can find out more about Prey Lang and the documentary here.

The World Savers Awards recognize companies that are innovative in five key areas: poverty alleviation, cultural and/or environmental preservation, education, wildlife conservation, and health. Yesterday at the Conde Nast Traveler's World Savers Congress in New York, six companies were named winners and they included Cambodia-based Journeys Within, for Health Initiatives. The tour operator's non-profit arm has added more than 180 water wells to the landscape around Siem Reap, helping nearly 4,000 Cambodians to avoid water-related disease. They also offer scholarships for university students, hold free English classes, and provide micro-loans for small businesses in Cambodia. Well done JW.