Be the Change Network

Chrauk Tiek/The Grady Grossman School: A woman handed me a letter today after a community meeting at the school. The letter expresses her deep concern about her communities lack of water, lack of income opportunity, lack of health care and lack of law enforcement. Her name is Tou Cham Soka. She is pregnant and she is brave.

The letter details the overthrow of the good community leader Bun Vanna by a local corrupt authority, the newcomers who have come to the cut down the trees, the bribes taken from oxcart and wood truck drivers carrying tree trunks from the illegal logging. The parade of trees out of the forest goes on day and night. At night the bribe payments are less, so the poorest oxcart drivers work in the night.

The newcomer houses are easy to spot, there are piles of neatly stacked hardwood in measured units of 3 meters by 2 meters; a harvest for which the family earns $2.62.

At meetings with the schoolchildren and villagers we ask for more letters we can take to the Ministry of Environment or WildAid, or some one who will listen. It’s amazing to me that no one has come from the conservation organizations working in Cambodia to speak to the people living here. The Aural Wildlife Sanctuary is the most imminently threatened region in the country at the moment and there are many local people who want to protect the forest. They know their future is at stake. They know how valuable the trees are to retaining water during the rainy season for slow release during the drought season. They feel powerless to stop the destruction. Many are afraid to write the letters and state the real problem. Except one brave woman. It is a start.

We will begin here at the Grady Grossman School with the Abundant Forest training center, to teach the children how to plant a diverse number of species to produce food and generate income, to conserve water and grow trees. We hope to win over many people. People who want to stop participating in the problem but they have no choice. Transporting wood to the city is the only current way many know to get enough to feed their family everyday. They live hand to mouth. Most villagers ask me for a water pump to help grow their farm. The community leaders are asking for the government to fix the dam at the nearby Peam Levia Lake to provide better irrigation. The government does not respond.

We drove to Peam Levia yesterday, through the forest in the back of a wood carrying truck. During the dry season the water is low and most of the wide open area is marshy, but it is beautiful green with many waterfowl. Andre, a trained ornithologist, says the birds are the most amazing species he has ever seen—and he was trained in the Amazon! In the distance, mostly obscured by a haze of smoke from the burning forest, I could almost make out Aural Mountain, the highest in Cambodia.

The teachers harvested giant snails from the lake. Boiled and grilled over a fire it was best the escargot I’ve ever tasted. We ate picnic style and talked. Community leaders explained the problem again. Vong Sovann, the truck driver, asked me to buy him a video camera so he can monitor and document the perpetrators burning and cutting the forest, although he is available for hire to transport wood. With no choices he needs the income to feed his family. Like most of the people living here, he is very willing to change if there is another option.

The children are waiting in the big truck to take me swimming at the “stream water”. I must go, now.

It is difficult to express the extreme urgency to support this village. Their future is doomed if we don’t. What is happening here now effects everyone on the entire planet. We all need the trees to fix the CO2 produced in industrial nations and the United States. There is a diverse array of endangered species living in the Aural Wildlife Sanctuary that our planet will lose forever, and most of all the people need water and soil to grow food. Without the trees, we have nothing.

The villagers understand this, but they need our help and they need it now. Reward Tou Cham Soka for her bravery!

Please buy Bones That Float, A Story of Adopting Cambodia and Spread the Word.

Go to www.BonesThatFloat.com to order pre-publication hardcover copies at a discount price of $20 (+tax & shipping). 25% of the proceeds benefit the Friends of the Grady Grossman School, Cambodia.

A link to an eBook is available with each order.
Autographed hardcover copies will be sent in March. Regular price is $24.95 (+tax & shipping).