#68 – Dreams
Pushing hard to reimagine a livable country where there’s environmental destruction left and right
Sou Sdei and welcome to Campuccino, your fortnightly dispatch of key headlines in Cambodia with a dash of opinion.
To new subscribers, welcome! I’m Darathtey, a communication consultant, writer, and researcher. Learn more about my work here.
I hope your new year is off to a great start. The newsletter break in December allowed me to tie up many loose ends on other work, with the last week of December to spare for doing no work-related things at all. I played God of War on my PS5. I read quite a fair bit trying to reach that unrealistic Goodreads reading challenge I usually set for myself (I got 36 out of 40 books this year). I coloured (it helps managing my anxiety of not working!), and I trained a lot.
I’m glad I took the time to slow down and did those things because my January has been rather hectic, but I’m glad to be back popping in your inbox again. Let’s get you caught up on what’s happening in the Kingdom.
- Darathtey
In this issue: hydropower dams, gold mines, government’s 2024 budget, Tether in Cambodia, reimagined liveable Phnom Penh, and more.
What could be a better way to welcome the new year than the announcement of two new hydropower dam projects on the way, right? VOD reported that the approval process has restarted for two dormant dam(n) projects – lower Srepok 3 and lower Sesan 3 – in Ratanakiri province. The two companies behind the assessment and feasibility of the projects are chaired by Kith Meng, one of Cambodia’s most prominent tycoons.
Moving down to Kampong Thom province, Gerald Flynn and Vutha Srey investigated how a Chinese-owned gold mine company had been illegally destroying Prey Lang Wildlife Sanctuary. So, technically, Late Cheng Mining Development did receive an exploratory license in 2020. However, it was reported that the company had likely been mining gold in Prey Lang for years. Now, I believe that we don’t need to be an environmentalist to question the scale of impact such operations have on the forest. This mining operation is driving Prey Lang to the brink of collapse while encroaching on traditional farmlands and contaminating waterways. Some of you may ask: surely, they must have conducted an environmental impact assessment? Well, even if they did, nobody seems to have seen it. 🤷🏽♀️ Obviously, there is more to this story than I have space to tell you. I suggest you go read the full article and continue to be flabbergasted by the irony of it all.
Bringing it close to my home, aka the capital city of Phnom Penh, we are dealing with environmental concerns of our own. Remember Boeung Tamok, one of the city’s last remaining lakes? I mentioned the lake multiple times in previous issues in the context that the lake has been the subject of redistribution among powerful individuals, businesses and government agencies. Recently, Meng Kroypunlok, Sarum Sreynat and Danielle Keeton-Olsen reported that residents living along the lake continue to receive eviction threats from the authorities while having their businesses and livelihoods impacted by construction surrounding the lake's new development. This is another case of residents living in fear of an uncertain future of where they would be pushed to next. But hey, Phnom Penh is the Pearl of Asia!
In case you’re starting to think that I only talk about bad news, here’s a good one.
Decade-long land conflict in Koh Kong between local communities and British-based Tate & Lyle finally settled with financial relief given to affected families. Watch the settlement process in the documentary below:
The new year also means a new government budget. Camodianess reported that in 2024, the government budget exceeded $9 billion. Interestingly, the state’s income is estimated to be a tad bit lower at $8 billion. The government stated that they are planning to fill that gap by issuing state securities and borrowing in SDR – a financial mechanism used by the IMF.
Read more…
Moving on to the cyber side of things, Cambodia is in the process of rolling out a personal data protection law. Hmmm…I swear I did try to find a good thing to say about this but I got none. This law can potentially put people’s data in an even more vulnerable position while restricting their rights and control at the same time. The draft law would require any data controller to keep data within Cambodia, which is still susceptible to cyberattacks and outside surveillance. These are just a few of the many other concerns posed by this draft law. Obviously, Fiona Kelliher’s report on the matter can inform you way better than I do. Check it out.
Did you know that Tether has become a coin of choice for Chinese-linked activities in Cambodia? Me, neither. Here’s the twist, Tether is banned in Cambodia. Hence, I was very intrigued when I stumbled across this article by Danielle Keeton-Olsen. I, however, haven’t read it because it is pay-walled. I still think it is super interesting and maybe some of you can access it.
Visually Pleasing
Arts & Culture
🎆 Future Forum launched the first volume of its brand new series of publications called Big Book of Small Ideas. Titled “Building a Livable Cambodia”, volume 1 focuses on urban planning and architectural aspirations for Phnom Penh and the whole of Cambodia from the perspectives of young Cambodians. It is a very insightful book with beautiful graphics to flip through. You can access the PDF for free here.
👩🏽 I have known MeDha for a few years now through my past work connection with Cambodian Living Arts. MeDha is Cambodia’s first female drumming troupe and a pretty impressive one at that. They have worked really hard to push back stereotypes by striving to be great female drummers who connect traditional instruments to audiences through contemporary sounds of music.
📈 ដាតាសម្រន់ - datasr.co is a new initiative by a local creator taking a jab at data visualisation by making them visually pleasing and accessible in Khmer. It is very refreshing to see such a project exist because I do think that there is a gap to fill in Cambodia’s media ecosystem when it comes to simplified and spreadable data.
A quick shout-out to my friends at Kontinentalist who tell stories across Southeast Asia through strikingly powerful and beautiful data visaulisation.
Campuccino is a fortnightly dispatch of key headlines in Cambodia, written by @DarathteyDin.
I’d love to hear from you. If you have feedback or content ideas, please write to me at hello@darathteydin.com