Development versus Conservation

When talking with participants about their opinion on conservation in their country it was relevant to also delve into how they thought it should be managed alongside the country’s rapid development. A simple way to get participants to express their thoughts on how the country should manage this potential conflict was to ask them to break the country into percentages. Those that thought more should be developed, prioritized development, and vice versa for conservation, when a participant considered both (conservation and development) as equal priorities this was expressed as 50/50.

5.8.1

Prioritized by percentages

Asking individuals to conceptualize nature conservation in Cambodia as the percentage of land conserved helped determine how participants prioritized development and conservation. It also appeared to provide an easy way of breaking down a complex discussion. Participants in this study varied, while most preferred a fair, balanced and even partitioning of development and conservation, several slightly preferred conservation and others prioritized development.

It is possible [to conserve nature], Cambodia is developing, we need to develop a lot, but we don’t need to develop the whole country. We should take some part to do some conservation, and some part to develop, 50/50 (Interview 26).

Conservation is better than development. Development and conservation need to work together, both are necessary; I think they should be 50/50 (Interview 29).

Government should only development 10% [of Cambodia’s land], they should save 90% of the forests (Interview 15).

Maybe only a small amount should be conserved because a lot of people and places need to develop or communities need hunting. Perhaps 20% conserve, 80% will be developed (Interview 21).

We need both, can’t have just one, need to protect and progress. 60% development, 40% conserve. If we don’t do this [conserve] everything will be lost (Interview 47).

Considering all of the target groups, overall more individuals thought both were priorities and did not specify one being more important than the other. When considering just those who stated development

or conservation as a priority, more villagers chose conservation and more urban individuals chose development. Rural individuals were split evenly between the two. Except for the 31-45 age group, all other age groups stated that both are a priority for them, as opposed to 31-45 year olds who more frequently mentioned conservation as a priority. Those in the 18-30 year old age group slightly preferred development over conservation but still more mentioned both as priorities for them. Individuals with less than a 5th _{grade education more frequently mentioned conservation as a priority, with a few}

mentioning development as priority, none mentioned both being important. All those with higher education prioritized both, with conservation and development being split between the rest of those who mentioned them. Across the income groups, most thought both were priority, with only the poor, not so poor and not poor mentioning development as a priority (Figure 20). The poor income group mentioned conservation as a priority the most out of all the income groups even though that was mentioned the same amount as development being priority (both being mentioned four times by the group considered poor).

Figure 20: How participants prioritized conservation and development within the different income groups

5.8.2

Cambodia as a developing country

Several individuals stressed that since Cambodia is a developing country – therefore it needs to develop. Development and economic growth, particularly how most countries have historically developed (by converting much of their own country’s landscape), will certainly have impacts on conservation priorities. It was beyond the scope of this thesis to examine how the notions behind what is considered successful development might play into participants’ conception of this idea in particular, but it obviously has an effect on how individuals perceive “normal” economic growth. Those that mentioned particularly that Cambodia is a developing country were taken to imply that it therefore has a right to convert its forests in order to grow, economically and socially. What kind of development and growth

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Very poor Poor Not so poor Not poor Wealthy

N u m b e r o f ti m e s m e n ti o n e d Income groups

Both are priority Conservation is Priority Development is Priority

Cambodians are envisioning and the meanings behind these topics for Cambodians would be interesting to explore further.

It is not possible to compete with development; we need to develop (Interview 37).

Cambodia is developing country so some parts should develop (Interview 50).

5.8.3

A place for everything and everything in its place

For some participants development appeared to mean buildings and physical construction, therefore answers regarding conservation and development stated that there was space for both, without necessarily impacting one another.

It is possible to conserve because if they want to develop they should find a place somewhere else, that doesn’t have forest. If there is already a forest we should save that forest. So it is possible to do both (Interview 7).

A recurring concept was that there were spaces that did not have forests and it was those spaces that could be “developed”. It was also mentioned that if Cambodia developed the entire country, that that would also cause problems.

In Cambodia some places need to be developed; there will be in some places fewer forests. It is a necessity though to conserve some nature. But some development will happen. The people know they have to develop, if we develop without some nature that is a problem, cannot destroy all the nature around Cambodia (Interview 5).

Several participants acknowledged that conserving all of Cambodia would not be possible, and that there are some “less important” places that should be developed. As described above most interviewees felt that conservation and development were both priorities for them and Cambodia as a whole and therefore they should “work together”.

Nowadays nature conservation and development should work together, we need both. Can’t conserve all of Cambodia, some place that has a not very important forest they should develop there (Interview 24).

5.8.4

Competing interests

Working together sounds like the ideal solution but a few participants addressed the issue of competing interests between two distinct groups.

There are two groups, one group wants to save [nature], one group wants to destroy. Conservation group wants to save, i.e. the environment ministry, agriculture, Cambodian groups and some people that live nearby the forest. But some that work in government who have power and businessmen want to destroy the forest. Some people have business that work in the

government so they have power…The two groups have to compromise (Interview 35).

One participant expressed the need for grassroots solutions to these issues, involving communities that are directly impacted by the decisions:

Cannot do all things separate we should talk to each other and decide what we want, development or conservation. Some places we develop some places we save. Development and conservation are both important, we should work from the bottom up, village to commune to government and back down to support the villages wants (Interview 18).