Climatelinks Photo Gallery

This image was taken in 2022 outside Phnom Penh City in S’ang Phnum village, Cambodia. Pictured are Mr. and Ms. Khor and their children and friends along with their new solar irrigation pump. Pteah Baitong program is supported by Water-Energy-4-Food Grand Challenge, which is a USAID-funded program that addresses climate change in emerging markets around the Global South. Pteah Baitong replaces farmers' gasoline and diesel pumps with solar versions. Every family saves on average 1 ton of CO2 emissions per year.

Green Groups conducted an outreach session to students at the Prek Leap National Institute of Agriculture in Phnom Penh, Cambodia as part of a social and behavior change communication (SBCC) campaign to protect the region's wildlife by encouraging people to reduce buying and eating bushmeat.

One of Green Future’s strategic approaches is to promote youth as leaders in biodiversity conservation and forest protection by establishing Green Groups that serve as a key forum for facilitating conversations and action planning among youth on the project's three themes and other top environmental issues. After receiving SBCC toolkit training on the three themes, Green Groups conduct SBCC toolkit sharing and outreach sessions with peers in their schools and communities as well as promote the three themes’ campaign and other environmental messages.

Samedy Oeur, a popular social media influencer, explored Prey Lang in Kampong Thom, Cambodia and informed his fans of the benefits of forests, especially of how resin is collected from trees to support local peoples' livelihoods. Prey Lang, located in Kratie, Stung Treng, Kampong Thom, and Preah Vihear, Cambodia is one of the world's most important biodiversity hotspots.

Green Group youth members and a locally established trash youth team collected trash at the Kirirom National Park, Kampong Speu province, Cambodia, to celebrate 2022 World Cleanup Day in an effort to protect environment and enhance beauty of Cambodia, especially to share a message for people to bring back their trash after visiting a tourism site.

Green Group youth participated in a study tour to learn about forest conservation and protection at the Elephant Valley Project in Mondulkiri province, Cambodia.

The Vulture Restaurant at Siem Pang Wildlife Sanctuary/Toul Kaamnob Ranger Station, Stung Treng province, Cambodia, where there are around 70 vultures who eat carcasses and where the Rising Phoenix team provides food (at least one or two cows or buffaloes) to those vultures every week.

Ret Thaung is a Biodiversity and Science Manager at USAID Morodok Baitang’s Conservation Partner Conservation International in Cambodia. She is currently the only female member of the research and community team that has deployed 143 camera traps in the deep forest of Cambodia’s Central Phnom Kravanh Kandal National Park (CPKNP) that extends across three provinces: Koh Kong, Pursat, and Kampong Speu. Ret works closely with the team to train, deploy, and retrieve video footage from the camera traps to produce a biodiversity monitoring baseline so they can support the protection of biodiversity and development of REDD+ in the National Park. The 400,000-hectare landscape is Cambodia’s first protected area and one of Asia’s largest. The park is threatened by illegal logging, land encroachment, poaching, and the demand for valuable hardwoods and illegal wildlife products.

Many areas of Keo Seima Wildlife Sanctuary’s forest have been degraded or cleared outrightly as a result of the illegal activities. To help cope with the issue, USAID Morodok Baitang and conservation partner Wildlife Conservation Society organized a series of events in June that culminated in the planting of over 26,600 seedlings on 21 hectares of land. A total of 278 people (75 women), including the government officials, local authorities, communities, and indigenous people, participated in these events. Local communities played the most significant role by providing labor for land preparation, planting, and ongoing care of the seedling once in the ground. 

These restoration activities were done as part of a Reforestation Project that was initiated as part of the Keo Seima REDD+ Project. The aim of the activity is to restore or enhance forest cover on 1,000 hectares of land and to educate local communities living in and around Keo Seima Wildlife Sanctuary on the importance of long-term protection for the forests, their livelihoods and REDD+ success.

A solar-powered irrigation system installed by Solar Green Energy Cambodia (SOGE) in the rice fields in Cambodia’s Pursat province will help hundreds of farmers utilize renewable energy in rice farming. SOGE installed the solar-powered irrigation system for four water communities along Tonle Sap River, helping more than a hundred of rice and vegetable farmers access water for cultivation, by increasing their crop cycles, increase their incomes. Owned by a woman entrepreneur in the renewable energy sector, the company has helped Cambodian farmers adopt climate-smart agriculture technologies and practices to save time and costs in agriculture production.

A solar-powered irrigation system installed in at Handcrafted Cashew Nuts Stung Treng (HCST) effectively distributes water for planting cashew. By generating electricity from solar renewable energy, HCST has embraced climate-smart farming and lowered their production cost. Located in the Stung Treng province in northeast Cambodia, HCST is a woman-owned cashew processor aiming to promote local products to export markets by improving its processing facilities and strengthening supply chains. It has helped hundreds of local producers including women, youth, and members of marginalized groups strengthen climate-smart agricultural practices and increase incomes.

Safe vegetables are planted in the net house installed by Punleu Thmey Pech Chenda Agricultural Cooperative in Battambang province, located in the northwest of Cambodia. On average, this agricultural cooperative collects 24 tons of fresh vegetables from its farmer members monthly to supply to domestic markets across Cambodia. Through a grant received from Feed the Future Cambodia Harvest III, Punleu Thmey Pech Chenda Agricultural Cooperative is expanding the adoption of net houses and strengthening good agricultural practice to other farmers, bringing safe and nutritious foods to consumers.

Chanthy Sari, a young indigenous Bunong student, is reading out aloud to other students in the Jahoo Conservation Club. Chanty participates in one of the afterschool educational initiatives programs implemented by World Hope International’s USAID Morodok Baitang key partner. The programs promote pride in the indigenous culture, and support other efforts within the community aimed to support conservation and management of natural resources inside the Keo Seima Wildlife Sanctuary (KSWS) where the community lives. Bunong communities and biodiversity in KSWS are under increasing threat from forest loss and fragmentation driven by illegal logging, land conversion, hunting, and wildlife trade, exacerbating the poverty and marginalization of the Bunong. 

The text on the board reads, “It is important to cease the practice of hunting or killing animals for food and to refrain from cutting down forests as they serve as a home to various wildlife. The male Red Muntjac's horn grows from the bones on its head and it is considered the smallest deer species in the world.”

In Northern Cambodia's Dang Phlet Community Protected Area, Kuy Indigenous Peoples and community members lead a forest patrol to prevent land encroachment, illegal logging, and wildlife crime. Conserving the forest enhances local livelihoods, preserves Kuy Indigenous culture, promotes ecotourism, and supports carbon sequestration projects.

USAID Program: Greening Prey Lang

The sun rises over Phnom Tbeng Natural Heritage Park in Northern Cambodia. To conserve the cultural and ecological significance of this protected area, USAID Cambodia has been supporting the Royal Government of Cambodia in developing a REDD+ project through its USAID Greening Prey Lang.

This photo shows members of a joint patrol between the Provincial Department of Environment rangers and Sre Veal Community Protected Area members in Prey Lang Wildlife Sanctuary, Preah Vihear province, Cambodia. Joint patrolling between community members and government rangers plays a critical role in reducing forest crime and improving accountability and governance.

Deep within Kulen Promtep Wildlife Sanctuary in Cambodia’s Preah Vihear province, an IBIS Rice farmer displays her wildlife-friendly and organic-certified rice. Her bountiful harvest, for which she receives a 50% premium, was supported by USAID Greening Prey Lang grantee Sansom Mlup Prey.