Natural Resource Exploitation in Cambodia: An Examination of Use, Appropriation, and Exclusion

Abstract

In the beginning of the 1990s, after a traumatic modern history of conflicts and genocides, the Kingdom of Cambodia, with the support of the international community, entered an era of relative peace. Cambodia is endowed with valuable natural resources and biodiversity. Over the past decade, however, economic development has relied primarily on the unsustainable exploitation of these resources. Current trends in the use of resources in forestry, fishery, and agricultural land are unsustainable. The central position of the article is that resource appropriation by the political, economic, and military elites has gradually excluded the majority of the population from the country's forests, fisheries, and arable areas. A common pattern of unsustainable extraction and inequitable access characterizes the exploitation of these resources. The article discusses policy implications for the government of Cambodia and the international donor community. Environmental reforms will face strong resistance from the elites, as institutional and social change may prove politically and economically onerous.