KOH KONG PROVINCE, CAMBODIA
NEAK Samon waved her hand angrily over the soot-covered pit in front of her home. A few charred sticks and ashes were all that remained of a makeshift charcoal kiln.
In late February, forest rangers pulled up on motorbikes in her village and demanded that she destroy the kiln, she said. They told her it was located in a protected area in which no one was allowed to cut down trees.
“I was so angry,” she recalled. “I told them, ‘If you stop me from making charcoal, how can I cook for my family?’”
She said the rangers used hoes to break the kiln apart, and that flames from the burning wood leapt into the air as the hoes struck the mound. Neak Samon walked away fuming.
“I’m still angry today,” she said. “I didn’t cut this wood down in the forest. It was from dead trees. We do this and then the rangers call it illegal.” (Read the whole story)
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