Community Based Ecotourism (CBET)

Chi Phat's community-based eco-tourism (CBET) project runs tours for those seeking a supplement to the usual tourist diet of temples and beaches. Two- or three-day treks through the forest offer the chance to see some of the area's diverse wildlife or visit an ancient burial-jar site. -AsiaLife Guide Cambodia

Providing economic development in rural areas of Southeast Asia, while protecting the environment and wildlife, can be a major challenge. To address these related goals, Wildlife Alliance is supporting ecotourism development in the Southern Cardamoms Mountains, working with local communities like Chi Phat.

This commune of four small villages totalling roughly 2500 people is located in the Cardamoms Protected Forest, in an area that was severely affected by guerrilla warfare and bombing. Economic development stalled for decades due to conflict and economic isolation.

Covering 6% of Cambodia, the Cardamoms are home to most of the country's large mammals and half of its birds, reptiles and amphibians, including globally endangered and threatened species like Asian Elephants, Indochinese tigers, Malayan sun bears, Pileated gibbons, Siamese crocodiles, and Irrawaddy and Humpback dolphins. The Cardamoms includes a vast ecosystem with sixteen vegetation types, from dense evergreen rainforest to lowland swamps to coastal mangroves.

Wildlife Alliance began working in Chi Phat Commune in the heart of the Southern Cardamoms to implement Community-Based Ecotourism (CBET) as a way of conserving a region of exceptional natural and cultural significance.

Wildlife Alliance is supporting Chi Phat in its effort to develop economically and ecologically sustainable tourism opportunities including trekking, mountain biking, wildlife viewing and bird watching, and improving access to waterfalls and Khmer Empire burial jar sites. This conforms with national strategies for economic development and the boom in tourism in Cambodia. After a 2005-2006 feasibility study completed by Tourism Development International (TDI) determined that ecotourism in the Cardamom region offered the greatest potential for providing alternative livelihoods.

One of the most inspiring components of the CBET project is the growth in the willingness and capacity of the people to manage their own resources. When Wildlife Alliance first began working with the Commune in 2003, villagers acknowledged concern for the destruction of the local environment yet felt a sense of helplessness due to poverty. By comparison, when surveyed in 2008 with the concept of ecotourism, 80% of villagers enthusiastically accepted ecotourism as a means for livelihoods development within their community.

Wildlife Alliance is now developing a second Community Based Ecotourism site in Trapeung Rung, also located in the Cardamom Mountains not far from Chi Phat.

Learn more about ecotourism in the Cardamom Mountains by clicking on the news articles and blog posts below, or visit the www.mountainbikingcardamoms.com. You can also contact us at ecotourism@wildlifealliance.org.