Speaking to RFA’s Khmer Service on Nov. 26, Sraing Soeun—a resident of Bou Sra’s Pou Toeut village—said that villagers had earlier seized dredging machines used in the operation, which they said had been launched in secret and was still unlicensed. The project’s owner had already blocked the upper end of the stream being dredged, reducing the village’s daily fish supply and interfering with local religious practice in the forest, Sraing Soeun said.

“This is affecting the community’s forest, preventing us from holding religious services,” Sraing Soeun said, adding that the dredging is being carried out within the boundaries of a protected zone, the Phnom Naim Lea wildlife sanctuary. “Nowadays, authorities won’t protect the community or our natural resources. Instead, they try to destroy them,” he said.

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