Facing Chinese Dam, Monks Fight for Temple
Monks residing in Koh Kong’s remote Areng Valley have begun raising funds online to renovate their local temple, despite plans in store for a large Chinese backed hydropower dam that would leave the site completely inundated. ... The 108-MW hydropower dam, to be built by China’s Guodian Corporation, stands to flood almost 2,000 hectares of land, some of which would include sacred forestland in the Cardamom Protected Forest. More than 1,500 people would have to be relocated, and environmentalists have said that rare animal and plant species in the forest including the endangered Siamese Crocodile will be negatively impacted. Mr. [Alejandro] Gonzallez- Davidson [the person who set up the online funding venture] said the 10 monks living in the temple in the Areng Valley wanted to develop their place of worship into an ecotourism site to show the government that the valley could bring in money and should not be flooded. ...
Kuch Naren និង Kene-Hern Chen
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/facing-chinese-dam-monks-fight-for-temple-31987/
