Forestry Administration Fights Logging with Wedding Gardens

As the remains of the county’s forests fall to rapacious illegal loggers and to make way for the government-awarded economic land concessions, officials tasked with forestry protection are hoping newlywed couples can build a last line of defense. “Wedding gardens”- green spaces where newly-married couples are encouraged to plant a sapling in order to promote the protection of the country’s forests- have been opened in Stung Treng province and another in neighbouring Kratie provinces. In Stung Treng, the forestry administration has set up a nursery that contains saplings including those which produce luxury wood such as the rosewood trees Beng, Neag Nuon, and Karki. … Camboda’s estimated forest cover-a blunt indicator, which does not detail the quality of the forests records- has declined from about 73 percent in the 1960s to about 57 percent currently.

Kuch Naren, P.20
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