In Tranquil Forest, Nature-Loving Monk Faces a Military Threat

In Kampong Speu, a forest-dwelling monk hoots to mimic animals’ cries and talks of living in harmony with nature. But the community forest where he lives has been handed to the military, and nearby residents are camping among the trees to protect the land.

From his simple pagoda in the forest just outside Phnom Oral Wildlife Sanctuary, the Venerable Prom Thomacheat doesn’t see much worth leaving for in the outside world. Thomacheat, a Buddhist monk, lives in the woods just outside the rural Po Meas village in Oral district of Kampong Speu. His sparsely arranged pagoda is an open-air shelter made up of a large concrete slab covered by a blue metal roof.

Years before, he had been an official co-founder of the banished environmental activist group Mother Nature. Today, his activism is limited to defending the forest he calls home from an officially sanctioned transfer to military families, a giveaway that has sparked a bitter conflict in a commune where locals say major agribusiness groups have already carved up the landscape.

“There is no point in living since [authorities and the government] continue their harassment with all kinds of means,” Thomacheat lamented to reporters on a night in early February. The surrounding woods were alive with the sound of insects and other animals as the monk spoke. “Everything we do to protect [the forest] is illegal but when they come to clear — it is not illegal.”

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