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GCOE
The third newsletter introduces the
general information about Cambodia and
reports on the fieldworks on September.
The kingdom of Cambodia is a country in South East Asia with a population of over 14 million people, covers an area of 181,035 sq km. The kingdom's capital and its largest city is Phnom Penh. The country borders Thailand to its west and northwest, Laos to its northeast and Vietnam to its east and southeast. The geography of Cambodia is dominated by the Mekong River and the Tonlé Sap, an important source of fish to the Cambodians.
Forests cover 53% of Cambodia's land. And only 21 % of Cambodia’s total land is cultivated. Deforestation is the most serious threat to Cambodia’s environment.
Research background
Amid concerns about the loss of biodiversity, forests in Cambodia are managed by several systems. The GCOE project will evaluate biodiversity and water cycle for biodiversity conservation and climate change in Cambodia. The following three forest types are focused on the GCOE.
Community Forestry
Community forestry is the control and management of the forest resources by the rural people for their domestic purposes and the farming systems.
Selective Logging
Selective logging is a method of cutting timber that takes only selected trees, not cutting every tree. Forest Administration has some permanent sample plots on natural forest with this management.
Rubber Plantation
Rubber plantation has increased in Cambodia as in many developing countries in the Southeast Asia. This is a typical monoculture. Our study site of rubber plantation is on Kampong Cham province.
Asian Conservation Ecology
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GCOE
Preliminary Research on Cambodia
The 8 of GCOE members visited to Cambodia as the GCOE core site in September. Professor Yahara introduced the program of GCOE, and discussed about a future cooperation with the government side of Cambodia. The GCOE members inspected the community forestry in Kampong Chhnang province and rubber experimental plot in Kampong Cham province.
See a daily report as follows. September 23
We had two meeting with Director General Ly Phalla at General Direction of Rubber Plantation and with Director General Ty Sokhun at Forest Administration. At these meeting, Dr. Yahara made a presentation about our GCOE project and requested their cooperation. They reacted in a positive way toward our project.
We visited the community forestry on Kampong Chhnang Province to see the water cycling measurement plot. In this site, photosynthesis rate and sap flow has been measured. Some
measurement is impossible without local people's cooperation.
September 24
We visited Permanent Sample Plot (PSP) on natural forest in Kampong Thom Province to check the current condition. The bellowing photo is our members received an explanation about PSP by Forest Administration staff in evergreen forest.
September 25-26
We visited to Rubber Plantation on Kampong Cham Province. There are flux tower, stand density experiment, intercropping experiment and tapping interval experiment.
Conference and seminar of next month
Global COE International Symposium
"International Symposium on Ecology,
Migration and Conservation
of Black-faced Spoonbill"
4-7 March, 2010
see a blog of this conference at http://www.scs.kyushu-u.ac.jp/~koikegsc/I-sy
mpo/i-sympo-blackfaced-spoonbill-eng.html
