Phnom Penh: The Ministry of the Environment says that the Royal Government of Cambodia has been pushing for reforestation movement in the kingdom to increase forest area across the country. The Ministry’s spokesman, Neth Pheaktra, says that the government is aiming to increase the tree cover in the whole kingdom by four percent. Currently, the country’s forest trees cover 46.86% of the total land area of over 8.5 million hectares. With the planned four percent increase, the kingdom will have half of its total land area covered with trees.

Pheaktra has spoken during the “Fourth National Environmental Situation and the Results of the Assessment of Forest Resources in Cambodia 2018”. It was hosted by the Ministry of the Environment on Thursday. He says, “The rehabilitation and management of forest cover is a joint obligation that requires the cooperation of all stakeholders and the people to participate in the protection and replanting”.

He has added that the Royal Government promotes the replanting of trees and the increase of plantations in order to protect the forest cover and take advantage of plantations to reduce the pressure on the use of natural wood in the forest resources. He also stressed that it will support the lives of hundreds of millions of people and animals on the planet and will create jobs to support the livelihoods of local communities around the world, especially Cambodia where people are working hard to protect the trees.

The Ministry has stated that Cambodia conducted eight national forest cover resource assessments from 1973 to 2018 and is continuing to assess forest cover resources in 2020. The government has also checked the changes in forest cover resources of the protected areas in 2006 - 2016 through the use of geographic information systems technology and satellite imagery.

The 2018 Forest Land Resources Assessment shows that more than 8,510,000 hectares of forest land, equivalent to 46.86% of the total land area in the country includes rubber plantations, coconut and other fruit crops. The Ministry has established a nationwide team to map forest land use and forest cover in collaboration with national experts from relevant ministries and institutions including the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, the Ministry of Land Management, Urban Planning and Construction, and other institutions including foreign organisations in the kingdom.