Project News

In Cambodia, local community people living in or around the protected area (PA) are now playing an important role for protecting forests where they benefit for their livelihood in various forms. In order to support their efforts, under the subnational implementation component targeting Stung Treng province, the project plans to enhance the capacity of PA rangers for supporting local communities to implement sustainable natural resource management in Community Protected Areas (CPAs) through providing trainings to fill the gaps of their capacity.

For the purpose of ascertaining such capacity gaps and training needs, on 31st May 2022, the Workshop to Identify Gaps of Rangers' Capacity in Supporting Local Communities was held in the Stung Treng Provincial Department of Environment (DoE) with the participation of 28 rangers and community members from stations, sub-stations, and CPAs inside Prey Lang Wildlife Sanctuary, Siem Pang Wildlife Sanctuary, Vernsai-Siem Pang Wildlife Sanctuary and Virachey National Park.

The workshop used group discussions in which the groups were divided by taking into consideration gender balance and equal opportunity of expression. In the first session, the participants were divided into 4 groups - 2 of rangers and 2 of CPAs - in which the ranger groups were asked questions on what they are doing and/or can do to support CPAs while the CPA groups were asked a question on what they expect rangers to support them with. In the second session, the participants were divided into 2 groups - each group a mixture of rangers and CPAs - to compare the capacity of rangers with the expectations of the CPAs to find out the gaps.

After the group discussions, representatives from each group presented their findings on stage. And in the final phase of the workshop, the participants have compiled the discussion results identifying their capacity gaps and proposing and prioritizing training topics to narrow those gaps. The training topics proposed are law enforcement, CPA management, forest monitoring technology, communication skill and others. Based on the training topics recommended and prioritized, a training plan for the rangers will be prepared and totally around 60 rangers in the province will be trained in the near future.

After the workshop, rangers and CPAs members expressed their appreciation on this workshop as, according to them, local communities and law enforcement officers like rangers don't often have such an opportunity to meet and exchange ideas.

All the participants of the workshop

The workshop was facilitated by DoE counterparts

Group discussion by PA rangers

Group discussion by CPA representatives

Group discussion between rangers and CPA representatives

Reporting the results of group discussion

Final session to compile discussion results