The ‘latest’ on the Cardamoms

The REDD+ development strategy, simply put, aims to minimize deforestation and carbon emissions overall, while maintaining a consistent path of economic development for the Cambodian nation. Kileen argues this strategy will preserve the Cardamom’s incredibly diverse flora and fauna while slowing the costs of the current extraction development strategies that are being imposed on the region (p. 118). In doing so, Kileen highlights a number of industries that have shown great potential, particularly in the field of sustainable energy solutions, advocating in favor of a Cassava-Methane-Ethanol-Biofuel project that is run by a Korean investment firm in Phnom Penh (p. 249) and commenting that hydropower must be incorporated into all aspects of local culture in order to succeed – as chronic drought and sedimentation are always the two major problems facing the hydropower industry. However, Kileen notes, if deforestation is effectively minimized through the employment of the REDD+ strategy, this would then minimize drought and sedimentation is much less of a concern in the Cardamom region when compared to other regions worldwide, due to high levels of flow (p. 173).

The area of Cambodia and the Cardamom Mountains in general were isolated due to conflict as a result of the decolonization process and post-colonial power struggles for long periods from the 1950s onwards. Meanwhile, taxonomists were completing a reorganization of scientific knowledge in North America and Europe (p. 63). Hence, it is no surprise that this area is being considered a bit of an academic frontier as well as one for development, perhaps leading to Kileen’s strong, but seemingly accurate, assertion that Cambodia has the potential to show global leadership in the field of sustainable development (p. xxi). Nevertheless, many obstacles to sustainable development remain. For example, granted that the Asian financial crisis of 2008 opened eyes to the need for more closely knit regional economic networks. However, the income gap in Cambodia is incredibly wide, and while it is not as wide as Malaysia, Thailand and China – it remains a more unequal society than Vietnam or Indonesia (p. 71). Furthermore, in Kileen’s all too brief discussion of the Asian Development Bank (p. 105) there is no address of the well-founded standing critiques of the ADB’s GMS strategy as brought forward by Glassman (2010). This is to say: Cambodia holds no place on the bank’s board and hence effectively has no leverage within the ADB as an organization. Furthermore, Kileen’s (2012) publication date makes his assessment of the garment industry, frankly, out of date.

A poorly timed headline?

The book advertises the ILO independent monitoring of Cambodian textile facilities as a means that has attracted international investors who are ‘always’ wary of labor conditions (p. 158). However, as readers who have been following the news in Cambodia from the summer of 2013 through at least January 2014 would note, it has seemed that one of the most common headlines in the past months has been a variant of ‘Garment workers protest!’ in response to unfair wages and horrendous working conditions that they face. To critical readers who examine the text deeply this makes the assertion that garment workers have a wage well ‘above the national average’ (p. 159) come across as ‘well you may be a virtually enslaved factory worker, but at least you aren’t a starving peasant farmer, right?’ Certainly, Kileen would not have intended this reading of his words – however, such a reading does underscore the fact that, at times, Kileen’s overall blatant positivism could have been balanced by more critical approaches such as those of Glassman (2010). Nevertheless, one should remember that Kileen’s work is more directed at sustainable development than Glassman’s class-based analysis critique and it is possible to extract some more critical images out of Kileen’s work.

Boundaries of (Il)legal trade

Kileen’s critiques are more on the nature of existing environmental costs of the standing development strategies that are taking place. Hence, the full color images devoted to a crackdown on illegal logging that took place in the Cardamom mountains regions, complete with images of confiscated automatic weapons, chainsaws and small four passenger cars that had been loaded with wood intended for cross-border smuggling into Vietnam (p. 137). The cost of deforestation on the one hand – a critical problem that must cease – must also be placed in the context of the long-term historical role that the Cardamom region has played in regional and global commerce. Agarwood – also known as aloeswood – (Aquilaria crassna – Thymelacaeae) has long be a critical export of the Cardamom Mountains, in conjunction with other highlands locations in Southeast Asia (such as at the base of the Annamite Chain on the borderlands of Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia). Known as chan krassna in Khmer and well known for its ‘oud’ oil – agarwood remains nearly as prized as sandlewood and both have been traded ‘throughout the Orient and the Middle East’ for three thousand years (p. 280). However, before the civil war, the extraction of aloeswood reached new heights, fifty tons of agarwood was being harvested annually – the equivalent of $8.5 million USD annually today (p. 205). Hence the extraction of this particular product, in conjunction with the extraction of other highland products has contributed to long term fears about the sustainability of the Cardamom based economy.

One of the greater challenges for international organizations in influencing long-term sustainable economic development in Cambodia has been working within the balance of international and national legal structures. As a counterweight to this problem, Kileen notes that more and more international investment work has come to rely upon Cambodian NGOs – although it is difficult to note hard numbers on this trend – the shift effectively cuts out some of the middle apparatus of the paper pushing of government organizations (p. 109). Nevertheless, this has not stopped some truly fantastic development schemes from hitting the press. For example, Thaksin has proposed a casino resort complex near the Thai-Khmer border, using Koh Kong island – that, in his vision, would also be ‘the model of a green city’ – while a Chinese company has also proposed to build a resort complex just across the border, using Khmer national park land (p. 148). However, these two examples do not mean that the author is critical of regional integration. Rather, he advocates it. For example, the author writes quite fondly of the innovations in Vietnamese catfish production (although he does leave out the frankly racially charged scandal that occurred in the southern United States) – arguing for a positive investor outlook on the catfish market (p. 261). He then advocates a strategy of ‘recycling pond effluents’ – adapted from Thailand – that moves effluents to rice fields, removing 25-30% of the potentially stifling nitrogen and phosphorous, while also boosting rice yields (p. 262), in the end concluding that, by contrast with this ‘catfish/rice-field’ model, the current shrimp industry model is wholly unsustainable (p. 264).

A positive outlook

While Kileen’s work is not without its critiques, the book does come across rather as a set of proposed solutions, than a set of proposed problems. Certainly there are aspects of the book that could have been improved (such as taking into account Glassman’s 2010 critiques of the ADB) and other aspects of the book that could not be avoided (such as the outbreak of garment workers protests in response to unfair work conditions, well after the publications date). Despite these rather minor points, readers will find that Kileen’s sweeping defense of the REDD+ development strategy is an informative read on the nature of development in Cambodia, providing good hard scientific data, backed by informed analysis and a great understanding of Cambodian geography. With these points in mind, Kileen’s book is a welcome addition to a syllabus on highlands in Southeast Asia, development, or Cambodia and Cambodian society.

William B. Noseworthy, department of history: UW-Madison; Center for Khmer Studies, Phnom Penh, Cambodia (noseworthy@wisc.edu)