Developer Has ‘Dream’ Plans for Island
 |
| Koh Rong could see millions of dollars in infrastructure development, as a Phnom Penh developer eyes the island. |
The Phnom Penh company Royal Group has signed a 99-year lease agreement with the government to develop Koh Rong, with a total expected budget of $2 billion.
Jacov Montross, business and finance manager of Royal Group, said the company plans to spend as much as $200 million on road construction, sewage systems, air and sea ports, clean water, electric power and village infrastructure.
"Before any hotels or casinos or that kind of thing is put on the island, the infrastructure needs to be put on the island first," he said. "We would like to see the infrastructure start to go on the island within the next six months."
Currently, only a handful of tourists visit the remote island each day.
Montross said infrastructure development could take up to 20 years to finish, after which Royal Group plans dozens of hotels and casinos, a golf course and an airport large enough to handle Boeing 737s and direct flights from China, Japan and India.
A first-class hospital will need to be built for tourists, and islanders could be trained in hospitality and tourism. In all, the project could employ 120,000 people.
Duch Sokhom, chief of Koh Rong commune, implored the employment of the island's many fishermen, who are facing "devastating" shortages of marine life.
Montross said priority would be given to the islanders, especially for infrastructure construction. Better jobs would be available in the future, he said, but people must be trained.
Sok Phon, chief of cabinet for Sihanoukville, said that besides Koh Rong, other islands are being developed, such as Koh Puos and Koh Dekol. Sihanoukville administration encompasses the increasingly popular coastal town and 22 islands.
Royal Group is still looking for outside investors.
"Right now it is a dream," Montross said. "It is a dream that we would like to make into reality."
Islanders Begin Protection of Their Waters
 |
| Koh Rong's residents have joined together in a fishing community to save coastal waters, like this river, and sea habitat. |
The community’s chief, Yun Mon, said the group was established two months ago to stop illegal fishing, after a survey by Sihanoukville’s fishery department showed a major depletion of the once-rich sea life around the island.
“The survey shows that a day’s catch for a fisherman on average dropped from 30 kilograms last year to 15 kilograms this year,” he said, adding that the livelihood of Koh Rong islanders is reliant on the sea.
The decline in marine life was due to an increase in local populations, illegal fishing and mangrove clearance on the coast, he said.
Choung Sam At, a Sihanoukville fishery official, said the boundary of the Koh Rong fishing community was designed around water areas up to 20 meters in depth, which are home to seaweed species, reef and a variety of fish that may prove to be attractive to divers.
“It is necessary to protect them; the seaweed and reefs are attractive for tourist divers,” he said. “Where there are seaweed and reefs, there are combinations of colorful fish.”
The areas are protected from big commercial fishing, but limited catches on a small scale or through traditional means are allowed for the islanders.
Illegal fishing remains a problem. Trawlers, which are definitely banned from the 20-meter waters, are often seen drifting in at night.
However, concrete pilings up to a meter in diameter have been laid underwater as a deterrent, which is helping keep the bigger boats out of the protected areas Choung Sam At said.
The preservation efforts could take between five and 15 years to renew the richness of the sea areas, he said.
Ung Nit, deputy chief of Koh Rong commune, said the percentage of fishermen on the island had dropped from about 70 percent of the population of 1,400 to 30 percent. Some fishermen had given sold off their tackle and boats to jobs as construction workers or woodsmen. Those who have kept fishing sell their catch in Sihanoukville markets. (Duch Sokhom, chief of the commune, disputed the decline, saying around 70 percent of the islanders remain fishermen.)
Koh Rong fishermen hold out hope that an island resort development planned by Phnom Pen’s Royal Group will bring them better business.
“I think I will get more benefits if I sell my fish to the company here, rather than going to [Sihanoukville],” said Si Sanh, a 39-year-old islander. “I keep losing 10 liters of gasoline by piloting my long-tailed boat to Sihanoukville to sell my fish.”
Jacov Mentross, business and finance manager for the Royal Group, said the preservation work by the fishing community will rehabilitate some of the marine life. He expects the new resort to buy fish from the locals.
About 120,000 people will begin working on the hotel and casino project, he said.
“A lot of people on the island are fishermen, and they may chose to continue to be fishermen,” he said. “Then it will be great for us…. Instead of selling their catches at Sihnoukville, there will be a large industry on the island where they can sell their catches directly to the island.”
Islanders Facing Limited Health Facilities
 |
| Islanders of Koh Rong have difficulty reaching proper medical treatment on the mainland. |
“Rich people can afford treatment at a clinic or hospital on the mainland,” said Kou Kao, 52, a resident of Prek Svay, one of the island’s four villages. “But for those who live hand-to-mouth, when they fall sick, they only expect one thing: death.”
Boat rental to leave the island can cost between $50 and $100, he said, far beyond the means of most of the islanders, who fish and farm for a living.
Koe Som, deputy chief of Prek Svay, said malaria frequently spreads in the dry season, killing several people each year.
“A lot of people have died,” he said. “They are always late to find a boat to the mainland. Some die in the middle of the sea. Some die when they get close to the referral hospital of [Sihanoukville], because they are gravely ill from here.”
Koh Rong Commune Chief Duch Sokhom said malaria was the main problem. Some people sleep without a mosquito net. Many islanders still pray to the spirit Yeay Mao, believed to protect forests and oceans, instead of seeking medical attention.
Another problem, he said, is the water: red and odorous, it fills the wells. Islanders drink the water unboiled, making themselves ill.
A plan by the Ministry of Health, which constructed a two-room clinic and provided two healthcare workers, is failing, residents said.
“We lack almost everything, small things, such as pins, bulbs, medicine, electricity,” said one nurse, who was once forced to borrow a neighbor’s battery to power lights while assisting a childbirth.
Se Chous Sothychouth, deputy director of Sihanoukville’s health department, said he understood the problem, but added that the clinic had only been open two months and was improving. The island’s population is too far below the ministry standard of 5,000 for a larger center, he said.
Meanwhile, the Reproductive Health Association of Cambodia is cooperating to provide outreach to the islanders, helping pregnant women and raising awareness of diseases like polio, HIV and AIDS, malaria and dengue fever.
The organization rents a boat every three months, for $150 to $250, to bring medical teams to the island, but such trips have been completely shut down for the past six months, thanks to poor weather and rough seas, said Meas Chanty a program officer.
“We can’t go there,” he said. “There have been big waves and storms. It’s dangerous. We understand the problem of the patients, but doctors have to care for their own safety first.”
Island’s Education Suffers Under Isolation
Behind the voices of students, the noise of the sea spread over high grass, the classroom and a nearby pagoda. Surrounded by beaches and mountain forest and imbued with fresh air, Prek Svay, one of only five primary schools on the 
Parents often pull their children out of primary schools on Koh Rong, preferring they help fish or farm.
The schools here in fact lack both teachers and students. Teachers are hard to find, and students are hard to keep.
Third-grade teacher Pho Sokhem, 26, said he spent $200 of his own money to build a small hut on the school grounds, where he lives with his wife and two-year-old son. Other teachers live in the houses of local officials and villagers, or with monks.
“I spent my own money to buy timbers and peeled-skin trees to build a hut,” Pho Sokhem said. “That is my hut.” He pointed to a small cottage. “Some [teachers] stay at the pagoda and some stay and eat with me.”
Ing Bunna, deputy chief of Sihanoukville’s education department, said the government had asked local authorities to put up some teachers, free of charge, because it lacked the money to build them accommodation. The government also pays a 40,000 riel allowance, about $10, to supplement the 200,000 riel wage, about $50 a month.
Teachers on this island say the 40,000 riel is not enough to assuage the loneliness of the outpost, where some live without the company of family and must spend a lot of money to visit the mainland.
“It is hard to live with little salary here,” said Set Tik, 26, another teacher. “We live far away from home. The transportation cost to visit home is expensive. The food here is expensive. I stay with a nun, and we share meals.”
Schools are up to 40 kilometers apart. Some are inaccessible by roads. The isolation has caused some teachers to renege on their contracts, Ing Bunna said. It has also made it impossible to establish a secondary school. For that, students must travel to Sihanoukville or beyond.
If it is hard to keep teachers here, it is also hard to keep students. Parents often pull their children out of school in order to help them make a living.
Teachers on the island estimated 35 percent of students quit school in 2007, a year when there were only 374 to start with.
“I wish I could have studied as high as possible,” said Kou Moykea, 18, who was among those who quit last year. “But my parents forced me to help them farm and fish, and baby-sit besides.”
Island Separated by Undeveloped Seaway
[Editor’s note: The
 |
| Passengers leave Sihanoukville en route to Koh Rong, an isolated island 40 kilometers off the coast. |
Residents hope that this will change, but any improvements to the island will first require an improvement in transportation. Currently, trips to the island are expensive, and, during the rainy season, travel can be unsafe.
“Traveling down there depends on water transportation,” said Som Chenda, director of Sihanoukville’s tourism department. “Technically, our transportation is not standard. We do not have ferries or cruising vessels. What we have at the moment is small wooden boats, and it is dangerous for a long-distance trip in the big waves of the open sea like that.”
The lack of transportation has meant Koh Rong has so far missed out on the booming tourism experienced by Sihanoukville.
Even now, the lack of accommodation on the island means that foreign tourists prefer to take daytrips. Those who wish to stay will have to camp on the beach or stay in a fishing village.
The only site for foreign accommodation is a set of bungalows being built on neighboring Koh Bang Koh Aun, referred to locally as “
A trip to Koh Rong remains off the public itinerary of most hotels or restaurants in Sihanoukville, adding to its isolation. A visitor must arrange the trip, and bargain for the boat, which can cost between $50 and $170, depending on its size and speed. The trip can take between one and three hours. The island can also be accessed from Koh Sdech.
The 1,400 people who occupy Koh Rong’s four villages seem far from outsiders, and the area was hardly accessed after people settled their as the Khmer Rouge collapsed. The people here are poor, earning a living by farming or fishing with long-tailed boats inconvenient for travel.
Still, the older generation is at ease, and even if the island seems under-developed, they have seen modernization. It used to take three days to travel to the mainland, after all.
"In the past if people go to [Sihanoukville] or Sre Ambil they had to sail, or if there wsa no wind,” said Ma Ti, 56, who lives on the southern tip of the island. “Now it is much better.”
Residents of the island say they hope developments by the Royal Group, which intends to invest on the island, will bring them more prosperity.
“I believe my people will have better lives if the island is developed by the company,” said Ung Nit, deputy chief of Koh Rong commune, adding that the construction of recent cell phone towers for three companies had already helped.
Jacov Montross, business and finance manager of Royal Group, said investment will have to start with a port, which will lead to a ferry, which “will cater more toward local populations.”
No comments:
Post a Comment