IJERD – International Journal of Environmental and Rural Development (2013) 4-1

Research article
erd

Assessment of Local Livelihood of Forest-Dependent
Communities in Cambodia
KOY RAThe University of Hyogo, Kobe, Japan
Email: rarua03@yahoo.com

NOPHEA SASAKI*The University of Hyogo, Kobe, Japan
Email: nop.kankyo@ai.u-hyogo.ac.jp
Received 15 December 2012

Accepted 30 January 2013(*Corresponding Author)

Abstract Forests are important sources of ecosystem goods and services to billion people
around the world. As tropical forests are gradually disappearing while population isincreasing, the livelihood of forest-dependent communities is being threatened.
Cambodia’s   forest subsector contributed 8.4% to agricultural GDP over the period from1999 to 2008. Although this figure provides an indication of the importance of forest
resources in national development, assessment of the detailed contribution of forest goods
and services at the local level is urgently needed so that appropriate intervention anddevelopment policies could be introduced. The objectives of this study are to better
understand the contribution of forest resources to household livelihood by classifying suchcontribution to four main forest and non-forest products and to propose a policy
recommendation. Questionnaires were developed to interview 600 households in threecommunes, namely the Takaen, Sangke Satob, and Tumring in Kampot, Kampong Spoeu,and Kampong Thom provinces, respectively. The interviews were performed quarterly
throughout the year so as to increase the accuracy of the responses from the households.
Our analysis found that forest income contributed 76,892±8,160 riel or 13% of the total
household incomes in the first quarter. However, forest income increased to 24%(142,645±17,540 riel), 33% (146,422±16,967 riel), and 31% (122,512±9,693 Riel) in thesecond, third and fourth quarters, respectively. Other sources of household incomes wereagriculture, outside forest, and other income, all together, contributing 87%, 76%, 67%
and 69% of the total incomes in the first, second, third, and fourth quarters, respectively.
These findings suggest that forest resources are important sources for the survival offorest-dependent communities. It is recommended that incorporating forest resources into
the development planning with the active participation of local people could contribute tosustainable development while protecting the forests.
Keywords forest income, dependence, livelihood, ecosystem

INTRODUCTION
Forests are important sources of ecosystem goods and services to billion people around the world.
As tropical forests are gradually disappearing while population is increasing, the livelihood offorest-dependent communities is being threatened. Foreseeing the urgent needs for forest protection,
roles of tropical forests for climate change mitigation and sustainable development have been
increasingly recognized by world leaders through their efforts to reducing deforestation and forest
degradation. The Copenhagen Accord of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate
Change (UNFCCC) recognized a new scheme, the REDD+ or reducing emissions fromdeforestation and forest degradation, conservation of forest carbon stocks, sustainable managementof forests, and enhancement of forest carbon stocks as cost-effective measures for climate change
mitigation and sustainable development (Sasaki and Yoshimoto, 2010). At the 16th and 17th
Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC, biodiversity and socio-economic safeguards was one ofⒸ ISERD63

IJERD – International Journal of Environmental and Rural Development (2013) 4-1

the major components of the REDD+ negotiations because it is an important component forachieving the REDD+ objectives.
Extreme weather such as storm, floods, and droughts resulted from the impact of climatechange has resulted in decline of agricultural productivities compared to that in the normal year
(Heng and Pech, 2009). The decline in agricultural productivities causes more poverty to localpeople. In order to cope with these natural disasters as well as to improve their livelihood, local
people adopted many strategies including increasing their activities for collecting various products
from forests and nearby. Activities of local people for collecting various products occur differently
throughout the year. For instance, in Kupe, the South of Cameroon, local people increased theiractivities for collecting forest and non-forest products during the rainy season after crop cultivation
because there was little work in the farms except waiting for food crops to mature (Ngane et al.,2012). The situation is not different from local people in Cambodia where about 85% of the total
population are farmers. Forests are also important for local livelihood in Cambodia. In addition toproviding services, forests are important sources of food, medicine, construction material, andfirewood   for   household   consumptions   and   income   generation   in   Cambodia.   Cambodia’s   forest
subsector contributed 8.4% to agricultural GDP over the period from 1999 to 2008 (Theng and Koy,2011). Unfortunately, rapid deforestation and forest degradation driven by rapid economic
development and growing population have put pressure on the resource availability and therefore
assessment of the dependency of local people and how their activities for collecting forest and nonforest products is required so that appropriate policy interventions could be adopted.
OBJECTIVES
The objectives of this study are to assess the contribution of forest resources to household
livelihood and seasonal variation of this contribution throughout the year.
METHODOLOGIES
Study site: In order to reduce biases in our assessment, study sites were carefully selected taking
into account such factors as deforestation rate, threats from industrial cultivation, and distance of
local people to the forests. The three selected communes are Takaen, Tumring, and Sangke Satonin
Kampot, Kampong Thom, and Kampong Spoeu provinces, respectively (Fig. 1). It was observedthat a large rubber plantation has emerged in the site selected in Kampong Thom province while norubber plantations were found during field survey in other two sites. Based on forest cover changes
published by Forestry Administration (FA, 2011), annual deforestation rates in the three provincesfrom 2006 to 2010 were 0.8%, 0.7%, and 0.3%, respectively. In Tumring commune, some of forest
area was converted into rubber plantation.

Fig. 1 Map showing study sites
Household selection: National Institute of Statistic (NIS) defined household as a group of persons
who commonly live together and take their meals from a commons kitchen unless the exigencies ofwork prevented any of them from doing so (NIS, 2007). This definition was taken into account forⒸ ISERD

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identifying household for this study. Two hundred households were selected in each study site; andso a total of 600 households were interviewed for this study.
To facilitate the selection of household for survey in each study site, complete lists ofhousehold were obtained from village chief prior to carrying out the field work. The first household
was randomly drawn from the list while the subsequent households were selected based on theinterval of each site.
Interview justification and data collection: Local people in Takaen, Tumring, and Sangke
Satob communes have practiced many livelihood activities throughout the year. These activities
change seasonally as shown in Fig. 2.
Activities

JanFebMar

AprMayJunJulAug

SepOctNovDec

Takaen commune
Rice production
Vegetable and cash cropproduction
NTFP collection
FishingFirewood collection andcharcoal production
Migration to sell labor,
seek employment

High Production

Low Production

Tumring commune
Lowland rice cultivation
Upland rice cultivation
Cassava cultivation
Soy bean cultivation
Mung bean cultivation
Maize
Non-timber forest productcollection
Selling labour

Sangke Satob commune
Timber harvesting
Rice production
Vegetable and cash cropproduction
NTFP collection
Fishing
Firewood collection andcharcoal production
Selling labour

Fig. 2 Livelihood activities in Takaen, Tumring, and SangkeSatob Communes
As livelihood activities change seasonally, data on household income should be collectedseasonally. For this study, questionnaire was carefully designed to collect seasonal data of the same
household every 3 months (quarterly based interview). Therefore, better data and information werecollected. Questionnaire was designed to focus on income generation from four main income
sources: i) forest (direct, derived, service payment from forest income); ii) agriculture (crop andlivestock); iii) outside forest (fish, aquaculture, and other from non-forest area); and iv) other (wage,own business, and other income). The first data collection was done in January for income
generation between October and December, the second, third and fourth interviews were done inlate April for income generation from January to March, July for income generation from April toJune), and October for income generation from July to September, respectively.
Data analysis: Although 600 households were interviewed in the first round, not all households
were interviewed at the subsequent rounds because some of them were not available during thefield surveys. For this analysis, only data of households that were interviewed at all four rounds
were analyzed. So far, 518 households or 86.3% were interviewed in all quarters.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Income generation in each study site: The study found that the annual average household incomeⒸ ISERD65

IJERD – International Journal of Environmental and Rural Development (2013) 4-1

ranges from 1,797,000±44,000 Riel† (± refers to standard error) in Takaen commune of Kampot
province to 2,564,000±102,000 Riel in Tumring commune of Kampong Thom province (Fig. 3).
The contribution from forest to annual average household income ranges from 303,000±22,000
Riel or about 12% of the total income sources in Tumring commune of Kampong Thom Province
to 618,000±18,000 Riel or about 34% in Sangke Satob of Kampong Spoeu province. These results
confirm that forest resources play a very important role for the rural livelihood in Cambodia.
Specifically, forest was the main income source (618,000±18,000 Riel or about34% of theannual average income) followed by Agriculture (455,000±15,000 Riel or 25%), outside forest(138,000±4,000 Riel accounted to 8%), and other (613,000±23,000 Riel or about 34%), in Sangke
Satob commune of Kampong Spoeu province (Fig. 3). In Takaen commune of Kampot province,agriculture was the main income source which contributed to 605,000±20,000 Riel (accounting for34%) and followed by forest which contributed 512,000± Riel (29% of the annual average income),other (467,000±21,000 Riel or 26%), and income from outside forest (212,000±8,000 Riel or 12%).
Figure 3 also shows that the contribution from other to income source in Tumring commune wasvery high (1,370,000±54,000Riel or about 53% of the annual average income) and followed byagriculture (845,000±73,000 Riel or 33% of the annual average income), forest (303,000±22,000Riel or 12%), and income from outside forest (45,000±2,000 Riel or 2%). This reflected that therural activities have a very strong link with natural resources, especially forest. The results of thisstudy showed that the contribution from forest to annual household income was lower thanprevious study which reported that the annual contribution from forest to household income ranged
from 668,000 Riel to 1,696,000 Riel (Kasper and Neth, 2006). This difference could be due to thedifferent methods used in our respective studies or forest condition. Development activities would
also have contributed to the variation of forest contribution to household livelihood. However, theresults of this study shows higher income contribution from forest than that in Malvi wherecontribution from forest to poor household was only 15% of the total income (Camanga et al.,2008) and quite similar with Ethiopia where income from forest contributed to 34% of household
per capita income (Yemiru et al., 2010). Thus, incorporating forest resources into development
planning with the active participation of local people could contribute to sustainable development
while protecting the forest.
Seasonal variation in income share: In order to understand the seasonal activities of the localpeople, we further analyzed the data by four quarters as shown in Fig. 4. It is noted that income waspeak in the first quarter in which the average total income was 608,000 Riel and started to decreasein the subsequent quarter while the lowest income was in 4th quarter (392,000 Riel).The analysis
found that forest income contributed 76,892±8,160 riel or 13% of the total household incomes in thefirst quarter. However, forest income increased to 24% (142,645±17,540 riel), 33% (146,422±16,967riel), and 31% (122,512±9,693 Riel) in the second, third and fourth quarters, respectively. Other sourcesof household incomes were agriculture, outside forest, and other incomes, all together, contributing to87%, 76%, 67% and 69% of the total incomes in the first, second, third, and fourth quarters,
respectively.
High income in the first and second quarters was contributed mainly by agriculture while
contribution from forest plays as a second main income source in quarter 3 and 4 which contributed
to 33% and 31%, respectively, to the average total household income. This is because first andsecond quarter covered the period from October to March which was in harvesting period ofagriculture crops while the third and fourth quarter people started investing on planting their crop,
especially rice in order to enable them to harvest it within the first and second quarters.
As mentioned previously, the annual average total income in Takaen commune was 1,796,000
Riel in which income share from agriculture was the first main income. The share of agriculturechanged seasonally being the first main income source in the first quarter but started to decline thesubsequent quarters this is because the first quarter is the rice harvesting period between October toDecember (Fig. 5). Households sold their agricultural products immediately after harvesting.
†

USD1 = 4,000 RielⒸ ISERD

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Riel
3,000

Thou s and s

2,500
2,000
1,500
1,0005000Outside forest

Q1
Other income

Tumring

ForestAgriculture

Q2
Outside forest

Q3
ForestQ4Agriculture

Fig. 4 Average total income by quarter

Q1
Other income

Q2

Q3

Outside forest

ForestT um r i n g

Sa tobS angk e

TakaenT um r i n g

T um r i n g

S a tob

T ak a en

S angk e

S angk e-200

T um r i n gRiel

S a tob

1000
8006004002000Takaen

Thou s and sFig. 3 Annual household income by sourcein each study site

S a tob

Other income

Sangke Satob

S angk eTakaenRiel
700
600
500
4003002001000

T ak a en

Thou s and s

IJERD – International Journal of Environmental and Rural Development (2013) 4-1

Q4Agriculture

Fig. 5 Seasonal variation in income share in each study site
The average share of forest resources to household income in Takaen commune in the firstquarter was only 59,831±9,634 Riel (10%) 39% (160,000±35,283 Riel), 39% (187,000±40,023
Riel), and 33% (105,000±11,857 Riel) in the second, third, and fourth quarter, respectively.
Similar to that in Takaen’s  site,  the  income  share  from  agriculture  in  Sangke  Satob’s  site  was  highest in the first quarter, about 247,000±17,938 Riel (44% of average quarter income) andcontinued to decline, while the income share from forest increased from 104,000±14,657 Riel(19%) in the first quarter to 171,000±21,800 Riel (37%), 158,000±19,389 Riel (43%) and
181,000±19,470 Riel (43%) in the second, third, and fourth quarters, respectively, (Fig. 5).
Unlike   the  two   sites   mentioned   above,  livelihood  in  Tumring’s   site   showed   more   livelihoodactivities. In addition to producing rice, other cash crops such as maize, cassava, and mung bean
were also produced at this site. The annual average total income in this site is much higher than thatin the previous sites which was estimated at 2,564,000±102,000 Riel. The share of agricultural
income was high in the first and second quarters amounting to 342,124±93,174 Riel (49% ofaverage quarter income) and 451,211±166,026 Riel (48%), respectively. However, this income
share show negative (loss) during the third quarter; this is because of natural calamity occurred at
this site. Natural calamity disturbed the agricultural production on this site. It is noted that the sharefrom other income source in this study site was very high in almost all quarter if compared withincomes in other two sites. More specifically, the share from other income sources was the firstmain income source in the third and fourth quarters, respectively accounting for 82%(402,330±74,275 Riel) and 66% (285,825±39,810 Riel) of the total quarters’ income.
Our results suggest that collection of forest products varied seasonally across all study sites.
These variations were driven by time availability of household and natural resource condition.
These findings are similar to that reported by Neang (2009) who found that the quantity of resin
flow of individual tree depended on tree location and seasonality. Seasonal variation from forestⒸ ISERD

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IJERD – International Journal of Environmental and Rural Development (2013) 4-1

contribution to household income found in this study is also the same with Ethiopia and Africa(Yemiru et al., 2010; Timko et al., 2010)
CONCLUSION
Forests have played important roles in local livelihood. Income from forest resource ranges from
12% to 34% of the total incomes depending on forest locations and seasonality. Income fromagricultural sources is higher compared to any other sources. However, such income would decline
if forests around the agricultural lands are cleared or degraded because forests regulatehydrological cycle and climate for agricultural cultivation. Our findings suggest that forest
resources are important sources for the survival of forest-dependent communities. It is
recommended that incorporating forest resources into the development planning with the active
participation of local people could contribute to sustainable development while protecting theforests. Furthermore as household activities are influenced by the resources availability and people
tend to focus on rice cultivation, creating more income generation opportunities for local people
after rice cultivation could discourage them from entering forests to collect various products, andtherefore deforestation and forest degradation could be reduced.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Cambodia’s   Leading   Independent   Development   Policy   Research   (CDRI)   and   the   Poverty  Environment Network (PEN) are acknowledged for the data used in this paper. The first author wassupported by the MEXT/JSPS KAKENHI Grant Number 24252002 for his research in Japan.
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