IJERD – International Journal of Environmental and Rural Development (2012) 3-2

Research article
erdSocio-Economic Assessment for Proposing Alternative
Livelihood Strategy of Minority Villagers, Ratanakiri andStung Treng Provinces
NARA CHAN*
Graduate School, Royal University of Agriculture, Phnom Penh, Cambodia
E-mail: nara_c86@yahoo.com

NUTH CHUM
Graduate School, Royal University of Agriculture, Phnom Penh, Cambodia

COLAS CHERVIER
Graduate School, Royal University of Agriculture, Phnom Penh, Cambodia
Received 15 December 2011

Accepted 12 March 2012(*: Corresponding Author)

Abstract Ratanakiri and Stung treng provinces are located in northeast of Cambodia.
There are riches of natural landscape which is abundant with many rice fields, lakes, waterfalls, rivers as well as vast areas of forest. This research was focused on relative importance of activities related to farming and natural resources collection in terms of revenue and occupation at the household level and the way people benefit from communities
and natural resource. 120 samples were selected for household survey. Stratified random
sampling was used to interview rich, medium and poor households. Other primary datacollection methods including questionnaire survey, observation; key informant interviews
were also implemented. This study showed that rice farming and shifting farm (Chamkar)
are the main sources of food consumption and supplementary income for their living in thefour villages. But non-timber forest product (NTFPs) collection and wildlife poaching are
the main sources of income for the rural livelihoods in remote village in the forest. Local
communities in the village studied preferred to poach the wildlife by dog hunting andcrossbow and collecting malva nut tree by cutting down in average 10 malva nut tree perhousehold in year round. However, livestock production was the other livelihood activities
because local communities can raise chicken, duck, pig, cow and buffalo for selling,household consumption, agricultural activities and spirit Areak (Kavet people). The income that came from natural resource was high but this trend was not sustainable for thefuture. The natural resource is decreased day by day due to the illegal activities, the local
communities do not know how to harvest or collect in the sustainable way. By the way,
improvement of agriculture sector in the targeted area is the good way to improve theirlivelihood and avoid the negative affected to the natural resources.
Keywords minority, socio-economic, assessment, natural resource.

INTRODUCTION
Ratanakiri and Stung treng are located in northeast of Cambodia. There are riches of natural landscape which is abundant with many rice fields, lakes, waterfalls, rivers as well as vast areas of forest. Those provinces are place of ethnicities such as Kavet, Lao, Tumpun, Kachock, Jarai, Kroeung,Preo, Kouy, Lun, Islam, Chinese, and Khmer (Ian et al., 1996). Most of them are farmer, who liketo live on the mountain and in the forest. They are doing shift culture, hunting, finding NTFPs fortheir livelihood (Sopheap 2004). Their livelihood depend on forest resource are decrease and startchange to agriculture instead (Chea, 2008). The villagers who do not possess domestic animal are
involved most in poaching to feed their families. This research need to do base line survey in fourⒸISERD103

IJERD – International Journal of Environmental and Rural Development (2012) 3-2villages. It conducted to the Socio-Economic Assessment for proposing alternative Livelihood
Strategy of Minority villagers, Ratanakiri and Stung treng provinces.
Three hypotheses have been set in this research. First, natural resources are contributes significantly   to   the   households’ livelihood and income living in the target village. Second, natural resources are managed in such a way that it does not contribute to the development of local communities and conservation in a sustainable manner. Third, income from natural resources use is higher
than income from agriculture activities in the village.
Accordingly, the objectives of this study are to assess the relative importance of activities related to farming and natural resources collection in terms of revenue and occupation at the household leve and to describe the way people benefit from communities and natural resource.
The studied topic focuses on socio-economic of the local people get from natural resources(NTFPs, wildlife), farming, and other activities, farming practice and natural resource management.
Due to the time and human resource constraints, sample size of the research is not statisticallycomputed. Only 120 households will be randomly selected from the four villages which 2 inRatanakiri and 2 in Stung Treng provinces.
METHODOLOGY
Site selection: The study (thus) corresponds to a baseline survey. Other justification for selecting
these target villages include: high-dependence of local communities on natural resources associatedwith a depletion of natural resources caused by various causes including illegal activities. Richness
in terms of biodiversity makes this area of high priority for conservation: high occurrence ofendangered mammals.

Fig. 1 Map of study area
Household selection: The first step was to do a wealth ranking exercise whereby each village wasdivided  into  three   wealth   levels,   namely   “poor”,   “medium”   and  “better-off”.   A  random   sampling
approach was randomly selected among four villages (Table 1).
Table 1 Sample size for study
Village

Talae
Kapin
BackaeKang Nuok

Total households
123
88
77
84

Sample size
30
30
30
30

Percentage
25
34
3936

Source: field survey, 2010
One hundred twenty households were selected by using the following formula (Yamane, 1967):
Nn=n: Total numbers of samples to be selected for interview
1+N(e)2
N: Total number of householde: Acceptable bias (+7.5%)--= =ⒸISERD

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IJERD – International Journal of Environmental and Rural Development (2012) 3-2

Key informants: After the observations have been conducted, key informants have beeninterviewed by semi-structure questionnaires and the checklist had been used to interview 4 key
informants at different institutional levels as forestry officer (2 people), elder people (12 people),village leader (4 people), and trader in the village and in Banlung (6 people).
Primary data collection: Followings have conducted as primary data collection.
- Semi-structured interviews with key informants- Group discussion with key-informants and transects walk of the area
- Structured interviews with individual households
Secondary data collection: The secondary data has been collected from other reports of bothprevious and current related study which may be found in the NGOs offices, Department ofAgriculture and Forestry, academic and research institutions, journals, and the internet sources.
Data analysis: Data from the quantitative like household asset, labor used natural resource used
income and expensed was computerized using Microsoft Excel software.
Qualitative data have been reviewed, summarized and categorized in priory defined parameters which were determined and then entered in a database. In particular, a database for ecosystemservices combining both quantitative and qualitative data has been created.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Socio-economic situation
This section presents basic data and information about villages studied, in order to characterize activities in each village. Livelihood activities are economic activities that household takes on to meettheir basic needs, including food, clothing and shelter. Most of people in the study area rely on anumber of different occupations (Table 2).
Table 2 Main occupation of local people in the villages studied
Occupation/Village
FarmerNTFPs collector
Small business
Farmer, NTFP collector
Farmer, Small business
NTFPs collector, Small business
Farmer, NTFPs collector, Small businessBackae (%)

Kapin (%)

Kang Nuok (%)

Talae (%)

73373
2077
10100

7100

370
73380
417Farmer, NTFPs collector, Other
310Total
100100Note: Other occupation, there are: worker, teacher, trader, and craftworker

Animal productionAnimal production is less important in livelihood since farmers are very busy with doing farming
and shift culture. Chicken are mostly raised conventionally. Chicken is offered to the spirit, consumed and sold. Duck are raised to get eggs for household consumption and selling in the village.
Pig rising is popular in the study area even though they are no plenty of feed stuffs. Cattle are important labor for agriculture for rice farm and also for their cart to transport the rice, crop products,etc.
Local villager benefit from community and natural resource
Right to access natural resource is as follows.
- Utilization on dry wooden, wild forest fruit, honey, resin, and other NTFPsⒸISERD105

IJERD – International Journal of Environmental and Rural Development (2012) 3-2Fig. 2 Percentage of local communities raising animals in the village studies- Usage of timber for house building, fence, stables for animals, and for making agricultural equipment
and harvesting grass or freeing the animal in to the forest- Utilization of other non-timber forest products consistent with traditional use of minority or family andNTFPs were selling or traded by no need approved latter if is trade affected to the sustainable of theforest.

Table 3 Average income of local communities get from NTFPs in the village studied/year
BackaeKapin
Kang NuokTalae
Income (US$)
Income (US$)
Income (US$)
Income (US$)
Resin
230
228
96
145
Malva nut
329
363
605
297
Total
559
591
701
442
Note: Resin = 0.30 US$/ L, Malva nut = 4.70US$/ kg, 1 US$ was equivalent to 4250 Riel in 01 June 2010
SourceTable 4 Average income of timber forest product/year
BackaeIncomeExpense(US$)(US$)
572188
TimberLuxury wood800Total
1372
Profit1184
Note: 1 US$ = 4250 Riel in 01 June 2011
SourcesKapin
IncomeExpense
(US$)
(US$)
180
50
180
130

Kang Nuok
IncomeExpense
(US$)
(US$)
1115
230
1115
885

Talae
IncomeExpense
(US$)
(US$)
1153
187
282
1435
1248

Household income
There are many kinds of income that the villagers can receive per year such as by farming (paddyrice, shifting culture (Chamkar)), NTFPs (the main are risen, malva nut), wildlife hunting, wood
logging, livestock production (cattle, chicken and duck), small business, rice mill, handicraft, andtrader (Fig 2).

Fig. 3 Average income from each activity (village study)ⒸISERD106

IJERD – International Journal of Environmental and Rural Development (2012) 3-2

DISCUSSION
Access right to natural resources: Natural resources that are accessible as common property provide an important livelihood, especially for the poor, as a source of food and additional income.
Nowadays, local people still have their own traditional utilization right on that natural resource inthe sustainable way, for example, the local community have their traditional ownership on resintree even though it is not recognized by authority but at the household level, villagers are approved.
Similar results were showed in Chea (2008), where the ethnic minority is respected spirit in theforest.
Land use and land tenure: The research found that forest land allocation was open for those whowant to do agriculture or shifting cultivation as well as for those who would be affordable todevelop plantation by themselves. However, forest land allocation to households entirely depends
on the production capacity and the social networks of each household. In other words, the forest
land allocation was favored to households who have either financial capital available to cover input
costs for plantations or have social networks to gain access to free input supply from plantation.
The proportion of forest land received by three different wealth groups and state forest owners as
discussed in the result. The poor group gained least from the land allocation process. Lack ofcapital to invest in plantations is the most critical factor hampering the poor people in gaining
allocated forest land. This finding corresponds to those of Tam.V. Le (2008).
Natural resource elimination: Natural resource has plummeted as a result over-exploitation forboth legal and illegal export to neighboring country and china for making furniture, other masteries,
traditional medicine, domestic consumption and local sale (Luy, 2008). A similar study in Chum(2009) and Chea (2008) reported that the rural community in the forest area commonly logging
luxury wood and other value kind of tree, harvest wildlife such as turtle, water monitor, Bengalmonitor, Burmese python, cobra, wild pig, red muntjac, Sam bar Pangolin and main NTFPs such asMalva nut tree by cutting down the trees, resin, in the forest, nearby the rice fields, shifting culture,streams.
CONCLUSION
According to research findings in the village studied, it can be concluded that rice farming andshifting farm (Chamkar) are the main sources of food consumption and supplementary income for
their living in the four villages. Villagers who lived in Backae, Kapin, Kang Nuok and Talae village can make income in average 420-700 US$ from NTFPs collection per household, especially
300-600 US$ from malva nut collection and 100-230 US$ from resin tree collection in year round..
Besides, local communities in Backae can make income in average 904 US$ from wildlife poaching, especially Sam bar, turtle, Bengal monitor, water monitor, cobra, wild pig and red muntjac.
But villager in the Kang Nuok and Talae village can make income in average 550US$ from wildlife hunting, whereas Kapin village can make income in average 442 US$ per household in year
round. Moreover, villager can make income from Timber forest product in average 885 $-1154$ per families. The income that came from natural resource is high but this trend is not sustainable
for the future. The natural resource is decreased day by day due to the illegal activities, the localcommunities do not know how to harvest or collect in the sustainable way. By the way, improvement of agriculture sector in the targeted area is the good way to improve their livelihood and avoid
the negative affected to the natural resources.
REFERENCE
Chea Ramsey. 2008. Socio-economic assessment for proposing alternative livelihood strategy of Lao minority villagers of I Tub, Ratanakiri province. 85.
Chum Nith. 2009. Contribution of natural resource to livelihood in two floating villages near Kampong Prakfish sanctuary Tonle Sap Lake, Krokor District, Pursat Province. Royal University of Agriculture, Cambodia.
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Luy Rattana. 2008. Study on the issue of forest and wildlife offend in Pursat Province. Royal University ofAgriculture (Khmer version), Cambodia.
Tam V. Le. 2008. The Forest land use and local livelihoods.
Yamane, T. 1967. Determining sample size.

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