This is the first of a two-part Mongabay series about hydropower dams in the Cardamom Mountains. PURSAT/KOH KONG, Cambodia — Rumbling south down a rutted dirt track in the western Cambodian province of Pursat, past prone excavators and makeshift worker encampments, the green slopes of the Cardamom Mountains loomed suddenly from around the bend. In early April, days before Khmer New Year, Cambodia’s most celebrated holiday, the access road on which we traveled was all but abandoned, and checkpoints into the Stung Meteuk hydropower dam remained unmanned. Hugging the Thai border, the road runs a bumpy, hilly and desolate 65 kilometers (40 miles) from Pursat province’s Thma Da commune down to Pak Khlang commune in Koh Kong province, with few signs of life along the way. Here, in this remote stretch of mountainous rainforest, history appears to be repeating itself as Mongabay has uncovered illegal loggers operating under the cover of hydropower construction. There are no residents living near the construction site, which is sandwiched between the unnamed border road to the west and the dense forests of the 362,000-hectare (895,000-acre) Phnom Samkos Wildlife Sanctuary to the east. To the south of the dam, an outpost of bored Cambodian soldiers from Battalion 303 are stationed along the border road, while to the north sits the M.D.S. Thma Da Special Economic Zone (SEZ), which has repeatedly been tied to human trafficking. Illegal logging routes sprawl out of the Stung Meteuk dam construction site, leading into Phnom Samkos Wildlife Sanctuary. Image by…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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