Siem Reap July 2020 - Over the six-year period between (2015-2020), the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) together with the Ministry of Environment, the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, and the Ministry of Women’s Affair implemented the Global Environment Facility funded “Life and Nature Project” (LNP). In order to address water scarcity, land and forest degradation, disruption of biodiversity and ecosystem functions, and strengthen rural livelihoods, particularly for women, the project has pioneered an integrated watershed management approach to environmental protection and development. Combined, these interventions seek to improve rural communities’ resilience to climate change impacts, improve their sustainable food production capacity and ultimately increase food security.

As the project comes to its conclusion, a lesson learned workshop was organized in Siem Reap province on 31 July 2020. It aimed at presenting and disseminating lessons that can be learned from the project, its achievements and difficulties.

Participants included key actors from the national, sub-national, district and local level government authorities, smallholder farmers from the four target provinces of Siem Reap, Kampong Thom, Preah Vihear and Ratanakiri, and partner NGOs.

Addressing watershed degradation, focusing on ground water and forest restoration

Watershed degradation is a serious threat to the wellbeing and survival of thousands of people living in both upstream and downstream areas in Cambodia, and proper management of the catchment has been recognized as a priority for reversing watershed degradation. With this in mind, and through engaging all concerned stakeholders, the project’s interventions took into account the constraints, vulnerabilities and needs of both men and women to understand the root-causes and address the key challenges for their livelihoods.

As summarized by the LNP’s National Project Coordinator, Mr Chea Chanthan, “key successes have been the mainstreaming of a new participatory approach to micro-watershed management, behavioral change among small-scale farmers for sustainable land and forest resource use, and improving community based natural resource management and livelihood options. Knowledge and capacities of the local authorities and communities on the landscape and watershed approach have been enhanced through their direct involvement in the intervention processes.”

As presented by each provincial coordinator from the four provinces, achievements in each targeted area included the establishment of a watershed management committee and a 5-year micro-watershed management plans and construction of cascading check dams (in-stream structures for increasing agricultural and household access to water during the dry season). Additionally, the project supported effort for forest protection and restoration; forest fire prevention; legalization of Community Forestry (CFs) and Community Protected Areas (CPAs); physical demarcation of community forests with posts and signs; establishment of bamboo woodlots to increase permanent land cover and local income generation; and strengthening of local capacities to improve community-based natural resource management.

Intended benefits of these ecosystem restoration and biodiversity enriching activities include: improved ground water recharge; increased water supply for agriculture and ecosystems; flood reductions; enhanced soil fertility; and overall increased resilience to climate shocks such as floods and drought.  

Improved natural resource utilization through Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA) techniques

Through the learning-by-doing CSA Farmer Field School platform, selected farmers gained technical knowledge and know-how to increase their capacity to adapt to persistent challenges of the impact of climate change on their farming. Applying a holistic farming system approach, FFS sessions were designed to identify appropriate farming techniques to improve the resilience and productivity of some major Cambodian cropping systems, such as rice, chicken, lemon, vegetable, cassava and cashew nuts.

Supporting technologies, including cover cropping for improving soil fertility; partial SRI to increase yields while adapting to low water availability; ecosystem agroforestry to boost ecosystem health; water-focused innovations to buffer erratic rain patterns e.g. drip irrigation systems combined with ponds; and other farming techniques led by Provincial Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (PDAFF) were Introduced and trialed with farmers in a participative manner.

Through these trainings and direct involvement, farmers learnt to increase their resilience towards climate change through adapting and mitigating adverse effects while boosting ecosystem services and increasing their yields in some of Cambodia’s major agricultural products.

Provincial Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (PDAFF) gained capacity to support farmers in Climate Smart Agriculture. In order to disseminate gained recognitions through the project nationwide, the General Department of Agriculture in collaboration with FAO identified appropriate agricultural technics in a FFS Curriculum for future FFS implementation in Cambodia.

Improved gender equality and livelihoods options targeting women

The degradation of ecosystems disproportionally affects rural women, as well as marginalized groups in Cambodia, such as indigenous groups or people with disabilities. Rural women in Cambodia play indispensable productive and reproductive roles in food security, biodiversity conservation and agricultural livelihoods, but their specific needs, vulnerabilities and roles are not well reflected in climate change adaptation or water governance. In response, the LNP established Women Producer Groups (WPG) in the four target areas to enhance women’s potential as agents of change in resilience building and diversifying their livelihood options by improving women’s agricultural skills and knowledge through FFS and business-related trainings, with the aim to obtain food and nutrition security for their families. 

Savings group management and collective business planning were among the core activities and capacity building initiatives of each WPG. The loans from the saving groups provided the required financial support to improve their farming initiatives. The groups received different FFS trainings ranging from farming techniques for their selected businesses, such as growing lemon, cassava, chicken raising, developing organic fertilizers, and developing business and marketing plans to scale-up these learnings.

The key lessons learned

Some learnings gained from the implementation of this project are as follows:

• The success of the landscape approach strongly relies on early and active involvement of all concerned stakeholders; their enhanced knowledge and understanding of micro-watershed management aimed at improving watershed-management governance. 
• Addressing key challenges for rural communities’ livelihoods threatened by climate change impacts requires a gender-sensitive farming system analysis. This is a key entry point for assessing vulnerabilities and opportunities, followed by provision of appropriate support to their farming activities.
• Famers’ active engagement in identifying realistic, appropriate and technically feasible CSA options is essential for informing the design of CSA-FFS contents.
• A successful CSA-FFS approach takes into consideration micro-watershed management, ecosystem health, soil fertility, labor availability, gendered division of work, and the effects of climate change.
• An interactive learning platform utilizing demonstration models, farmer-to-farmer teaching and a hands-on approach unveiled many real-life barriers, providing important opportunities to identify real-life solutions to CSA technique application.
• The failure to understand and adjust for the differential impact on women and men can lead to suboptimal results in environmental investments and exacerbate inequality, wherefore conducting a gender analysis and adapting an intercultural perspective in planning processes are recommended to address women’s and men’s different needs, constraints and strengths by understanding their gender roles and responsibilities in water resources management and rural development.
• The Women Producer Groups and saving activities were identified as an appropriate platform for women’s leadership building and empowerment, as essential step towards women’s meaningful and active participation in decision-making and resilience building.  
• Women’s empowerment was raised through their active roles in FFS, i.e. through exchanging good practices such as farmer-to-farmer learning, female-headed learning plots and women led FFS pilots
• Women’s engagement in WSMCs and establishment of collective actions among women cohorts by developing common business plans, including farm planning, was a proven strategy to diversify livelihood options. Women’s economic empowerment contribute to food security and well-being for the whole family.

The implementing partners who participated in the workshop also expressed the significance of the project beneficiaries’ contributions in the planning and implementation of the watershed management interventions. They include key government counterparts at national and local levels, as well as communities.

Mr Kaing Sophana, Chief of District Office of Agriculture, Natural Resources Management and Environment, Kampong Thom province, shared his impression on the project approach and effort in engaging all stakeholders in every action.

“It is a wise method that saves time and labor when conducting trainings. It combines environment, agriculture and gender in one go and avoids overloading our time-constrained farmers.”  He continued that he learned from the project and will apply the good practices in other similar events.

However, at the same time, many implementers and farmer representatives suggested that it would be very helpful if the project would not end its operation now.

Mr Khin Sokunviseth, Deputy Director of Provincial Department of Environment, Siem Reap province, commented that, “now that the project is running in full speed, it should continue for about one or two more years to provide our communities with ongoing technical support to the implementation of the initiatives and plans.” “For this reason, this workshop is important to discuss the way forward and explore further support to continue a fruitful implementation,” he added.