Born into a fishing family in Cambodia’s Koh Kong province, Chan Kimcheng swims with a grace shaped by living her entire life by the water.
Kimcheng (pictured above, right), is among the women in the fishing community of Trapaeng Pris who are rising up to protect their communal land and its delicate ecosystem from encroachment. By carrying out regular patrols of its borders, they’re standing up to the private landowners, illegal loggers and fishers that threaten their way of life, as well as to the climate crisis, which has made the area more vulnerable to forest fires.
The area was once home to 50 freshwater ponds – sources of drinking water, food and a livelihood to those nearby – but only one remains after the rest were destroyed in the name of private development. Local people have traditionally caught fish, searched for bees and honey and gathered Jorjoch plants and wild mushrooms on the ponds. They were once rich with wildlife including snakes, turtles and Kork water birds.
