One of Mother Nature Cambodia's most successful strategies has been to use social media, chiefly our own Facebook page 'Mother Nature Cambodia', to highlight and expose the corruption, human rights abuses and environmental destruction that usually comes hand in hand with so-called development projects by the authoritarian government of Hun Sen. The main reasons we started producing our own stuff back in 2013 were simple: most mainstream media outlets did not dare report on the issues we were working on, and the few independent outlets that existed - most of whom have been since shuttered by the regime, sadly - did not have the resources to visit the remote areas where we usually work. So we decided to create an opportunity out of this seemingly insurmountable obstacle: to produce our own stuff. Our videos, a mixture of thorough investigation and short and easy-to-digest messages presented by our brave activists as well as citizens from all walks of life, have been viewed over 20 million times, and shared more than a million times, and that's just since 2015. This is a most remarkable achievement for several reasons: a) as anyone with experience in producing videos knows, it is not easy to produce stuff that is attractive to the general public; b) the risks associated to filming and speaking on videos in Cambodia can be high, with arbitrary arrests and even jail time not at all unusual (as some of our activists can sadly vouch for); A lot of our videos are regularly picked up by the media, politicians, NGOs, etc, and have in many cases forced the Phnom Penh regime to publicly respond (not an easy feat in Cambodia by any means), for instance by backtracking on key decisions, or by putting an end to certain destructive practices. Not just that, but we are proud to say that many young people have told us that they find the videos inspirational, and that they too want to get involved in social justice and environmental protection. Below is a compilation of our most successful videos so far, in chronological order.
For videos from other years, see: 2016&2017 /2019 & 2020 / 2021 & 2022 / 2023 & 2024
To get a better idea of the high impact of our videos, mentioning number of Likes, Shares, Comments, etc, watch them on our Facebook page (link next to each video's description). Also do note that as many FB pages pick up and 're-post' our videos on their own pages, the true scale of our videos is much higher than what is depicted in our page.
There is an old saying in Khmer which loosely translates as: 'While the dog barks, people continue to pass by'. The same can be said about the country's massive logging problem; as the 'government' repeatedly promises to clamp down on this issue, systematic logging - aided and abetted by key state agencies - continues unabated. In this video, a young university student exposes how corruption is aiding the logging and illegal smuggling of timber across the border to Vietnam, Our next door neighbor imports most of the timber that is felled inside Cambodia, re-exporting most of it to China and Western markets.
Watch it on Facebook here.
Sihanoukville, named in honor of our former King Sihanouk, is sliding into anarchy, with countless casinos, hotels & other 'venues of entertainment' popping up everywhere. All of this while the Hun Sen regime lacks the ability to effectively management waste water.
Where does this raw sewage end up?
How can the toxins present in that sewage water affect our health?
Environmental activist Thun Ratha exposed this issue and even invited the government officials responsible for this mess to take a dip in Sihanoukville waters, without protective clothing. Hun Sen the dictator himself seems to have watched the video, and reacted swiftly: ordering key ministries to sort out this massive health and environmental crisis immediately. Huge victory for us, again!!
Watch it on Facebook here.
One of the co-founders of our movement, Alex Gonzalez-Davidson, exiled and blacklisted by the Hun Sen regime due to his relentless activism, exposes how a whopping 370 tons of gold, worth US$15 Billion, have gone 'missing' from the Cambodian government's trade records. Much in line with what has been the case with past trade of sand and timber with countries like Singapore, Vietnam or Taiwan, gold in vast quantities is leaving Singapore for Cambodia, but not being recorded by the Hun Sen regime, neither as imports or as re-exports. Incompetence? Tax evasion? Money laundering? Both Singapore and Cambodia remain silent on this issue, despite official complaints being placed by our activists in Singapore.
You can watch it on Facebook here.
With Cambodia's independent investigative media under systematic attack by the Hun Sen dictatorship, there has never been a better time for activists and citizens from all walks of life to help highlight some of the issues the Phnom Penh regime does not want people to know. In this video, environmental activist Meng Heng presents to fellow Cambodians the extremely deadly sodium cyanide, widely used in the country's out-of-control gold mining industry. The video, which went crazily viral in just a few days, with at least half a dozen other FB pages re-posting it themselves and reaching audiences of several hundred thousands just in a few days, was filmed in the same Kratie commune of Kontuot, where up to 17 villagers died in May of 2018, most likely due to cyanide poisoning their main water supply.
You can watch it on Facebook here.
The Chinese company Union Development Group, (UDG), was in 2007 secretly awarded a huge so-called Economic Land Concession measuring in total 46,000 hectares, which includes 20% of the entire country's coastline. All of it illegally carved out of what was then the country's 2nd largest National Park, the Botum Sakor, thousands of families were coerced, cheated and physically evicted from their home and land. In the village of Koh Smach, also known as Puy Japon, Three brave families remain though, despite relentless harassment against them, including by the anything-but-independent judiciary. In this video, Lim Kimsor (alias GG) confronts the head of the Cambodian dictatorship Hun Sen and asks him a question on this most pressing issue.
You can watch it on Facebook here.
Despite their pristine beauty, the islands off the coast of Botum Sakor & Kiri Sakor districts of Koh Kong province are known by very few Cambodians. Not unlike the illegal selling of the nearby Botum Sakor National Park around 2008, and much in line with the sale of countless other part of Cambodia, these gem-like islands have been awarded as 'Economic Land Concessions' to dodgy investors from all walks of life. After years of sitting on these concessions, little to no development is happening in these islands, a clear violation of Cambodia's Land Law. In this video, brave activist Lim Kimsor demands that the state annuls these secretive concessions and returns these islands to the state, for the benefit of all Cambodians..
You can watch it on Facebook here.
Few Cambodian tycoons have the influence, power and political backing of Ly Yong Phat, head of the infamous LYP Group. Even fewer are able to order large vessels coming into the country from abroad to switch off their mandatory Automatic Identification Systems, or AIS, despite this practice being outright banned. This is precisely what appears to be happening at LYP's so-called 'Special Economic Zone', where tens of thousands of tons of silica sand are being extracted from and exported to places like Taiwan, Malaysia and Thailand.
Watch it on our Facebook page here.
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