Land and Public Health in Ratanakiri (draft)

As I probably wrote, Ratanakiri was really an experience, within my experience of Cambodia and there is a lot I would like to write about Ratanakiri.

(According to Google 164,000 pages on the web spell Ratanakiri with double t vs. 112,000 pages spelling it with one t, so I'll write it... the way I prefer, i.e. with a single t.)

I've come to consider Phnom Penh like a big city and I've been in remote places of the countryside around Siem Reap, aroung Kampung Cham, etc. But Ratanakiri really gave me the impression of being the end of the world. The red dirt roads, the forests, the hills, the rain, the villagers: there is an undescribable atmosphere to it.

Do the villagers of Rattanakiri want better health care? What are the consequences of making available to them services that are not in their traditional way of life?

I visited the NGO CFI (Community Forestry International) on one of their projects in Rattanakiri :

CFI continues to support indigenous people's rights in Ratanakiri, Cambodia through the Ratanakiri Network Support Project.

From its beginning in January 2004, the majority of staff members in RNSP have been indigenous people of Ratanakiri. With minimal salaries, the staff provide services to indigenous communities, training people at village, commune, district and provincial level. They provide information about community rights, the importance of maintaining natural resources, the consequences of allowing loss of natural resources, ways to prevent loss of resources, and strategies to resolve conflicts. In addition, they have been promoting the concept of community networking so that communities have a collective way to advocate and address the ever-growing problems of land and forest alienation. The Ratanakiri Network Support Project has been working throughout 2004 and 2005. It has provided services to over target 120 target villages in 23 communes. It has also provided training courses to members of other communes and villages not yet incorporated into the Network. The project has significantly reduced the expansion of land alienation in Ratanakiri. While land problems are continuing as a result of land speculation, encroachment, and illegal logging, the extension activities of the Network has prevented many communities from complete social disintegration and land alienation.