In early October, work began on power lines that will run about 300 kilometers, or 190 miles, and that conservationists have labeled “a death sentence” to Cambodia’s Prey Lang Wildlife Sanctuary.
The transmission lines are slated to run from a substation on the outskirts of the capital, Phnom Penh, to Cambodia’s northeastern border with Laos, slicing through the densest part of the 490,000-hectare (1.2-million-acre) protected rainforest, vital wildlife habitats and two existing REDD+ projects.
The 500-kilovolt transmission line project has remained largely dormant since it was initially approved in 2020, although the years that followed saw conservationists decry its potential environmental impacts.
