Sand filled and spilled from Sot Phally’s sandals as the chief monk carried an alm bowl from his pagoda through what was once Phnom Tamao Forest.
“I used to walk under the shade of the trees. There were fresh, green woods but now it is just cleared land,” Phally said about the renamed Phnom Tamao Arboretum.
Six months earlier, he’d silently watched from his meditation space at the top of Tmor Antong Pagoda as bulldozers toppled hundreds of hectares of forest.
In full: https://southeastasiaglobe.com/cambodia-political-reforestation/