Khiri Reach commits to One Million Trees reforestation project in Cambodia

Khiri Reach, the 16-year old char­it­able arm of Khiri Travel, has joined Wild­life Alliance’s ambi­tious long-term One Mil­lion Trees ini­ti­at­ive to refor­est illeg­ally cleared land in Cambodia’s Car­damom Mountains.

Khiri Reach has donated US$15,000 to the One Mil­lion Trees refor­est­a­tion pro­ject in the Koh Kong and Sihan­ouk­ville provinces of Cam­bod­ia. The char­ity has pledged to sup­port the pro­ject for at least three years.

What is One Million Trees?

The One Mil­lion Trees pro­ject, run by Wild­life Alli­ance, is plant­ing hun­dreds of thou­sands of tree sap­lings every year to restore forest areas that were burned or cleared by land grab­bers and log­gers. The aim is to refor­est cleared areas so that biod­iversity and hab­it­at can recover. 

The South­ern Car­damom moun­tains har­bour the world’s last wild, unfrag­men­ted Asi­an ele­phant cor­ridor. The Asi­an ele­phant’s sur­viv­al, and that of hun­dreds of oth­er mam­mal, bird, insect and plant spe­cies, depends on adequate forest habitat.

Replant­ing indi­gen­ous spe­cies of trees main­tains ground mois­ture, reduces loc­al cli­mate over­heat­ing in the dry sea­son, and mit­ig­ates against land­slides and flash floods.

4.2 million square metres and rising

To date, the pro­ject has refor­es­ted 4.2 mil­lion square metres of cleared land in Koh Kong and Sihan­ouk­ville provinces.

After ini­tial cul­tiv­a­tion in the One Mil­lion Trees nurs­ery near Chi Phat vil­lage in Koh Kong province, sap­lings planted on illeg­ally cleared land are pro­tec­ted and main­tained by Wild­life Alli­ance for a min­im­um of five years.

This peri­od is cru­cial to min­im­ising losses and ensur­ing the estab­lish­ment of endur­ing eco­sys­tems. Main­ten­ance activ­it­ies include reg­u­lar soil enrich­ment and the replace­ment of lost saplings.

Replant­ing zones are stra­tegic­ally chosen to regen­er­ate the forest where it was burned and cleared by land grabbers. 

The One Mil­lion Trees nurs­ery cul­tiv­ates 18 spe­cies of nat­ive rain­forest tree sap­lings. These are ready for field plant­ing after six to 12 months, depend­ing on the species. 

The new dona­tion from Khiri Reach is help­ing the nurs­ery expand capa­city from 190,000 sap­lings to 265,000, all under shade nets with irrig­a­tion to help them grow.

Wild­life Alli­ance hires loc­al com­munity work­ers in the nurs­ery and refor­est­a­tion sites.

Donations from Khiri guests

Khiri Reach raised its dona­tion from Khiri Travel guests who wanted to con­trib­ute to a car­bon off­set, nature regen­er­a­tion initiative.

“The One Mil­lion Trees pro­ject is exactly the kind of ini­ti­at­ive that Khiri Reach likes to con­trib­ute to,” said Willem Niemeijer, Chair­man of Khiri Reach and founder of Khiri Travel. “It is run with the loc­al com­munity, under pro­fes­sion­al super­vi­sion, and with clear met­rics and goals.”

Khiri Reach is also sup­port­ing refor­est­a­tion pro­jects in Siem Reap in Cam­bod­ia and Chi­ang Rai, north­ern Thai­l­and. It also con­trib­utes to a seagrass ini­ti­at­ive in Sri Lanka.

“Through our Khiri Reach regen­er­at­ive travel fund, we invite Khiri Travel cus­tom­ers and part­ners to sup­port these pro­jects with each book­ing that they make.”

Track record over two decades

Suwanna Gaunt­lett, founder and CEO of Wild­life Alli­ance said: “We are very grate­ful for Khiri Reach’s dona­tion and ongo­ing sup­port. We also invite oth­er poten­tial donors to fol­low the Khiri example and sup­port the pro­ject in any way that they can.”

“For over two dec­ades, Wild­life Alli­ance has worked in part­ner­ship with loc­al com­munit­ies and the Gov­ern­ment of Cam­bod­ia to pre­serve nearly four mil­lion acres of dense mon­soon forest in the Car­damom Rain­forest, main­tain fresh­wa­ter reserves of 22 major water­ways, and – as a dir­ect res­ult – keep loc­al tem­per­at­ures stable at an aver­age of 32 degrees cen­ti­grade all year round.”

She added: “The vast major­ity of indi­gen­ous peoples who live in the South­ern Car­damom Rain­forest agree that the REDD+ car­bon off­set pro­gram has been hugely bene­fi­cial. None of this would have been pos­sible without the fund­ing gen­er­ated under the REDD+ car­bon forest off­set program.”

Mr Niemeijer said: “Khiri Reach will con­tin­ue to work closely with respons­ible, pro­fes­sion­al organ­isa­tions, such as Wild­life Alli­ance, that are imple­ment­ing vital con­ser­va­tion and regen­er­a­tion projects.”

Fur­ther inform­a­tion: KhiriReach.org.

Con­tents ^

About Khiri Reach

Khiri Reach is a char­it­able found­a­tion estab­lished in 2007 to help dis­ad­vant­aged people through com­munity devel­op­ment, con­ser­va­tion, envir­on­ment and empower­ment pro­jects. Khiri Reach has set up pro­grams in Thai­l­and, Laos, Viet­nam, Myan­mar and Cam­bod­ia with pro­jects com­ing in Indone­sia, Mal­dives and Sri Lanka. We focus on edu­cat­ing and work­ing dir­ectly with people in rur­al areas and city zones to improve their liv­ing conditions. 

Khiri Reach iden­ti­fies bona fide pro­jects that need fund­ing, advises donors and volun­teers, and ensures that 100% of dona­tions go to bene­fi­ciary pro­jects, with Khiri Travel cov­er­ing all over­heads whilst coordin­at­ing with loc­al NGOs and pro­jects. Khiri Travel also provides man­power as all staff are alloc­ated five paid work­ing days a year to ded­ic­ate to the Khiri Reach pro­jects they wish to lead.

Khiri Reach won the 2023 glob­al Skal Sus­tain­able Tour­ism Award in the travel agent/tour oper­at­or category.

The work of Khiri Reach was also acknow­ledged by the judges of the 2023 Travel Mar­ket­ing Awards in Lon­don when they awar­ded Khiri Reach third place glob­ally for its pro­mo­tion of sus­tain­able and respons­ible tour­ism. Vis­it KhiriReach.org.

About Khiri Travel 

Since 1993, Khiri Travel has won awards and earned a repu­ta­tion as a des­tin­a­tion man­age­ment com­pany ded­ic­ated to work­ing with select tour oper­at­ors to provide qual­ity leis­ure travel exper­i­ences across Asia. With 16 offices in Thai­l­and, Laos, Myan­mar, Viet­nam, Cam­bod­ia, Indone­sia and Sri Lanka (which has respons­ib­il­ity for the Mal­dives), Khiri Travel’s entre­pren­eur­i­al asso­ci­ates craft innov­at­ive itin­er­ar­ies that reflect their pas­sion for authen­t­ic, loc­al and sus­tain­able exper­i­ences. Vis­it khiri.com.

Contact Khiri Travel

Head Office | 226/9 Soi Tiwan­on 24 |Tiwan­on Road, Bangkas­or | Muang, Nonthaburi 11000 Thai­l­and | Tel: (+66) 2968 6828 | Email: marketing@khiri.com | Vis­it khiri.com.

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