Place

Prek Toal

Prek Toal is a floating village on the Tonle Sap in Battambang province, beside a protected core area of flooded forest.

Prek Toal is a floating village on the Tonle Sap (ទន្លេសាប) in Battambang province, and the name of the protected core area of flooded forest beside it. The core area holds Southeast Asia's only known breeding colony of greater adjutant storks.[1]

Since the late 1990s the Ministry of Environment and the Wildlife Conservation Society have protected the nesting colonies, with former bird hunters and egg collectors working as nest guardians.[2] The core area became a Ramsar site, a wetland of international importance, in 2015.[3]

The village

Prek Toal lies in Koh Chiveang commune, in Aek Phnum district.[4] In 2026 Cambodianess counted three villages in the Prek Toal area, with about 5,000 people. A boat trip between them takes about half an hour, and only one of them can teach children past primary school. There is no high school or vocational training center, and about half of the children leave school when they reach secondary level.[5]

As fish in the lake declined, many families on the Tonle Sap turned to hunting water snakes in the wet season. The Cambodia Daily reported in 2007 that a ban on snake hunting inside the Prek Toal core area had not stopped the local snake population from falling.[6]

The core area

A group of large grey and white pelicans with long pink bills perched on the leafy top branches of a tree against a pale sky.
Spot-billed pelicans at Prek Toal, 2014. Photo: shankar s., CC BY 2.0

Prek Toal is one of the three core zones of the Tonle Sap Biosphere Reserve, set up by royal decree in December 2001. The Wildlife Conservation Society gives its area as 21,342 hectares (about 52,700 acres), the largest of the three.[7] It was Cambodia's fourth Ramsar site.[2] The European Union, which has funded conservation work in the biosphere reserve since 2021, calls it Cambodia's largest bird sanctuary.[8]

Waterbirds

The Wildlife Conservation Society describes the core area as the last breeding site in the region for two threatened species, the spot-billed pelican and the milky stork.[2] In 2017 a team leader for waterbird monitoring at the site said that over 130 waterbird species live and breed there.[1]

In the 2014 surveys, lesser adjutant storks nested in over 400 pairs, and the spot-billed pelican and the Asian openbill bred in record numbers.[3] The greater adjutant is the largest stork in the world. In 2017 the society counted 150 to 200 pairs at Prek Toal, with chicks fledging from 175 nests that year. It called the colony the second largest of the species after one in Assam, India.[1] Painted storks and oriental darters also live in the area.[8]

Camera traps have found hairy-nosed and smooth-coated otters throughout the core area. Silver langurs have increased, and the endangered masked finfoot has been recorded.[3]

Protection

The Ministry of Environment and the Wildlife Conservation Society began a ranger program in the core area in 2001 with four rangers, and later grew the team to 28. Since 2004, the society writes, all species have bred successfully. The rangers count the nesting birds each week from observation platforms.[9] People from Prek Toal village work with the ministry and the society to guard the nests through the six-month breeding season.[1]

Visiting

Visitors watch the breeding colonies from the rangers' platforms. They pay an entry fee to the Ministry of Environment staff who manage the core area, and the money supports the rangers and the local communities.[10] Local guides lead boat tours, and viewing platforms stand at 11 places in the area.[8]

In the village, the French non-profit Osmose set up a restaurant that takes guests by reservation. Its shop sells bags and bowls that villagers, most of them women, make from the dried stems of water hyacinth. Osmose handed these projects to the community in 2017. Six families take in overnight guests, about 25 to 30 visitors in all, and visitors can also paddle canoes and take cooking lessons.[5] Ministry of Environment figures put the income of Prek Toal's community-based ecotourism at more than $100,000 in 2018.[11]

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Wildlife Conservation Society, Success of Local Nest Protection Sparks Hope for Worldwide Conservation of Globally Endangered Greater Adjutant (July 27, 2017)
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Wildlife Conservation Society Cambodia, Mengey Eng, Prek Toal Core Area Becomes A Ramsar Site (August 8, 2016)
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Wildlife Conservation Society, Waterbirds Make Dramatic Comeback to Cambodia Wetlands (January 22, 2016)
  4. ↑ Cambodianess, 'I Don't Want to Be Stuck Here': A Floating Generation's Plea for Education (May 13, 2025)
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Cambodianess, Paul Valdebouze, Sustainable Project Supports Tonle Sap Floating Community (April 26, 2026)
  6. ↑ The Cambodia Daily, The Decline of the Great Tonle Sap Snake Hunt (August 9, 2007)
  7. ↑ Wildlife Conservation Society Cambodia, The Tonle Sap Biosphere Reserve (December 31, 2009)
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 European Commission, International Partnerships, Conserving the Tonle Sap's treasured biodiversity (undated)
  9. ↑ Wildlife Conservation Society Cambodia, Waterbird Monitoring (undated)
  10. ↑ Wildlife Conservation Society Cambodia, Waterbirds & Ecotourism (undated)
  11. ↑ Cambodianess, François Camps, After COVID-19, Ecotourism on the Rise (June 14, 2022)


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This page was last edited on 17 October 2026, at 00:30.